Personal Learning Plan

The following examples are in response to the goals I set for myself at the beginning of this quarter:

Goal / How I’ve met my goal
Become familiar with the study of interpersonal communication from a group perspective.
Learn how to better understand group dynamics and how people interact with each other. This goal is important to me because it will greatly help me in my professional career. Being able to understand how a group is communicating will help me to come out of a meeting or group setting with a better understanding of what just took place. / I feel that the assigned reading material has significantly helped me to develop an in-depth understanding of group dynamics; specifically Beebe and Masterson’s Chapters 1 and 5.
I’ve been able to take the concepts learned in this course and apply them to the group settings I find myself in at work – giving me a better understanding of the dynamics between group members and how they are communicating with each other. I now find myself coming out of meetings with a full understanding of what was discussed, and I am now noticing how different team members have certain methods/tactics they employ in these meetings.
Discover the importance of analyzing one's role as a group member.
Learn how to understand each member’s role in a group setting. This goal is important to me because I often find myself in group situations… It is important for me to be able to analyze each team member’s role in this project and I believe this goal will help me to better understand the different dynamics of each person’s role.
/ Similar to my response above, the reading material has significantly helped me to reach this goal. Beebe and Masterson’s Chapter 7 was helpful here – I learned how to look for and interpret non-verbal cues which, in turn, aids me in analyzing and understanding the dynamics of each team member’s role within the project I am involved with at work.
Become more sensitive to the complexity of group interactions.
Learn how to interpret the inner-workings of how a group interacts... Again, this goal is important to me because I feel it will help me further my ability to better interact with groups in my profession. / Over the last few weeks I’ve found myself more aware of the interactions between group/team members I am involved with at work. Isaacs’ Dialogue stressed the importance of the four principles of dialogue – all of which aided me in meeting this goal. Understanding these principles has enabled me to be more sensitive to the inner-workings of group settings and group interactions. While in meetings at work, I now find myself attentively listening to how individuals interact with others. I’ve noticed that most people change their tone and demeanor, depending on who they are speaking to.
Develop leadership skills.
Learn how to become a better leader. I believe that being able to affectively facilitate and conduct a meeting will aid me in growing my leadership skills. This goal is important to me because it will help me to continue to advance in my professional career.
/ I’ve found that Facilitation at a Glance! has greatly helped me in organizing and running the meetings I am responsible for at work. I have noticed that I’m now more outspoken in meetings, as opposed to just sitting back in the corner with my mouth shut. I’ve been able to step up and conduct my meetings with poise and confidence, and I’ve actually seen that this, in turn, makes others treat me as more of a team member/leader.
Recognize the influence one has on a group as well as the influences a group has on another.
Learn how to understand the different roles that people have within a group and how everyone’s actions influence the group as a whole. This goal is important to me because I believe that being able to understand how people influence a group will help me better understand the way the group is working together.
/ Our reading material (again, very handy) has taught me how to recognize and interpret specific characteristics in individuals I encounter on a daily basis. Now that I know what to look for (and actually pay more attention), I’ve been able to see how certain people can influence a group. For example, I’ve noticed the tone of voice, body language, and confidence in certain individuals can greatly influence those around them.
Become a more effective communicator in both group and team settings.
Learn how to better communicate within group settings in both my personal and professional lives. / The big thing that helped me to reach this goal was Isaac’s Dialogue in which he addresses the four principles of dialogue. I briefly touched on this with a prior goal, and it holds true here as well. The principles he outlines are key to learning how to effectively communicate. I have found myself going back to Isaacs’ words again and again, striving to implement these principles into my daily life – both work and personal. These principles have helped me to become a better communicator, enabling me to get my point across while respecting other opinions and listening attentively.

Principles of Dialogue… and what they mean to me:

Something very beneficial for me this quarter was taking Isaacs’ four principles for dialogue and implementing them into my daily life – both personal and professional. While there was a great number of very helpful concepts we learned this quarter, these four principles have really stuck out for me as being important and extremely helpful; specifically the principle of listening.

Listening. Respecting. Suspending. Voicing. They are one big working part. If one is missing, it just doesn’t work. Isaacs discusses how these four principles not only are a necessity to create a sense of “wholeness,” but that “they also work together and underscore the principles of participation, coherence, awareness, and unfolding” (81). When reading this section of Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together, something just clicked for me. Like when you lose your pen and you frantically search your surroundings for a good three minutes only to find it clenched between your teeth… and you say “oh, duh, it’s right in front of me.” Well, it was kind of like that for me. The principles make complete sense, but I had never thought of them as one working part before.

Seeing these described in a new way helped me to take the information and apply it. I find myself thinking these things through every day and asking myself – over and over again: Am I actually listening or am I just hearing? Am I being respectful of other people’s boundaries or limitations? Am I forcing my opinion or am I suspending it? Am I voicing myself at the right time? These four things run through my head every day, and I truly feel that thinking about them as one big working part has helped me to be better at my job, and better at communicating my thoughts, directions, actions, etc.

