Daniella Liscano Reflection #1

How to be Successful in SPC1017 as a Student

    After watching and presenting the 3 PowerPoints, I learned many good things, and I was also able to determine things in which we could improve individually, as a group, and as a class. The first presentation was presented by group 3, and they had group leadership and problem solving. I believe they did an amazing job. You can tell that they put in the work as a group because they all did amazing. They were able to transition from speaker to speaker in a very organized and smooth way; they also didn't read straight from the PowerPoint, and they studied what they would say and showed that they knew the information they were talking about. In each group, there are three task roles: givers, seekers, and analyzers, and everyone in a group falls into one of those roles. Having those roles helps the group work together and become one. Tailynn did an amazing job explaining and showing the presentation. She was able to demonstrate that she knew what she was talking about and did an amazing job explaining everything in a way that we could easily understand. She also gave us very good examples. Vickiana also did an amazing job at presenting; her part of the presentation explained group effectiveness and group dynamics, which explain that once the group starts working together, these are the key points on how to continue working as a team and communicate who does what. Everyone in a group should have an equal number of tasks, so that is fair for everyone. When working in groups, it is also very important for us to ask for help if needed, along with asking a classmate to check your work. It helps us make sure that the task we completed was done correctly, and we can get new input on different suggestions of how we could make it better. As a virtual class, it is hard for us to work as a team. Most of the time, people don't turn on their cameras unless it's mandatory; others don't talk, and this group showed us the importance of working together and different ways in which we could be successful as a group no matter what. Overall, this was an amazing presentation. They worked really well as a team, and they gave really good pointers in order for us to keep moving forward for the rest of the semester and work as a successful team. 

    The next group to present was Group 2. Communicating in groups. Communication is key when working in groups, especially in a virtual class. A group has about 3 to 20 individuals who work together to influence each other towards achieving their goal. There are many types of groups, and group 2 did an amazing job at explaining all of them. The first group that they mention is family. Family is a group of people that make you feel at home. The second group they mentioned was social groups, a group formed by people who enjoy their time together and end up hanging out socially to create a stronger bond. A support group is another common group; this group focuses on individuals who encourage each other and give each other a safe environment. A good example is recovery groups. To continue, they spoke about interest groups, which are composed of people who share a common interest, such as a sports team. There are various groups and teams, and group 2 did an amazing job explaining a vast majority of them. We are all part of various groups, and each of them is different in their own way. We have a virtual class, which is a type of group; we all have groups of friends; and we are all part of different teams or clubs. Personality is one of the biggest reasons for group conflicts; this is a very important topic in which everyone should improve. Group 2 also presented in a very organized manner; they each did an amazing job at speaking on their slides and giving us the information to understand the different types of groups and how to create goals within our groups. This presentation was also very effective; they went back and forth between classmates and showed that they know how to work as a team! 

    The last group to present was Group 1, which is the one I am in. I believe there is a lot of room for improvement for us as a team, but the information we provided was very good. We did Chapter 3: Intercultural Communication. We focused on cultures and how they are influenced in our society in different ways, such as how different cultures communicate. Culture is the set of views, values, attitudes, and rules that everyone in a group agrees on as what's right or wrong. I believe culture is also an example of a bigger group; people in a culture belong to their cultural group, which depends on their beliefs. Race, sex, and gender are very sensitive topics in our society, and Ashley did an amazing job at explaining the roles that they play in society. As a group, we should improve on working together and communicating. A lot of the group didn't attend class and were present, so the people in our group who were present had to take over for them. If they had communicated that they wouldn't attend, we could've worked together to divide the slides evenly amongst each other. There were also many repetitive slides. We should have worked as a team to look over the presentation before the class started in order to organize everything and make sure that no slides were repeated and that everyone did their part. The information we gave was helpful, but I believe a lot of my teammates used information straight from the book so we could work on paraphrasing a bit and making sure we knew what we were speaking about, not just reading right on the slide. 

    Overall, the class did an amazing job for it being our first presentation. We will continue to improve and grow, especially after learning so much information from the presentations. The presentations in class were the first 3 chapters of the book and the most important ones. The information we gained is what will help us be successful in our introduction to communication.