November Monthly Summary

November Monthly Summary

Sarah Smurr commented on Group 1 and 3
Carrie Clymer commented on Group 1 and 4

The process of your project (what each of you have done, and what you have learned/changed) (Carrie Clymer)

 During the month of November, we had two group assignments to complete. The first paper we completed was the important adult education organizations. For this assignment, we research researched two organizations and compared and contrasted the two. Nina and Carrie began the research for the organizations. Nina researched American Society for Training And Development 

and Carrie researched the Indiana Association for Adult and Continuing Education. Sarah complete the roles and responsibilities of the organization and Jen wrote on the impact of the organizations. After we all completed our portion of the assignment, we emailed our parts to Nina to combine and turn in the assignment  

         The other assignment our group had to complete was the e-archive. The objective of the assignment was to summarize the main points of the assignments over the semester and the take away from the assignment. We each took one of the assignments. Jen worked on the first assignment, Sarah had the second assignment, Carrie had the three assignment and Nina compiled the points for the fourth. Jen and Sarah worked together to compile all the information into one paper and created a PowerPoint Video.

What have I gained from doing this assignment? (Nina)

    Doing this assignment helped me to develop an appreciation for the role everybody plays in putting together a project.  It is not always easy to bring together individuals who share different visions, ideas, and personalities and to make a cohesive and succinct body of work.  I have also learned that for future assignments, I will need to not be afraid to voice my opinion when others are eager to take leadership roles and are afraid to allow room for others to grow at their own pace.  

What are the challenges you had this month? And how did you deal with them? (Sarah Smurr)

            There were a few challenges with the organization essay.  The main interesting piece is the group dynamic.  We have two strong leaders in the group and two who seem to prefer following in general.  That creates two people choosing the topics and work plan every time. This is a concern because it was a bit of an uneven load to Jen who always seems to be putting the work together and checking it over.  The other concern is that the other team members don't get as much of a voice in the activities.  One way we addressed that is to pass the tasks around and take turns.   Unfortunately, this also sometimes created confusion and quality issues.  But we naturally began to adapt and talk to each other more instead of waiting until the last minute and passing the problem on to others.  It also helped to share the load a bit so there wasn't a sense of resentment.

           I gained a lot of interesting experiences from this assignment.  The content is not the challenge.  The challenge is doing it as part of a group.  But there is room to try different things to solve issues with the group dynamics.  The main difficulty for me is my mindset.  I have a lot on my plate and, even if the group works better with certain people always leading, I don't want to have that extra responsibility all the time.  I didn't sign up for that. We are all equally responsible for our learning.  So I'm still wrapping my mind around that, how to find a balance that makes sense, and what to learn from it in the context of the major.  

 How do you think your learning this month can be applied in your professional life or how do you think it will a affect your professional life?(Jennifer)

            From an adult and community education perspective, the assignments in the past month have given the group more information about adult education programs and organizations. These resources should be helpful to our professional careers.  Both of the organizations the group researched could be great resources for professional development opportunities. Adult and community education is about continuous learning, and adult education professionals should participate in professional development to support that concept.  Hopefully these organizations will benefit us in our careers.

What I have gained from this assignment? (Jennifer)

            Group work can be challenging.  Though it was a long time ago, from sixth grade to my senior year of high school I had classes with basically the same group of people. We almost always worked in the same groups for assignments, so we knew everyone’s strengths and weaknesses.  Those six years of group work maybe spoiled me. I think the main lessons I learned this month weren’t related to the course content. The main two lessons I learned were related to communication and to time management.  In teamwork, communication and time management are crucial.  Our group had challenges with both areas this month.  I’m not sure the best way to deal with these challenges, but as a person who tends to be a leader in groups, I think it’s important to think of ways to improve the group dynamic for future group assignments. I know teams are important and that teams are a part of basically any industry. Changing my attitude about group work in classes might be the first step in figuring out the best way to improve a group’s dynamic.