There are five people in my group, one from South Korea3, two from India, my friend and I come from China. This is our first meeting. We followed the process of Meeting One written in the guidebook strictly, talking about team charter. However, we did ineffectively, and we did not finish the task. 2 My reflections on aspects of group process during this meeting (Comment on factors such as stages of development conflicts, leadership issues, cohesiveness, patterns of communication, norms, trust/openness).
Use the material the team is collecting as your framework for these reflections. I think it is important to break the ice and develop a comfortable environment for the coming communication, so I introduced myself first, then Yue, my friend who also did in natural way. This is Chinese culture, if you want to cooperate with someone, it is necessary to perform friendly and it is better to become friends. However, others just wrote personal information on paper and then Akash asked us to go straight to part three. I could not remember their names and felt boring.
Maybe, Asian students are too shy to positively introduce themselves. When we discussed the team charter, I had no ideas about team charter. It is difficult to make a decision about the charter before we collect some information. HongQiang said that we need some time to collect some information, and we all agreed that. So it is better to make a decision on another day. I was afraid that we repeated this meeting next time, so I suggested that everyone should write a draft about the charter for discussion next time.
Finally, we made an agreement of the time for the next meeting tomorrow. Although there was less time to collect enough information, we had less conflict about meeting time. 3 My own behavior and feelings during the meeting in relation to the operation of the group. How did I act? What role did I play? Am I satisfied with my role in the group? Am I able to use group facilitation skills at all observing, diagnosing and intervening in the group process? What am I doing to help the group to develop into a high performing team?
I think good beginning is the foundation stone for a group work. For example, job division in part three need us to get general idea about each other. Maybe the process of ice break need more time than I thought and, maybe, different groups have various beginnings. Moreover, I think these two Indians are task-oriented, and they looked at the book, not me, they read that book, not read me, but a team means more rather than a machine, especially, student teams. I want to gain more than an achievement of an assignment. My thinking appears simplicity.
It seems one kind of conflict, but I could not persuade him change the meeting style immediately, so I think it is better and easier for me to continue in his way firstly. I said nothing but followed him. Actually, in the past, I acted passively most of time, but I want to change, that is why I come here. I have to think something out to activate my group. In addition, different cultures and the second language make the meeting less effective, so I want to learn how to work with people from different backgrounds, and it is necessary to think in other people’s way firstly.