The Creative Process:

When our group first met, we each threw out an idea or two for a project and agreed that we should avoid anything related to politics! While everyone had great ideas, we all quickly agreed that Ryan’s idea to write a grant proposal for a local organization was by far the best, and quite possibly the most challenging. We quickly jumped on board and all began researching the different grants that were available for local organizations. We chose to help the Pediatric Brain Tumor Research Fund, and were lucky to have Ryan serve as our liaison. We ran into our first problem when we found out that we were not going to be able to provide the necessary information to write a grant proposal, so we shifted our focus into coming up with other ways we could support this wonderful foundation.

When we came up with a solution, our project took off! We all had ideas and thoughts for ways to implement this, and we were able to work together to discuss all of the ideas and come up with a feasible project that we could accomplish within the course of the quarter.

I wouldn’t do anything differently next time. I think that we all came together as a group and worked very well together. We communicated openly about all of our ideas on how we could implement them. We were very diligent about staying on task and coming out of each meeting with next steps and a clear goal to achieve before the next meeting.

Listening Quiz:

In re-taking the listening quiz, I found myself with a score of 74; 11 points higher than at the beginning of the quarter. There were two areas in particular that I found I’d significantly improve in:

·  Emotionally charged words seem to make me less angry than before. Prior to this quarter, I had a difficult time listening to people once they upset me. If my toes were stepped on or my feelings were hurt, I’d tune the person out and everything they’d say from that point on would go in one ear and out the other. But over the course of this quarter, I’ve learned how to become a better listener.

·  If I considered a subject boring, I would usually just stop listening to whomever was speaking. I found it hard to pay attention to something I had little to no interest in. However, through the quarter I’ve learned that even if I’m not all that interested in the subject at hand, being a good listener is a large part of being a good communicator… so it is important to listen to everything.

Diversity:

My group was made up of Caucasians all born and bred right here in America, but we were still very diverse in regards to our backgrounds and upbringings. In working with these folks, it was interesting to note the different styles of communication. This could be, in large part, because of the different personalities; but I believe the different backgrounds and upbringings had something to do with it as well.

While my group was not necessarily culturally diverse, I did notice a diverse range of speaking/writing styles in the weekly discussion board posts and I found it interesting to read the different writing styles.

Course Grade:

In the Learning Plan I created at the beginning of the quarter, I expressed my desire to earn an A in this course. I think that an A is very well deserved because I have put a lot of time and effort into my work product. I’ve prepared thoughtful and complete discussion post responses each week. I also worked very hard with my group on our project, which I feel turned out very, very good!

I’ve been very diligent this entire quarter, staying on top of the reading assignments and required posts. Although I did miss one required post in Week 8, I feel that I’ve worked extremely hard and am still deserving of a high mark. I actually feel really bad about missing my post, as I always strive to meet all of my goals/deadlines and do everything to the best of my ability… but I found myself behind that week because I was out of town with my family at the hospital while my grandfather underwent open heart bi-pass surgery. (He’s doing great and was released just this morning!) So I did fall behind that week and failed to make my required post, but was able to catch back up over the weekend and jumped right back into the discussion board the following week.

Field Notes – Greatest Learning Experience:

In our group’s field notes, the one obvious thing that stands out to me is our strong sense of organization and structure. We began each meeting with a purpose and came out of each meeting with a sense of achievement, a new goal to reach, and a path to get us there. Keeping these notes has allowed me to go back to them for reference if a particular detail slipped my mind.

(Full collection of Field Notes can be found on the following pages)

4/11/2011 Group Meeting #1

Members met, determined the direction of the project, and agreed on some initial steps. The project's direction involves creation of a grant proposal to secure funding for community activism, charitable endeavors or public works. Group members will research 2 to 3 possibilities for which grant funding is available and submit these ideas by Thursday 4/14/11 evening.

Initial tasks related to the creation of the group include arranging for Evernote access by members, undertaken by Sue; and creation of free Skype accounts for remote meetings, undertaken by all members. Once the final decision regarding grant writing is made, the group will also create a related G-mail email, FB page and Twitter account.

Initial rules determined at meeting #1 (which are subject to change) are:

1. Facilitators rotate at each meeting, beginning with Sue at meeting #2, and continuing in alphabetical order.

2. The facilitator will take field notes, much in the way that a face to face facilitator writes on a flip chart.

3. Remote meetings will occur at least once per week.

4. Face to face meetings will occur approximately once every 2 to 3 weeks or more as needed.

The next meeting will occur remotely via Skype on Sunday 4/17/11 at 6:30 PM.

4/17/2011 Meeting Field Notes

Field notes based on 4/17/2011 Skype meeting:

>Grant to be written on behalf of Pediatric Brain Tumor Research Fund

-In addition to simply drafting the grant proposal, our group will organize and share information with the public via social media regarding the disease and treatment statistics and fund-generating options. In addition, we will share our advancement in the grant writing process.

-Steps in this process will include:

1. Creating an appropriately named gmail account to use with social media outlets

2. Creating both Twitter and Facebook pages for sharing the above mentioned items