Functional Group Conversation

Comment

Comment by Robert Herold on January 8, 2012 at 8:10pm

• What did each individual say, do, not do, and decide?

Dysfunctional Group

Mike – Wants to be somewhere else.

Sam – Just wants to get the lab done.

Robert is following the scientific method but ultimately is persuaded by his impatient colleagues.

Functional Group

Mike – Suggests a plan of attack from the outset and is respectful of questions.

All – Conversation is respectful and all ideas are valued and thoughtfully considered, deductive reasoning and logic are applied to analyze their observations.

• How did members' actions impact each other and the outcomes?

Dysfunctional Group: Prevailing Impatience to “just get it done” becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy.

Functional Group: Mutual respect and sincere interest result in learning for the group.

• How would you describe the environment/context and how did it impact the members' actions and outcomes?

Undergraduate science lab – Labs tend to be valued in calculating final grade relative to the time they take to do right.

However, labs are where abstract concepts can be tangibly understood such that a solid foundation of understanding is achieved.

• What would you say were the assumptions of cause and effect present in each of the videos?

Dysfunctional Group is analogous to “study to the test” syndrome, just produce the expected result without understanding.

Functional Group: Pursuit of genuine understanding achieves just that.

• How did the actions and conversation were redesigned in the second video "good conversation" ?
• Conversation now included sincere questions and diligent action