Brief comment about our project

   

    In this space, I will make a brief report about how my first assignment in communication was, some of the themes brought up, and my personal experiences about the whole process. It was a relatively easy and very comprehensive topic, I think, for everyone, especially my part on communication and culture, in which I think I was able in 10/15 minutes to summarize the topic assigned to me well. I can already tell you that the experience itself was good, we didn't have any conflict or anything like that and everything was presented in the best way.

  
    Chapter 3, in which I also participated, discusses intercultural communications and draws a parallel explaining aspects related to culture, communication, and where cultural agents converge and diverge. Being the first to present, I sought to answer basic questions related to the topic: What is the meaning of culture and communication, what is its importance, and the relationship between them? With that, I could summarize my presentation very well, and so did my colleagues on the issues of intercultural communication, the concept of the dominant culture, co-culture, identity culture, and the differences between individualist and collectivist cultures.

    The topic that fell on us was perfect. I believe that everyone could clearly express what they were willing to research. I confess that I was a little nervous about presenting because I didn't have any references on how to do it, even more being the first of the first group. Still, everything went better than expected, and I believe the teacher liked our presentation too.

    The following presentation was concerning chapter 9, bringing some aspects of group communication. The exhibition was very solid, and they managed to bring clarity on the topic, perhaps better than us.

    Some topics were about family, in which protective families were included. They also discussed social groups, including support, interest, service, and work groups. In one of these themes, I remember they showed a shortcut of the Avengers movie showing each group work phase. It was cool.

    They also brought a graph analyzing a team of work groups where five people make the best group — the point is quite interesting, especially for me, who prefer to work solo for personal reasons. They also brought topics about heterogeneous and homogeneous groups, effective group work, stages of group development (forming, storming, norming), virtual group communication, and real-time communication. They showed that healthy groups are more focused, ethical, and, therefore, able to follow the rules, think more together, and perform more.

    The last presentation for me was the most organized and with the cleanest and clearest presentation, referring to both PowerPoint, which together with the second group used the same format, and the exhibition itself, which was more organized.

    The central theme was about Leadership and problem-solving. The group started explaining how it works, the type of group leaders, task roles (givers, seekers, and analyzers), maintenance roles (supporters, interpreters, harmonizers, mediators, tension relievers), procedural leadership roles (logistics coordinators, gatekeepers, expediters, recorders) and the famous five keys to responsibilities. They evaluated the group's effectiveness using key criteria in which they brought a video, unless I was mistaken, of the series The Office, which exemplifies the point exactly. They also brought the most effective way to hold meetings for presenters and participants before, during, and after the activities. Finally, they detailed systematic problem analysis and 6-step resolution and communicated group solutions in various formats (oral, written, visual).

    For my final considerations, I would like to point out that it was an excellent activity, not very difficult, on the contrary, but that made me learn a little more about the different topics and even helped me to interact more with classmates — we are already working on the next one presentation by the way.