Blog Post #1 - Oscar Gonzalez

For my group, I think that the beginning of the project was most likely the hardest part. When our WhatsApp group was set up, we began by explaining to each other a bit more clearly what the requirements were for the project. Once we made sure that all of us knew what the project’s requirements were, we started to scramble to decide which of us were going to take on what topics, while the Canva page for it was being set up at the same time. I was considering just sitting and waiting to see if someone would step up and serve as an organizer and assign topics to all of us, but as we continued to discuss and decide on our topics, I realized that wasn’t going to be how we were going to undertake the assignment. Therefore, I decided to join in on self-assigning my topics.

My initial plan was to create slides for Chapter 3-2 from topics A to C, but it was pointed out to me that race and ethnicity were both different topics than sex and gender orientation and that someone else could take on the latter topic, so I opted to instead simply make three slides about race and ethnicity. The rest of our group was struggling to organize and divide themselves amongst all the topics with three slides each, until one member suggested that someone should send an image of what everyone’s corresponding topics were. I decided to save an image of the book’s table of contents to hastily edit in everyone’s names over what topics they were planning on doing. You can see that image below, even though it’s unfinished:

This did a great job at organizing everybody, which I am pretty happy about. Most of us were now ready to make our slides, which went by much more smoothly and quickly. I feel like I did a decent job at keeping my slides concise. For the ethnicity slide, I considered including a Google image of a bar graph showing how Spanish was the most commonly spoken language at home, but decided against it since I didn’t actually know if we were allowed to use information outside of the textbook. After that was taken care of, I wrote myself a brief script to follow, and I was ready to present.

Not only was I part of the first group, but I was also the second presenter, so thankfully I was able to get it over with quickly. For some reason I had my hand on the side of my neck while I was presenting, but I think my script and the way I presented it came out fine. I think the rest of my group presented their slides well, too, aside from the occasional interruption usually caused by things that were out of our control. The text on the slides started to get a bit too wordy near the end, but it didn’t seem like the professor minded. The information the presentation gave was interesting to me too. Overall, in my opinion, our group did a good job.

Next up was the second group, which did a presentation about group communication. Immediately, I liked how organized the presentation looked, with the chapter number listed as well as the creator of each slide being listed. I actually didn’t know about how there is a difference between consensual families and nonconsensual families. Consensual families are ones that discuss problems as a group, while nonconsensual families have less open communication. It made me make a comparison to my family’s style of communication, which is probably nonconsensual. I liked how thorough the presentation went into the different types of communication groups, from social groups, to support groups, to interest groups, to service groups, and more. I learned about the difference between homogeneous and heterogeneous groups. Homogeneous groups are groups with similar backgrounds, while heterogeneous groups have more diverse backgrounds. One type of group can give a deeper look at one perspective, while the other type of group can make better decisions by putting multiple different perspectives into consideration. There are also the benefits and downsides of virtual communication, which is another topic I learned things about. Virtual communication allows for members to communicate via different locations and times, saving time as well as money. However, it rarely allows for deeper connections and teamwork, and can cause social loafing within some members, making them contribute less than usual to a group. The presentation also does a good job at explaining the requirements for a healthy group. A healthy group is ethical, with goals that benefit members as well as society as a whole; interdependent, where everyone contributes their own skills; and cohesive, where members are interested in the subject and celebrate achievements. Overall, this was a dense and informative presentation, which taught me a lot of things that are integral to an effective group.

I do think that some slides, like the one above, suffered a similar problem to our group’s slides, where they started to condense too much information into one slide. Overall, though, I did like it.

Finally, was the third group, about leadership and problem-solving. I liked the mostly consistent monochromatic style that it had, and the information throughout most of them was very neatly organized. There were a handful of typos that I noticed, but that can be excused by the strict deadline. I thought it was interesting how much money workers can potentially lose once a meeting starts being longer than 90 minutes. I also enjoyed the organization in the guideline slides for both leaders and participants about what to do before, during, and after a meeting. The slides detailing each step in solving a problem as a group were enjoyable, too. First you identify a problem, then you analyze it, next you brainstorm and create at least eight solutions to the problem, and finally you choose the most effective solution and assess it. I learned about deliverables, which are written and/or oral recommendations, analyses, and conclusions regarding a problem.

Overall, all three of the groups’ presentations were more interesting than I expected them to be. I liked being able to help organize my group, and then being able to speedily complete my segment of the presentation. The things I learned from the other groups were also more interesting than I expected. I had more fun with this project than I thought I was going to have.