Communication/Collaboration Wrap-Up!

Thank you to all my group-mates, who followed my blogs, supported me with comments, and collaborated with me throughout the last eight weeks!  We're one more class closer to being done!!  :)  I look forward to working with you all again in future classes!

Communication/Collaboration Week 6

I have been a part of several groups over my years, from high-school through my current professional groups.  There have been some times throughout my experiences where a project comes to an end, such as when I worked on our student council in High School or the prom committee.  Those times were a celebration of a job well done as we participated in the prom and then when we graduated our student council time was done.  As this was MANY years ago, I do not remember what the adjourning process felt like.  With both there was a sadness as our time was done, but we were also focused on the next exciting phase of life and on we went.  In my professional and church experiences, I am usually the one who moves away from teams that are already formed and continue on after my time is completed.  With these experiences, I am usually relieved to be done with a commitment and excited to make more time for family. 

However, recently I was feeling as though it was time to back away from my position on our church Women's Leadership Team.  I was feeling as though I was not a contributing member of the team and was praying about my time commitment now that I was working again.  When I shared this at a team meeting, I was confirmed in my importance on the team and offered a new aspect of the ministry to be involved in which would give me a new vision on the team.  I was excited to be a contributing member again, and would have been very sad to leave this group of women!

I do believe that high-functioning groups are the hardest to leave.  Those groups where the vision is clear, where there is trust and respect, and there is excitement are the most difficult to walk away from.  I believe that when we are part of a high-functioning group, we buy into the vision and invest in the team which makes it harder to depart from that group. 

As for adjourning from my group of colleagues that are part of my Master's work, I feel that I will walk away and be just fine.  When I finished my last Master's program through Walden I was exhausted by the work load and was SO grateful to be finished.  I did not find it hard to walk away from the groups that had been established.  I believe this is easier in the online setting than it would be if we were seeing each other each week face to face as I believe there's less personal investment in each other when it's in the virtual world.  I believe that I will again be relieved to be finished and will not need an adjournment phase to my virtual colleagues. 

Communication/Collaboration Wk 5

Conflict Resolution:

This week I attended a CSE meeting for one of my students who has a hearing disability.  The committee that met consisted of myself, my administrator, our director of curriculum and instruction, the child's mother, several speech therapists, the therapist for the deaf, and the CSE chairperson.  As I sat through this meeting, there were a few areas of conflict or discrepancies between what the therapists were saying and what the child's mother really wants for him.  One area of conflict is that the therapist suggested to me that we use more visual aids for the student in the classroom.  Mom spoke up to say she did not want him to rely on visual aids as much as she wanted his to use his hearing aids and learn to listen.  After some much heated discussion, I suggested a compromise between mom and the therapists.  I offered to use more visual aids when I thought the child needed a greater understanding of what I was saying and then we would quickly phase out the visual and emphasize the listening.  This was agreeable to both parties and was included on the child's IEP.

There was also a conflict between mom and the social worker when the social worker reported that his intelligence scores were not reliable and he failed the testing.  Mom was visually upset and felt that the social workers testing was not an accurate assessment of his intelligence.  I, again, played the neutral party and reworded what mom was saying to the social worker by telling her that mom felt that they did not show what he truly knew based on the fact that he could not hear what she was asking based on the fluid that is currently in his ears.  Then I told mom that the social worker was in fact on her side saying that the testing was not reliable meaning it did not show his true intelligence.  Then I interjected my thoughts, which are that the child is on-level in all academic areas and his hearing affects mainly his social skills, not his academic skills.

Being able to intercede and play the mediator at this meeting made me feel confident in my abilities to manage conflict resolution.  As I discussed the meeting afterward with my administrator and my director of curriculum and instruction, they both complimented me on my communication skills at the meeting!  :)