After writing my reflection on my group’s process in Case Study 5, I thought it would be interesting to see what other experiences classmates have been having with this part of the subject. Here are my reflections on my impromptu blog tour from yesterday:
My first stops were to my case study group partners. It is interesting to see the same experience through someone else’s eyes. It can be a bit nerve-wracking, as comes up for our scenario-star in Case Study 6, as this includes seeing yourself from a different perspective as well. Dan’s initial reflection reinforced my positive perception of our group interactions, but brought up the frustration of working with the set communication structures that are part of the Interact site. His second reflection provided some insight on leadership styles – both the difficulty of identifying some or expressing them in this particular microcosm and how our own pre-conceptions and interpretations of leadership styles and theories can sometimes get in the way of our recognising and identifying them “in the wild”. Deb’s post also opened a brief window on our group experience and struck a consistent positive note.
It was interesting to see the flip side of the coin, reading blogs from groups that did not enjoy the full-member participation that was evident in Group 9. Karlene tied her first and second reflections to the literature quite well. I found her reflections on the importance of shared vision to surmount potential issues and obstacles an interesting one to ponder. John had a less positive group experience and commented on the lack of experiencing a true team feeling – I think his question of whether that came from the virtual space or from the lack of single overarching leader (a topic I discussed in my last blog post) is one worth considering. Liz Parnell also found the communication space confusing and experienced less equitable group participation than we did in group 9. Liz Patterson echoed Liz Parnell’s dim view regarding the overall value of this component of the subject. Alene Morley brought up the question of shared vision versus shared task and the level of commitment and team spirit each engenders, she also raised the issue of what level of relational permission we have in these manufactured groups and how that constrains our ability to reach out to less-participatory members.
Finally, on my blog tour, I came across John’s blog which inspired and encouraged me – even though I did not come across any case study group reflections. But I don’t want to forget to keep tabs on it, so I am mentioning it here :).
I think that I am going to be a bit of a rebel with this post and just leave my references as hyperlinks… perhaps I will be struck by remorse and add a reference list at a later date… but for now, I’m off!