What are your main take away lessons from the assigned reading this week? Describe and explain.

Chapter 10

The reading had several insights with regards to solving problems in groups and teams. Through the reading, there is an understanding that on most occasions groups tend to come up with more and better solutions to varied problems compared to individuals that are working alone. The solutions from groups have proved to be superior at varied tasks. Groups tend to be effective than individuals since they possess a greater collection of resources, accuracy of results, increased commitment and diversity among others.  Diversity allows groups to consider approaches and solutions that would otherwise not be thought of. However, despite the advantages that come with groups, they are not always the best in solving problems. There is need to determine whether the capacity of the job is beyond one person, whether tasks are interdependent, whether more than one decision or solution is required, the potential for disagreement among other things. Susie Wee owns more than 40 technology patents, and she acknowledges that she has not accomplished a lot of things on her own. “Teamwork is very important to me, innovation is all about using teamwork and creativity to solve hard problems,” she says (Adler et al., 2014, p. 298). This is an indication of how working as a team can be effective.

Chapter 13

This reading revolved around informative speaking. Among the notable insights from the reading are the techniques of informative speaking. There are varied principles of human communication involved with informative speaking that are meant to help the audience to understand and care about the speech. Among them is that there should be the ability to define a specific informative purpose, creation of information hunger among the audience, making it easy to listen, using clear simple language, using a clear structure and organization, using supporting materials effectively and emphasizing important points among others. During informative speaking, visual aids also come in handy in trying to bring clarity among other things. They are usually used in illustrating or supporting of ideas. They can be more useful when the speaker intends to show how things work or how things look. Visual aids also have the ability to show how things relate to each other, more so the usage of graphs that contain more than one variable. It is upon the speaker to choose the most appropriate visual aids given the circumstances at hand. However, no matter the type that has been chosen, there is need to ensure that there is simplicity, attractiveness, reliability and appropriateness to ensure that it serves the desired purpose.

How will they affect the way you communicate?

These insights are likely to affect the way that I communicate. When it comes to giving speeches, I will start to be more vigilant on how I communicate. I will ensure that I am always careful to understand the difference between informative speaking and persuasive speaking. This will always ensure that I communicate appropriately to achieve the desired objective of the speech. The principles outlined above will become critical in my informative speaking in order to create effectiveness. I have also understood the need for having visual aids, and it is something I will most likely implement in my future informative speaking. Choosing the most appropriate visual aid will be considered at all times in order to help in passing the appropriate message.

I will also embrace working in groups while solving problems as opposed to putting more emphasis to individual work. This is because I have seen the impact that group problem solving brings. However, there will always be the need to consider whether a problem necessitates the use of a group or it would be more effective approaching it from an individual’s perspective.

In what ways do the concepts in the videos and readings relate to your professional life in education?

In the video 12 Angry Men- This is how you deal with prejudice indicates the need of working as a team. This includes assessment of the issue at hand as a group before making a decision or a conclusion. This is to say that one particular individual should not take the initiative of making all the conclusions and passing them to rest of the group hoping that they will adopt them. In varied professionals, such people are quite prevalent. They want other team members to adopt their ideologies even before the issue at hand is adequately considered and discussed. They usually act as a turn-off to any group project.

The video on The walk from “no” to “yes” talks about solving conflicts. Conflict is something that is likely to occur in teams that are working in different professionals. How the conflicts affect the people involved is dependent on how they are handled. Communication is vital while solving conflicts. If people do not communicate effectively, solving the relevant conflicts would be a huge problem.  Introducing a third party is advisable as they would help in ensuring that the conflicting parties remain within the desired scope of the issue.

Reference

Adler, R., Rodman, G., & DuPré, A. (2014). Understanding human communication (12th ed.). Oxford University Press.c

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