Grades - believe it or not!

Well folks - as predicted, I pushed it right up to the wire and then, unfortunately, had some software incompatibility getting through to Spire. I have sent your grades in but by an unofficial route, so I am not sure how soon they will be processed. :-(

I´ve got individual emails ready to send about your final papers as soon as I can find a hotspot or other connection where I can connect my laptop directly. Watch for those! I had thought, being here in "the capital of Europe", that it would be easy to do this - there are plenty of Internet Cafes, but not the wireless kind and the setups are such one can´t just plug in directly to the phone or ethernet. So, those are my technological woes! Please email me directly if you want the full breakdown. From my vantage point: you all did extremely well. :-) Most earned A´s or A-/B+´s on the final reflection paper (some of you were shy on the direct application & personal examples requirement); and the overall grades for the course are B or better. In other words, everyone with lower grades over the first half of the semester stepped up during the second half and improved considerably. The few of you who slacked off toward the end had enough of a cushion to carry you through.

Meanwhile, summer has officially begun according the academic calender and I hope each and every single one of you is enjoying it as much as me. :-)

Bye Bye!

"What a strange weird trip it's been!"

Congratulations. :-) We all made it through. Surprise! :-) I'm proud of you and what we all accomplished together. This blog will stay up, for random postings or just as an archive of memory.

Good luck as you move into new careers, summer fun, and the rest of your lives. If you ever need anything from me, let me know. You can always find me through my blog, reflexivity. I'll be posting there about my European adventures (in the soon-to-be-started thread, "Going Continental"), my research project(Interpreting), and other things as they strike my fancy, including on-going Teacher's Body stuff.


Be well!

Role Changing

Hi all. Team Velour - do you think you could post in here the summaries of what you presented on change? The four assumptions (Lewin), how these differed from Jenkins, and a bit on Rogers? That would be really cool. :-)

Everyone, the blog questions are:

1) How would you want to see Steph's role change as an instructor/learner in this class? What role change would be most beneficial for your learning?

2) What role change would most benefit you as a student/learner in this class and why?

Survey Anyone?

Steph, feel free to erase this, but I was going to take advantage of blogging to produce a survey that I need for a research paper in another class.

Firstly, I was wondering if any FEMALES were willing to do a survey for me.

Secondly, I must inform you that this research and survey is based on Media's Projection and
Influence of 'Ideal body' for women.

And lastly, this survey is strictly confidential and will record only your answers and will need a maximum of 15 minutes of your time.

If female in SMGRP is interested in filling out the survey let me know...also, would you like the survey questions to be on blogger so you can answer them out there? Or do you want individual surveys on paper? Either way works out for me....but if it's on blogger, everyone can see your answers...therefore not being confidential.

Thanks guys! Steph, I would be honored if you would want to take place in this survey as well!
-Mary

Stereotypes

Hey all - you have a choice for this question, you can answer it here, or in your own Team's thread.

This builds on Tequila Powerade's presentation on stereotypes in class yesterday. The difference is that instead of using media characters, now I want you to

a) identify and discuss a specific stereotype you had, for real, about a particular person in your team (name the person, name the stereotype). Describe the features or characteristics that generated the stereotype, and
b) explain how this has changed (or not) over time.

Please note that the emphasis for grading is on part b, but for this to make much sense, you need to be clear in part a.

There is another homework question in the Teacher's Body thread. These blogposts are due by midnight Monday, May 2.

What We're Learning

Folks, let's make these due by midnight (a.k.a. 6 am) Monday. Thanks!

Consensual validation of experience – Tuesday’s presentation
1. How would you find out if other’s agree/disagree with your view?

Bion – work and basic assumption groups
2. What is the task of our class-as-a-whole?
3. How readily do you remember/think about the task of the class-as-a-whole? What do you tend to think about instead?

Life Cycle (stages & dimensions) and Axes of Uncertainty
4. What is the difference between the stages & dimensions?
5. How do the two axes relate to the life cycle, and how do you observe them?

Valence
6. What “gets” you the most about interacting with others in this class?

What to observe – content & process
7. How do you identify the content of a group’s interaction?
8. How do you identify the process of a group’s interaction?

Wrappings & Filters
9. What is your most common wrapping when you speak in/about this class?
10. What is your most common thought when Steph is speaking about the class?

Roles: task, maintenance, neglect, fixation
11. What does knowing about role allow you to be able “to do” as a member of a group?

Volcano
12. Which part of the volcano is easiest for you to understand?

Breaking up Ichiban

I don't know if everyone heard this because it was at the end of class, but Steph mentioned that my team would be broken up and divided amongst the other groups of the class. Now, this has nothing to do with my like/dislike of the people in the other groups, but I think it sucks. I don't mean to attack Steph, and I'm paraphrasing what she said to the best of my ability, as it was a long time ago.

When we first decided to split up our group Steph made it clear that we were still doing a total of 2 presentations as a whole team. We were told that we would share their grade for their presentation and they would share our grades. We were all agreeable to this, even to the point where we also agreed that we would aid the other subgroup by previewing their presentation. It is a little annoying as well as scary to think that I have to devote the time of meeting, researching, and practicing for another presentation. I, nor the other members of my group, have budgeted this time into our increasingly busy schedules as the semester, and my college career, comes to a close.

I'm no mathematician, but here is why I think the way we did our presentation is fair. Assuming everyone does equal work, a member of a 6 person team does 1/6th of the work. 2 presentations equals 2/6 of work on presentations. Of my 3 person team, I would have done 1/3 the work of the presentation. Sounds equal to me, although I can convince myself of anything if I try hard enough.

Steph gave the reason in class Tuesday that she wanted to observe how these new people would interact in the new groups. Well, at what expense? I just want to see how everyone else feels about this in this blog. Now that there is no final we could use extra blog points...(hopefully the exam isn't still a sore subject, I thought I was going to be physically harmed on the way out of the class.)

New Presentation Guidelines?

Hey all, as I was asked in class, I will present what my group came up with as a solution to the debate on Steph's level of involvement with the group presentations. Please feel free to debate or agree with these guidelines as I hope they will be a strong influence on our next group of presentations.

1. Steph provides us with clearly written and stated expectations, including what content our presentation should contain, what sort of time constraints we must adhere to, and the level of pertinance our activities must have to the class.
2. The groups must then hash out a clear outline of their presentations and get them to Steph 5 days before their presentation date or earlier.
3. Steph has a day (or two if one is not enough) to return feedback on the outlines, what she likes and what she doesn't, what she feels must be changed, etc.
4. The groups will use this new feedback and prepare their presentations and be ready to present on their specified dates. The groups should be considered responsible and competent enough to follow along with the guidelines and feedback from Steph and should not need to be held by the hand. However, this means that the groups are more responsible for being n the ball and it also means - no complaining!