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/

Evaluation

This week we evaluated ourselves on our effectiveness of communicating with others. Then we asked two people to evaluate us and compare the results. What I found most surprising was that out of the three different tests, only one came back that was different than my evaluation. The one that was different came from my mother who only sees me interact with my family. I found the results surprising because I had not really thought about the things that she was saying. The verbal aggressiveness test (Verbal aggressiveness scale, n.d.) was the evaluation that she had a different score for and I could see why she ranked me so high.

 

What I learned from this is that I really need to pay attention to how I respond to my family. I do great when I am with someone I don’t know or with someone who is not family. Looking back, I realized I do criticize my brother in a personal way because that is how he is with me. Growing up with it, I guess I just learned how to fire back at him so that I did not feel powerless around him. What I take from this knowledge is that my personal life does not interfere with my professional life, and I am able to communicate differently with everyone that I come into contact with.

 

Another insight that I gained in general from this week is that stereotypes do not play a huge role in my life. With the picture, it was very hard for me to answer the questions and to judge that person. I think that I have become this way, because I surround myself with a variety of people. This will definitely help me in my professional life since I will not be quick to judge the children and families that walk into my classroom.

References:

Verbal aggressiveness scale. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://mym.cdn.laureate-media.com/2dett4d/Walden/EDUC/6165/04/mm/quiz/quiz_verbal/index.html

Cultural Communication

Thinking back to how I communicated with others and comparing it to how I communicate now, I would say that there have some changes by not much. I have learned to pay more attention to nonverbal cues which has helped me to assess how the person is feeling. I have found this to be very important because I have noticed more things about the people around me.

Learning about the Platinum Rule this week, has really made me start looking back on certain situations and realizing that this rule could have helped. My sister-in-law and I do not agree on much and I always complain to my husband about how she always expects to get her way and never really sees other people’s opinions. What I have learned this week is that I need to take a moment and assess the situation that I am in. She was raised with being able to do whatever she wanted and is now basically in charge of their mother. I have to remember when talking to her, that this is the way she was raised and to see how her point of view works for her. We are heading over there today, so we will see how that goes!

Finally, I have learned to listen more and to not let my attention wander. I can be a great listener, but when it comes to things that I do not care about or have no idea what is being talked about, I have a hard time staying tuned in. I have been working on this, and trying to pay more attention as people are talking about things that I “go over my head.” It has be interesting to see what I have been missing, and the new information that I have been learning.

Week 2 Watching and Observing

This week we were assigned to watch a television show that you have never seen before twice. The first time without any sound to see what cues you could pick up on. The second time was with the sound on, and we were supposed to compare the assumptions that we had to what really happened.
 

This was quite interesting for me. I chose to watch the latest episode of Community and was confused from the very beginning. There was a mismatch group of people and I could tell that they were friends because they were around a table with food. Other than that, there wasn’t much I could read into. The facial expressions showed me emotions, but I could not really grasp how the people knew each other or what was going on.

 

What I realized from this experience is that it is easier to judge nonverbal cues from people that you know! I put this to the test by watching a show that I am familiar with and found that I could pick up on more cues than I did in the show I was unfamiliar with. I also found this to be true when interacting with people. During my observations this week, I noticed it was easier to tell what people were expressing if I knew them personally.

 
I think that the main thing we all need to consider when communicating with others is that our instincts about something may not always be right. We really need to pay attention to what is being said and to the nonverbal cues that goes along with it. I think that if we really pay attention to both, we can pick up on what is going on or what is trying to be conveyed to us.

 References:

Harmon, D. (Producer). (2012, May 10). Curriculum unavailable [Television series episode]. [With Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Jim Rash, Ken Jeong, & Chevy Chase]. In Community. United States: National Broadcasting Company.

Competent Communication – Week 1

When thinking of the people that I know and the people I see on television or hear on the radio, there are a few that demonstrate being a competent communicator. The person that stands out the most is my cousin, Jimmy. He is someone who can talk about anything with anyone and connects with that person and that topic. Some behaviors that I have noticed were constant eye contact, facial expressions, and a feeling of that he cares about what you are saying. He also can talk in ways that help people understand what he is saying. There were many times he would be trying to help me fix my car, and the way he explained things made complete sense! I know that he is a great communicator because he is a great salesman with a good rapport with all of his clients. He is also someone who can listen to what someone is saying, and completely understand and relate to that person.

I would definitely want to model some of my own communication models after him. There are times when I talk that I know I am not making sense to others, and I wish I had his way of talking. I also am someone who has a problem keeping eye contact with people, even though I am listening, and would love for it to come naturally like it does for my cousin.

This is a picture of Jimmy and I at his sister's wedding.