Thank You & Good Luck

This course taught us all about effective communication and collaboration. I learned that there is more to communication then listening and talking. Nonverbal cues are just as important to how you listen and how you talk to the people around you. All of you have shared your experiences and taught me how to handle certain conflicts. If you asked me at the beginning of starting my master's degree if I would connect with my classmates, I would have answered, not likely. I am a shy person who takes time to warm up to people. But with sharing our experiences, I feel like I have connected with so many of you.

We move from course to course staying with some familiar people and meeting new ones. I want to thank you all for everything that you have taught me. I wish everyone the best of luck with everything that you do and hope that we all remember the communication skills we learned about. I know that I will be mindful of the ways I communicate and be mindful of how I handle conflict.

I plan to keep this blog going after graduation so that many of us can still stay in touch. I wish you all the best of luck as you continue down this journey. For anyone that took the specialization in Teaching and Diversity in Early Childhood Education I hope to see you again in our future classes. It is crazy to think that there are only three more courses to go!

5 Stages of Team Development

This week we learned about the 5 stages of team development. Thinking back to all of my group interactions, I can’t say that there was a certain stage that made it easier or harder to say goodbye. I have kept in contact with many people that I have had to work with in the past. There are hard times when leaving a group, but for me it was mainly because I was starting a new phase in my life. Leaving people that I worked with for a year, while student teaching, was hard just because of the bond that had been made. Some closing rituals that I have been a part of are usually parties that celebrate what has been accomplished; whether it was a successful school year or graduating from school.

When it comes to adjourning from my colleagues from this class and from the program as a whole, I see saying goodbye and wishing everyone the best of luck. I see staying in touch with a few and remembering the conversations that we have had. Being that every eight weeks we move on to a different course and many times meet new people it has made the adjourning process a little easier for me. I have already wished one colleague the best of luck as she left the program and thanked her for everything that she has taught me. I see our blogs as a great way to stay in touch with people and also a great way to accomplish the adjourning phase!

I think that the adjourning stage is essential because it lets you celebrate what you have accomplished and reflect on what went wrong. Without the adjourning stage, I think that I would feel like things were never finished or would wonder if what I did really helped myself and others.

Week 5

This week we have been learning about conflict resolution through communication. Thinking back to disagreements I have had in the past there are a few strategies that I wish I had known about. The first is the third side view which is to look at a conflict from a larger perspective (The Third Side, n.d.). Using the third side view would help me to see how the conflict is affecting the other party member and the people around us. Many conflicts that arise in my family usually starts with just the two parties but then ends up encompassing the whole family. By using the third side view, I would be able to see how the conflict is affecting everyone and can come up with a way that will resolve the conflict.

I also liked one of the skills from the Center of Nonviolent Communication (n.d.) that states;

Requesting what we would like in a way that clearly and specifically states what we do want (rather than what we don’t want), and that is truly a request and not a demand (i.e. attempting to motivate, however subtly, out of fear, guilt, shame, obligation, etc. rather than out of willingness and compassionate giving).

Many times in when I am in a conflict, I do better at saying what I don’t want and not saying what I do want. This is something that I want to work on so that I am clearly stating what I am thinking. Also, by making sure my words are a request and not a demand, I believe that some conflicts will not even happen.

References:

The Center for Nonviolent Communication. (n.d.). The center for nonviolent communication. Retrieved from http://www.cnvc.org/

The Third Side. (n.d.). The third side. Retrieved from http://www.thirdside.org/