Wow, this 16 weeks has passed by quickly! In this class I feel like I have learned a lot about how and why groups act the way they do. I enjoyed learning everything about leadership, roles, context, culture, and how to make ideas into reality. Since group work is pretty much inevitable in any career path you choose, it is important to know these things and be able to recognize when people are not contributing as much, when you are being controlling, and how your group can reorganize or reposition itself in order to become more streamlined and more successful.
One of my favorite things about this class was the textbook. I don't say that very often, but quite frankly I found this textbook to be very well laid out and easy to read and comprehend. Aside from that, I enjoyed the class format. Posting on a blog and reading other blogs seemed like an easy way to communicate different ideas and theories. I enjoyed learning not just from the textbook or from instructor wrap-ups, but also from stories on other blogs and reading other people's experiences.
My least favorite thing about the class was probably the group observation assignment. I have a tight schedule and it was tough for me to find time to go observe a group I'm not a part of (it would have been much easier to observe and write about my group at work). It was also tough finding research articles, I thought.
As for improving this class..I think it's pretty good the way it is. I don't say that about a lot of classes.. In fact I think I can only say that about two other professors I've had my entire time here at SJSU. But as with my experience last year in another class with Professor Perez, I think she is definitely onto something with her class formats for online teaching.
I LOVED your post this week! I will admit I loved the book as well but I was thinking that I would look crazy if I said that out loud. Our book was one of those rare text books that really makes you learn and connect the concepts to your life and everyday life. This class was great because when you have a fun textbook that you enjoy to read it makes doing the homework and essays so much better. I love online classes because it shows a whole other form of communication that can’t be taught in classrooms (online communication.) I agree I wish I would have been able to do my observation group on my own group because it would have been interesting to apply the learning to something we are already apart of.
ReplyDelete