http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/7225164/Ealry_Childhood_Education

Here are great words of inspiration which, drives me to make a difference in the  world and my community. I am looking forward to seeing what my passion is and other people's passion and seeing how we can challenge ourselves to make that difference.

Thank you to all my Colleagues in my class!

I just want to say that this has been an awesome class.  With myself working with people and wanting to be personable I always need to work on my communication skills. I have learned much about myself.

I know and learned that I need to gain my confidence back to apply all the knowledge that I have learned and that will make me the affective communicator that I want to be.  This will include passion, commission, empathy, culture and individualization.

I want to take this time to thank each one of you in my class.  I have learned so much from all of you about communicating in an affective and positive manner. I especially enjoyed all the information on collaboration.  I will take all this information from this class and continue on using the skills.  I will also continue to be aware of my communication skills so that I can be part of the solution and create win/win situations for my families professionally and personally.

Good luck to everyone in his or her professional journeys!

Here is my information if you choose to keep in touch

Tracy Halverson

801-824-0098

spacyh@msn.com

I also have a Facebook page

Adjourning

This week I read about the five stages of team development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

Being part of a group, project, or organizations is an amazing experience to be part of.  There is much learning and growing that in is involved with any of these activities.  Learning form the different readings this week have enabled me to look at where I stand as a leader and make me aware of the certain steps and procedures to be able to lead in a more professional way.

I have been part of many groups, Lets look at the adjourning phase for several of the groups in which you I have been involved.

There are many aspects when a group finishes a project or their goal has been accomplished.  How do you say good-bye and why is it so hard?  I have to admit some groups are easier to leave than others. 

I feel that the groups that were the hardest to detach from were the high performing groups that were organized, there was trust among each other and we valued each other’s opinion even if we did not agree. We created continuity and met the goal and vision of the project.

One group that I participated in that was hardest to leave was one of planning a conference. I have planned many conferences and they are with different groups of people, this particular year was amazing.  The leader followed the five steps and everyone felt valued and there was great trust among this group.

The closing or the adjourning of this group was that we were all invited to the canyon.  We were all assigned a food dish to bring and we went to the canyon and cooked hamburgers and had different things to eat. We all socialized and then we sat in a circle and discussed what worked and what didn’t work.  The leader gave us a yellow flower at the end.  It felt as though we were complete, we felt valued for what we had done.

Going to school on line has been an experience.  I have though several times of how I will adjourn from Walden University. I have learned so much from different colleagues and I really want to meet everyone in person. What I think would be a great thing is that we all walk together.  I am not sure that this is not realistic however.  I know that it will be hard for me.  I have learned so much from everyone. I would like just to gather to talk about goals and meet the person that we have been communicating with. 

Adjourning a group is an essential part of any product.  It gives each person a sense of closure and value.  It will validate your performance and enable you to move on to the next step or for the next leadership role that you challenge to take on.  It also creates a life long relationship with the members that you worked with.

Communication with Others

This week think about the similarities and differences between how you evaluated yourself as a communicator and how others evaluated you.

This exercise was a very interesting activity.  I was a bit nervous because of course it is always scary to see what others have to say about you. However, I feel that it has inspired me to take action on some different techniques to be a more affective communicator. 

What is the one thing that surprised you the most? Why?

The one thing that surprised me the most was that my colleague and personal friend scored almost identical to what I scored.  I think that I am not giving myself enough credit of how I communicate.  I think that I must prejudge myself and really haven’t seen how I communicate until I really took these tests.

What other insights about communication did you gain this week?

There were many insights that I gained this week.  One is that I am a people oriented person.  I have been told that several times in my life.  This is a great way to communicate, however, there has to be a balance.  I know that I take thing very personal and internalize much that is communicated to me.  I am then very hard on myself f whether I have communicated appropriately to the other person.

I also experienced that I should be more consistent in the way that I communicate.  It seems that I am a situational communicator.  I am going to listen to myself and make sure that I am not prejudging and that I can be more consistent in the way that I communicate.

Overall this was an excellent exercise.  There are many things I need to work on for my personal and professional ways of communication.

Communication With Others

  

Communication with Others

This week’s blog question was interesting and made me more aware of how I communicate.  It is amazing to watch others who communicate and it is amazing to step outside my self and watch myself communicate with others. 

The Question:  Do you find yourself communicating differently with people of different groups and cultures?

Absolutely! As I stepped outside of myself to observe what I was saying to others I found that communicating with others of different cultures I tend to higher my volume and use many hand and facial features. I am using much body language.  I am not sure why I feel that I need to talk louder. I notice that when I am talking to others, especially those of another language, I make sure that I focus on one topic at a time.  Where as if I am talking to close friends we tend to jump all around, however, we keep up. 

One thing that I noticed when I am talking to others that are not close is that I tend to take things personally, I internalize it and later analyze it and then understand what they were saying.  I sometimes do not have an answer to say at the time. 

When I talk to my family there is much body language and eye gestures. There also is much sarcasm.  It seems as though when I communicate with my family we almost read each other’s minds.  We can predict what the other is going to say and then we build on that topic.

This was an interesting observation and made me aware of that it is not necessary to talk loud.  I am not sure why I ever did this.

I have learned many new strategies that I could improve with my communication. Beebe, Beebe and Redmond (2011) suggested that it is two-fold in its purpose.  The first part is about social decentering; whereby one takes into account the other person’s thoughts, values, background, and overall perspective. The second part includes empathy, which is about emotions, being aware of and taking into consideration the other person’s feelings, thoughts, attitudes, values, background and perspectives and adapting to their interactions appropriately and sensitively.

Being non-judgmental and assuming what others say is two other strategies that I need to be aware and take into account.  It is important to practice the Platinum Rule in all aspects of communication.

In conclusion, I feel that being an effective communicator will be to put these strategies into effect. Really we are all alike and talking loud should not be a way of communicating.

References

Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (2011). Interpersonal communication: Relating to others (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Communication

Week 2

Record an episode of a television show you do not normally watch. Watch the show with the sound turned off.

This week’s blog is very interesting. Watching an TV episode with the sound turned off was very interesting.  It put me in the shoes of how a person who has no hearing feels.  I was very frustrated and had to really concentrate and almost guess and make my own story of what was going on. 

The episode that I recorded was Cake Boss.  This is a reality series of a family who owns a famous bakery in New Jersey.  The show follows the family and how they run the bakery and make the different cakes and pastries for their clients and for the public.

Sound Turned Off

The episode that I watched was very interesting. The bakery seemed very busy and I assumed that the star of the show (Buddy) was sort of angry or mad at the other workers.  There was much facial expressions by all the people involved. Eyebrows rising, hands flying every which way, sad faces, there was even like aggressiveness when setting the pastries down.  I assumed that Buddy was disappointed in his co-workers in that they were not doing something right. I assumed that the relationships were close but they were maybe having a bad day at the bakery.  It looks as though they have a heavy workload and that they were under much stress.

Sound Turned On

When I watched the show with the sound turned on my assumptions were way off.  Buddy is not mad and not yelling and was not disappointed in his co-workers.  Actually they are all family and they were laughing and joking with each other.  When I thought Buddy was being mad at the coworkers, what he was doing was explaining the expectations of what he wanted this certain cake to look like.  By his facial expressions without hearing looked as though no one was having fun.  When listening and looking at his facial expressions it was understandable and it was all positive.

I think if I would have watched this show on a regular basis, I maybe could have figured out that he was not mad. Just viewing it for the first time was a great eye opener of how communication can affect us in different ways.  Perception is another way as well.  My daughter was watching with me and she had a different perception than I did.