techniques for improving communication in groups

In the Small Group Communication book, there was a section titled “Techniques for improving Communication in Groups.” I think this section of the book is really important because we have all been in a situation and will be in more of these circumstances where we will need to work with people and improve the communication between us and our peers. One of the ways to help improve the communication is for everyone to have individual roles. For example, when you are at a study group, and everyone has their own roles (Bob does chapter 11, Jane does chapter 12, Fred does chapter 13, etc.), it makes it easier when everyone does their own part. It’s frustrating when someone is assigned a particular task and does not end up fulfilling it. Another thing the book mentioned was deliberation and participation. In order for a group to work best is for everyone to participate in the discussion or whatever is going on. Don’t just let other people think for you. Everyone needs to think on their own and actively share their thoughts and opinions so that everyone can work through things together and have a more improved communication in their group.

what i have learned..

Although this was an online class, and I did not expect to learn much, I actually did! I learned a whole lot more than I would have ever imagined just through reading about other people’s insights on their blogs, as well as writing my own blogs every week. I can’t list everything that I have learned because there are just so many concepts, but I will focus on just the group facilitation final project. That project really enhanced my learning and grasping onto the concepts that I have learned throughout this semester. It was fun to know what my friends thought of each individual candidate, what their reasoning behind each claim was, and how so many of their critical thinking analysis remind me of the concepts I have learned in this class. Some of the concepts they used included arguments, contradictory of a claim, false analogy, unsupported generalizations, effective leadership, etc. I realized how extremely important it is to have a good leader within a group. Otherwise it is hard to get anything done. I really liked how I saw so many of these concepts while my friends were discussing, and it was interesting to know that they don’t even realize all the things they are using during their discussion. This final project has really helped me be able to recognize the concepts not only in the book, but also in our daily conversations.

generalizing and sample size

Chapter 14 in the Epstein book was really interesting—talking about many generalizations, specifically stereotypes, that occur on a daily basis. While reading through this chapter, I was reminded of many things I have heard other people around me say. That means people generalize frequently, and are not aware of it. One of the main rules for distinguishing a generalization is the sample size. Often times people just assume one group acts or does things a certain way because they have met, heard about, and/or seen a few people within that group, that act that way. For example, “All Asians are bad drivers. I’ve gotten into 3 accidents, and each time, it was because of a collision between an Asian driver and me.” That statement sounds like a generalization, but is it? That is not a very accurate generalization because those are only 3 people you have met that have that problem. One cannot judge a whole group based on only a small portion of that entire group. In order for it to be more accurate, one must have a representative sample.