Ideas on Presentations from Chapters 3,9,10

Arialis Perez

    The group in which I participated was assigned Chapter 3, which covered the topic of Intercultural communication. First of all, I would like to point out that personally, this has been the most organized and compenetrated teamwork that I have been part of. Even though the whole process of work, from creation to presentation, was done virtually, I and the rest of the participants elaborated on the subtopics we were assigned. Even though each of us created our own slides, we managed to organize them in a way so the presentation ran as smoothly as possible. The topics in our group included Culture and Communication, Dominant Culture, Co-culture, and identity, How cultures differ and Developing intercultural communication competence. I chose to present Intercultural communication and its importance. For a little bit of context, I have moved from country twice, first to Ecuador and then here to the United States. Both times, the process of adaptation was slow and extended; I found myself facing new cultures, beliefs, and perceptions, and also learning how to deal with them and how to introduce myself to the new societies. When I got here to the United States, the barrier of communication between me and the society here grew considerably, since I found myself having to learn a new language in order to advance and continue working on my personal growth. For this reason, I decided to elaborate on the importance of intercultural communication, as well as biculturalism. In this country, especially here in Miami, there is so much diversity in terms of cultures and ethnicities, that I believe most of us identify with the concept of biculturalism since we’ve been raised in between two or more cultures.  Although this topic was assigned to us randomly, if I had the option to choose, I would have chosen Intercultural communication because of how I identify with what it encompasses.

    The second group presented Chapter 9: Communication in Groups. In the first few slides, they presented the concept of groups and different examples of them, like families (related or unrelated), social groups, support groups, interest groups, service groups, and work groups. They talked about something very interesting that I have never heard of before and that is the Ringelmann effect. This concept explains how a group becomes less productive as the number of components increases. It states that the ideal number of members for a team to be productive is 5.  There are also heterogenous and homogenous groups. The difference between one and the other is that heterogeneous groups are diverse and include people with different backgrounds and mindsets, while homogeneous groups are people that share interests and whose perceptions are alike. They touched on the topic of virtual groups which is something that’s becoming more of use every day, and I believe is one of the most important ones since it has the power of connecting people from anywhere in the world. In the presentation, they also talked about how a group can be of healthy nature and how this contributes to developing healthy, ethical goals. One of the different things that can be done to achieve the previously mentioned is team-building activities, like sharing perceptions and personalities or practicing interactive activities. Another thing groups do to become closer is sticking to a set of rules that help them meet their objectives in the most efficient way. I really enjoyed the inclusion of the Marvel team in their presentation since I am a very big fan of theirs and I think it accurately represents the definition of a group. It’s necessary to also talk about the conflicts that may emerge within the groups and more importantly, how to address them.

 

    The third and last group presented on the topic from chapter 10 which is Group leadership and problem-solving. The sub-topics included in their presentation are Leadership in groups, How to run effective meetings, The 6 steps of systematic problem solving, Group solutions, and group effectiveness using criteria. Throughout their presentation, they talked about the concept of leadership and what the roles of leaders are. These include providing input and valuable information, seeking the opinion of others and taking it into consideration, as well as analyzing all the content provided, and guiding the team through the process. Leaders are the ones that not only do the work but also motivate the rest to do so too. They are also committed to their team and ready to speak for them and even defend them if needed. In this presentation, the group also mentioned that although each leader has their own methods of problem-solving, they likely follow a 6-step problem-solving model. The steps are in the following order: Identifying what the problem is, digging for the causes of the problem, brainstorming possible solutions or alternatives, deciding on a solution, developing the selected solution, and finally, evaluating what the final outcome is. The group also elaborated on the different methods to pick a solution. I think it was creative of the group to include videos related to the topic since I myself I’m a visual learner and it also made the presentation more interactive. Overall, this group’s presentation was very organized, and from the way they conveyed their ideas, I consider they really put into action all of the information they presented.

    I believe each of the groups did a very good, thorough presentation of their topics. All of them provided concepts, visual tools, and examples to help understand the ideas they conveyed. In addition, the presentations had very catchy designs and were overall organized. In our group, I consider each of us contributed to the activity and provided thoughtful perspectives on the topics. I myself don’t greatly admire group activities due to my previous experiences with them, but being part of this group and getting to talk about something that I greatly relate to has helped me shift my point of view on teamwork. I understand that if each person does what they are expected to do in the time they are expected to do so, the activity will almost look like it is carrying itself out when in reality, there’s always hard work behind it.