Week 16: Discussion Question #2

2). NEW QUESTION: Review the Observation of an Outside Group project. What did you find useful/not useful? Did you like this project? Why/why not? Why did you choose the group you observed for this project? In short, briefly introduce your project to the members of the class, and discuss its usefulness, frustrations, etc.... (I expect for most, that the answer to this question will be quite long - go ahead and make it as long as you'd like).

The group that I chose to observe for this assignment was a group and elementary school teachers and staff. Every week this group gets together and meets to discuss up coming events, status of the students and curriculum, new ideas to improve learning, etc. I was able to observe two of their meetings. While observing this meeting I feel that I saw many things in a group setting that I would have not looked for if I was not given this assignment.

First, I found that having a structure guideline to what exactly we would be writing about in the paper was helpful. I categorized the things that I needed to look for in each meeting. I did not particularly have to use all of the concepts provided because they all did not apply to my specific group. Even though all the concepts did not apply I found that I was able to elaborate on a few concepts more than others. I also found it useful that we had to attend a minimum of two meetings. To be honest I was not looking forward to having to attend two meetings and then when it came to having to do the assignment, having attended two meetings was very helpful because I had more information to write about. As for the things that I did not find useful, I felt that having to apply two outside theories or sources to our group did not help. I actually found that part of the assignment difficult and hard to tie into the assignment. I understand the relevance of it being added to the assignment, but I felt that it was just thrown into my paper and had not use to my paper.

I must say though I did enjoy this assignment. It was fun to interact with others and be able to observe a group. Working in retail I always get to "people watch" and analysis people for short periods of time. But, being able to sit and watch a group for a longer period of time and consider concepts of small group is interesting. I felt that at times some of the situations were exactly like explained in the book. I would have never been looking for those things though if it would not had been assigned. I liked this assignment for one because it gave the opportunity to interact with a group of people and two because it gave me the opportunity to evaluate a group and learn new things about a small group. It is one thing to read out of a book about the interacts of a small group and another to see it. I am a visual learner so I loved this assignment because I was able to apply examples and concepts from the book to what was happening in front of me and this was helpful in remembering things out of the book.

When deciding on a group I struggled. I first thought that I could observe a classroom of children. Then I realized that this would not work because many of the concepts would not apply. Then I considering observing a group at my church, but the problem with this is it is a very large group and it was possible the concepts would also not apply. So then I considered a faculty meeting of teachers. I figured that a group of teachers was diverse enough and they would cover many of the topics that were needed for this assignment. I also wanted to see the thought process and work that goes into these meetings. As most of us know they say that all this money is going into our education system or at least they seem to say that the money given for education is. Anyway, I wanted to see how this money is put in place and what is that we are working on to make schools better. For the amount of money that we pay for school systems it is important to know how the money is being distributed and used.