Thank You!

Dear Colleagues,

Each and every one of you has played a major role in my educational journey. I am very grateful to have such inspiring and influential classmates.  All your comments, feedback, and questions have helped shape me into the professional I am today. Some of us are a few courses away from finishing this journey; continue with putting in such a great effort. The hard work is going to pay off soon. Best of luck to all! You are all amazing individuals.

                                                            ~ Victoria

Team Development- Adjourning

Thinking back to all the groups I have been a part of, the ones that were hardest to leave or hardest to say good-bye were the ones where everyone was very close and worked well together. I personally do not think it has anything to do with performance.  I think the most important parts of being in a group are collaboration. The groups that build a relationship/ bond, share the same goals, set guidelines and stay focused, and the ones who overall work well together are the ones that you would hope can work together again or stay friends. Working in a group like this, there is a shared leadership.  There is not one leader in a group like this; everyone is a leader.

The group/ team that I had to leave were a service learning group.  This group had meetings leading up to the trip and then spent a week in another state doing service projects for others in need. The group I was in truly became a family by the end of the trip. We knew each other inside and out and made so many memories together. Although this was not an academic group or a group where papers needed to be written, it was a group that still requires leadership and a bond still needed to be made in order to perform all duties and to spend a week together. This group was hard to leave because we grew close enough to be family. At the end of our week together, we had a closing ceremony where we could share our stories about the week and reflect back on all the work we had done. We closed out the trip with a bang and even chose a song to signify our group and trip. Still to this day (8 years later) every time I hear the song, I immediately think back to that trip and all the people I was able to work with. Once we returned back to our daily lives, we still stayed in touch and even got together for dinner where we could reminisce about our trip.  

As for adjourning from my colleagues in this course/ program, I think it will be bittersweet. I think we all have worked immensely hard and will feel a sense of accomplishment as well as excitement to have finally succeeded. I think I will be a little sad because even though I have not met any of my colleagues in person, I feel I know a lot about them just based on all our discussions, blogs, and introductions. I think saying good-bye in person is much harder so in terms of emotionally, I do not think saying good-bye will be too sad. I have enjoyed working with each and every one of my colleagues and will definitely miss our discussions and sharing of ideas. I have gained so much just from reading what everyone else has to say and helping me see different viewpoints on the same topics.

Adjourning is an essential piece of teamwork because it is a time for everyone to be congratulated and feel a sense of importance.  We all like to feel good about what we are doing as well as having people notice us for it. Adjourning helps that all come into place. Adjourning helps you feel that sense of accomplishment.  It also helps us realize that this chapter may be done but it is time to begin the next.

Conflict Resolution

The conflict I have chosen to share is between me and the other first grade teacher and our aide. The conflict we are having is that we have a schedule posted in our classroom of the responsibilities our aide has to do. We have already taken away a lot of the responsibilities because she was feeling very stressed and because of that was doing it wrong. So, to relieve some stress, we took away the grading and entering grades and just left her with making copies and making sure their homework was all ready to be handed out on Monday morning as well as prepping her enrichment craft so that it is ready by Friday afternoon when she would do it with the class. We have given her time frames of when to do these things to help her with her time management. These responsibilities can be done in the morning when she first comes in, during her prep, or afterschool when the children leave. The problem we are having is that she is not completing her tasks and this intern forces me and the other first grade teacher to do it for her because either way the things need to be done. We have addressed this issue with her already multiple times this year.

The strategies I am going to try to use in hopes of resolving this ongoing conflict is Think Win-Win and compromise.  In addition to those strategies, I will use the three R’s when speaking with her.  Using the three R’s when speaking will help her feel that she is not being attacked rather trying to find a way to resolve this conflict. By thinking Win-Win will help in us both get what we need completed. I will have her tasks complete so I can continue with my job and she will have time to complete hers.  In doing so, we might need to make a compromise.

I spoke with my colleague, the other first grade teacher, since she was involved too and feeling the same way as I am. She suggested we write out specific directions for the copies so that there is no confusion.  She also expressed that she was out of ideas and did not know what else to do since this was not the first time we have addressed this problem. We then went to our other colleagues for more suggestions. One suggested that if she was losing time on her prep because of her lunch duty maybe giving her extra time to complete the task so that it gets done and time is not an issue. So, we are going to try that and address the situation using the strategies and skills that I have learned and shared with the other first grade teacher this week.    

Who Am I as a Communicator

The thing that surprised me the most was how different my boyfriend and coworker scored compared to me on the Verbal Aggressiveness Scale. I scored myself in the moderate range where my coworker scored me in the low category and my boyfriend scored me in the significant category.  I think it is interesting how differently people view you when you think that you are the same across the board. This just shows how people perceive others differently for one reason or another. This surprised me because by the definitions of each group, I feel I am in the moderate group.  I know I need to work on how I share my strong beliefs and opinions. It definitely made me think twice about how I am communicating with others.

The first insight I gained deals with how we look at ourselves. I learned through reading and from the results of the tests that the way we see ourselves both how we think we are and how we think we talk has an impact on the way we communicate with others. For example, when I feel my facts and opinions are right I may speak with a tone where it says to others I know I am right and it does not matter what they say (which could be why my boyfriend scored me the way he did). This is one thing I turned into a goal in hopes of stopping that even though I was unaware it was even bad. I thought the way I stated my opinions was sensitive towards others but apparently not everyone, because the people at work scored me in the low range which was lower than what I scored myself. The second insight deals with how we perceive things and the negative effects it can have on us. One way to overcome failure is to not let emotions take over.  I also learned that our predictions can negatively or positively impact our communication. 

These insights can enhance my ability to communicate both professionally and personally.  I am more aware of how people perceive me which has actually caused me to be more careful as to what I am saying and how I am saying it. I am making fewer assumptions or opinions before talking with the person first that way my perception is less likely to interfere negatively with my communication. I am trying to gain a full understanding of the context/ content before speaking.  Implementing these goals will help in the way I communicate with my families and students as well as hopefully helping the communication I have with my boyfriend, since that is the area that shocked me the most.