According to the text, interdependence deals with how members of a group depend on one another. Each member has a task of some sort that they are responsible for and other members of the group count on that individual to complete the task so that the group can grow and achieve their goals together. If one person fails to achieve their responsibility then the whole group suffers. In communication it seems that both interdependence and interrelationships are valued. It is important to have group members that are self sufficient enough to be assigned to a task, do the necessary research, and report back to the group their ideas or look for input. There needs to be a balance between being independent and working with people; nobody wants to "hold a person's hand" through a task, but everyone should be there to give advice and necessary direction. On the flip side, no one wants to work with a person who only looks out for themselves and won't communicate with their team.
Throughout my career as a student, I have had to learn how to deal with many different types of people and their different skills. During one class assignment, I was assigned to a group of six to make a PowerPoint presentation on global warming. We all exchanged email addresses and checked in with each other on a daily bases to make sure everyone was on task and didn't need any help. We never heard from one of our group member, so when it came time to present our power point, no one knew what to expect from this student. Did they get all the necessary info? Did they make it look neat and presentable? Nobody knew the answer. This person's independent nature and lack of communication caused unnecessary stress on everybody else.
Another example is when I was voted to be head of our groups project. As the group "manager" it was my job to make sure everyone was understanding and completing their task. This was a more positive experience because everyone worked very efficiently individually as well as together. As a result our project had a nice flow to it and everyone contributed to the project equally.
Thanks for checking out my post!
-Jessica
Hello Jessica, I definitely enjoyed reading your blog post and I'm glad to see that you had at least one group that worked out well. I have also had groups that have worked out well and like you wrote it took a lot of communication and having to be dependent on eachother. I've actually had a similar experience as you involving a group member but my particular group member was one that barely came to class and in the end didn't have their portion of the project not being completed. We tried to keep constant communication with this individual but it didn't seem to work. Thankfully not all groups turn out this way if communication is easily established and maintained. Talk to you soon.
ReplyDeleteYou have a lot of really good points in this paper. I especially like the idea you make about people needing to balance out being both independent and interdependent. I think that that concept is a bit overlooked in small group work and sometimes people can be too interdependent and rely on others just as people can be too independent and only rely on themselves. You are right about the importance of everyone knowing what needs to be done and when it needs to be done by. All in all, you have really good points and I feel for you when one person does not show up at all, probably one of the most frustrating feelings ever when you do work and others do not.
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