This week I was not entirely sure what to post to our blog. As such, I figured I would respond to the reflection notes and community suggestion (after all, I imagine that is why they are there...)

On the note of the reflection notes, and community suggestions, my first thought is that I often overlook them because they sound optional. Chalk that up as one for being honest. Perhaps, my telling on myself will help me to change my evil ways :)

Reflection Notes: What will you do to better prepare students for their team/group/partner interactions?

This is a great question and quite timely. I believe guidance from the instructor throughout the process is essential. This should come in the form of framing the context for group expectations. To clarify, I believe that small assignments should be provided throughout the process in order to keep the groups focused. This should begin with a creation of a team charter. This is interesting, because I previously thought the idea of a charter was just an extra step. Now I see how spending time as a group engaging in this process is helpful. Another idea is to provide assignments that work as parts to the whole so that sub-tasks can be assumed by each participant in a seemless manner. The readings point out the imporance of this and our experience with our midterms as being pieces of the final paper ensured that all students did their share. Granted, there are other key pieces to group work that we still must negotiate, but at the very least, each participant did their share of research and writing toward the final paper. Finally, I suppose readings that bring up points like social loafing and other important points related to group work would be good for discussion during the week leading up to group work. Those are my initial thoughts on this idea.


Community Suggestion: Develop a "sociogram" for your group. Email the instructor for more details, if you would like to engage in this experiment.

Hmmmmmm....... I might have missed something. Did we read about sociograms this week? I am not sure what a sociogram is (there I go again being honest!). I am intrigued and may be emailing you regarding this :) I am on vacation in Hawaii, so I am not looking for too much extra work, but it can't hurt to inquire, right?

My group is still moving forward. We have been very good about communication and have spent a lot of time trying to iron out certain ideas about our group work, but I guess sometimes the seemingly redundant discussions are necessary. I do appreciate everyone in my group. Good bunch of people. I do find it interesting, however, trying to now take 4 diferent papers with 4 different writing styles and make a cohesive paper out of them. I feel fortunate as I have worked with Karen a number of times in the past and she seems to have a magical way about editing and putting things together :)

Well, more to come in my next entry!