Adjourning

As corny as this may sound I am a strong believer of "Team work makes the dream work"!! When working in a group in order for it to be successful you have to form a bond with your teammates. In most cases I have figured out the best groups are the hardest to let go of. I remember back in college I was in an experimental teaching course and we had to work in groups to prepare our lesson plans and make sure we had all of the tools to teach the lessons. At the end of the semester it was hard for us to just say goodbye to one another. We had formed a bond working so closely on a weekly basis it seemed as if we couldn't function without one another. We formed more than just a group we formed a friendship. On the last day of class we all had to stand up and tell what we learned from the course and how it had effected our lives; we all expressed how going into the classroom helped us overcome our suspicions and fears of standing in front of a group teaching but we also expressed how we enjoyed getting the opportunity to form a bond between our teams and class.

Through out this masters program I believe I have in a way shared the same bond. On a weekly basis we all look forward to reading how differently each of us have dealt with the topic or theme of week. To be able to see how what someone else learned can me applied to our experiences.

In order to have a successful team I believe the team has to form a bond and work together to get the best quality of work out of each other. When groups are not connected I believe it is shown through their work.

Conflict Resolution

As much as we would like to prevent this, there is always going to be some type of conflict in our life. I believe it is up to us on how we choose to resolve and deal with the problems that we are presented with. My biggest conflict right now is with my significant other. As much as we care about each other there are things that cause us to not be able to get along. Like with any couple you have to think of ways to have productive conflict resolution. In this situation I would say this is unproductive conflict. Although we are trying to prevent this, unproductive conflict "has a negative impact on individuals and relationships involved." (O'Hair&Wiemann 2012).

We both were trying to figure out what it was that was causing our conflict, one of the biggest issues was our communication. We decided one of our strategies would be to channel our communication. "We don't think much about which available channel to choose in order to deliver a message"(O'Hair& Wiemann 2012) when speaking to one another. We learned there are times when communicating face to face may not be the best option in order to get our points across without upsetting the other so have decided to write letters exchange them and then talk about the feelings about what was read. 

In order for a relationship to be successful on has to be willing to compromise and be cooperative. We realized this was another effective conflict strategy for our relationship. Although we may different views on how things should done we agreed that attempting to hear the other persons point of view that maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle and be on a common ground and come to a resolution. 

Conflict can ruin peoples lives not only with the personal relationships but professionally to. It is very important to make sure we as educators have productive conflict resolution strategies in place to help keep things productive in our lives and work place. 

Resources:

O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication: An introduction. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.

Similarities and Differences

Through out this week's evaluation of my communication styles they have made me think more in depth on how my ways of communication is presented by others. Looking at the results from the test I took myself and the results from the two people I asked to take the test I was surprised by the results. When I reviewed the results of the communication anxiety test the results I read for myself stated that I felt uneasy about some of the elements of communication but according to both of the results from the other people who evaluated me their scores stated that I was confident in my communication anxiety. The next test was listening styles and with my results and the two other results they were both generally the same. All of the results expressed that I am people, action, content and time oriented. I was surprised how close the results for this test. For the last test verbal aggressiveness. The results from my exam were kind of an eye opening to me. My results and the results of the two people who evaluated me expressed that I often resort to character attacks and ridicule when talking to others who do not share viewpoints. I did not like the outcome of this but now that I know I plan to change this and make sure to present things differently. 

I see myself taking what I have learned from these evaluations and applying them to my personal and professional life.