Thank You

Thank you Dr. Hampshire and all of my colleagues,this course has been very informative and interesting. I think we all are thinking about communication in a whole new way. To everyone that is not moving on to Teaching Adults, it has been a pleasure working with you. To those moving on to Teaching Adults, I hope to see you soon!

Best of luck to everyone

Adjourning

In high-performance groups, you will probably have the hardest time leaving because these are the groups in which strong relationships and bonds are formed. Trust has been built and established. In these groups, you feel like a valued part of the team and will take pride in the work and accomplishments of the team. You would probably feel sad to leave this group. You will miss the time spent with the members of the group.

Groups with the clearest established norms are probably very hard to leave because in this stage you are really a well oiled machine. It has begun to feel very comfortable and there is a true group identity. Leaving this group may be difficult as you will feel a loss of that group and miss it.

It was very hard to leave my Leadership Training Group developed at the preschool where I work now. We met as a group once a month for two years. Everyone in the group bonded and became friends. We worked together so well as a group, it was hard to believe that after the two years were up, the group would be disbanded and this group of employees would never function in this capacity ever again.

When my children were small, I worked in a group of volunteer moms that met and organized to form a team that would go into the kindergarten classrooms for an enrichment science class. We were not the first group to ever participate in this program but the group of women that participated with lasted for one year with the same women. This group was very hard to leave. We became very close and worked extremely well together. Each member of the group loved the experience. We all worked really hard to keep the program running smoothly while our children were in Kindergarten.

There were rituals attached to the first group. We all went out for a closing lunch together and were all presented with a certificate of completion. At this lunch we were able to discuss the program. We talked about what went well, not so well and we were given the opportunity to have input on the direction of the group for the next group to partake in the program.

There was only one ritual in the second group. As a group, we met with the incoming moms to pass the torch. We had the opportunity to share our experiences with the new moms. We told them what went well and what future improvement could be made. As my family just moved to Orlando, it was a great opportunity to meet moms in my child’s grade. It gave me the opportunity to participate in an area that was a real strength of mine. I loved going into the classrooms to work with children and do science. The best part of the experience was making new friends for my kindergartener and me.

I have met wonderful women in my experience at Walden. We have had the opportunity to share insights, share experiences and build on each other’s knowledge. I have enjoyed having the opportunity to work with a community of people with the same passion for early childhood education. I hope to keep in touch with colleagues through email and blog posts. With each passing course, I look forward to the student lounge introductions to see familiar names. I know that some of us will be separated as we enter the focus part of our degree. One thing that I have done is to keep the blog links of previous classmates. I continue to read their blogs and will continue to comment on them.

Adjourning gives closure to a group experience. It allows for the opportunity to see what went well and what can be improved upon for the next time. Through termination rituals it allows members of a group to get together one last time. It is the culmination of good teamwork.

Disagreements and Conflicts

As the school year is just about to begin and camp is about to end, there are a lot of decisions to be made about the upcoming school year. Seemingly simple decisions and ideas about our classroom and how it will look for our new group of children. My teaching partner and I have had a few disagreements about room arrangement and classroom decorating. These appear to be very minor disagreements but they are just disagreements right now that we do not want to fester, become conflict and hurt our communication and eventually our working relationship.

There are many new strategies in which I am employing to help defuse the situation and help my partner and I communicate more efficiently in order to come up with solutions that will meet both of our needs and allow us to both feel good about the situation and each other.

Compromising is a great strategy for us as we find “middle ground” between our two opposing positions. We can both agree to give up a little bit of what we want to order to come to an understanding (O'Hair, Wiemann, Mullin, & Teven, 2015). 

We could also use a collaborative style. If I pick something out that I want for our room and my assistant says that she does not like it. I see her choice and do not like it, we can collaborate and keep looking until we find something that we both can live with and something that we mutually agree on together (O'Hair, Wiemann, Mullin, & Teven, 2015). 

The 3r’s will help us to resolve our conflict. The three principles are respect, response and relationship. My assistant and I must show mutual respect for each other as we work with each other every day. We will have a stronger relationship, if we are able to communicate. Room arrangement and decorating are small issues in the larger picture but if we cannot communicate to resolve these issues it will reveal much larger issues and breakdowns in communication. We need to work as a team for our children, colleagues and families. We need to be responsive to each other. We must each be aware of our verbal and nonverbal cues. When communicating we must be mindful and in the moment. Lastly, it always comes down to a good relationship. If we have a strong relationship we will be much more successful. If we are able to model a healthy relationship, it will benefit our entire class.  

I did not have an opportunity to speak this week with any colleagues about effective communication strategies but I did share this assignment with my husband who is a Manager of Engineering. He had many insights on conflict resolution and communication that he uses with his employees and colleagues. Here are some of his strategies:

·         Learn to listen

·         Not talk over and interrupt

·         Understand fully where they are coming from and their thought process

·         Allow them to express their ideas

·         Let them develop their ideas and ask questions

·         Treat with respect

·         Understand their perspective

·         Understand my perspective

·         Their way of thinking may not have been thoroughly thought out, give my insights on the missing pieces

We have had many interesting conversations about effective communication over the past five weeks. These new skills that we are all learning and practicing will benefit us both professionally and personally.

Reference

O'Hair, D., Wiemann, M., Mullin, D. I., & Teven, J.  (2015). Real communication (3rd. ed). New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.