Thanks for all you support

 During the past eight weeks, I have received awesome support from my colleagues.  They have supported me by responding to my discussions and giving me new insight on communication skills.  The blogs that they write are exciting to read, having the opportunity to learn from them, and hearing the scenarios they presented about their experiences have supported me a great deal.  I hope that I have given them the same type of support that they wanted from the course in blogs and discussions.  I added information regarding my experience in meetings and team activities with colleagues at work.  This was my way of sharing my knowledge and growth in the field of Early Childhood Education.

I wish all my colleagues that their goals in their career of Early Childhood Education be what they are looking for, continue to support, and advocate for our children in the world.  As we come to the end of Masters Degree Program, I congratulate everyone.  I hope to pursue a job as a college professor for Early Childhood Education.

If anyone needs a little support or just some insight, you may reach me at ggmp0908@aol.com.  I will be glad to continue to encourage and support my fellow colleagues.  Thank you so much for the opportunity of knowing each one of you.

Merry Christmas to All!

In addition, A Happy New Year!

Team Building and Collaboration, Part 1- The adjourning process

I have been involved in many different groups in my life that I found it difficult to choose the highest performing group that was hard to leave.  After deep thought I came up with a group I was involved in at Wilberforce University.  We met every week for class off campus in a business office.  We became very close as we learned about Information Technology.  We were also very close with the instructor, too.  When it came time for the program to end, we had huge pizza party and gave our farewells.  We exchanged telephone numbers, email addresses and we stayed in touch for a little while.  However as the years pass we fell out of touch and do not communicate as much.

I found that group the hardest to leave because we worked well as a team to succeed in the BS degree program.  As I am engage with the colleagues in this course, I feel that we have grown to know each other by reading our blog’s, discussion boards, and emails.  It will be hard to face the end of the course because of being familiar of meeting with the group daily to discuss aspects of our lives related to our career.  I hope that we will adjourn by sharing email addresses and staying in contact as much as possible, as we pursue our goals.

The adjourning process of teamwork is the part where teams celebrate the accomplishments or review the errors to prevent it from occurring again (Abudi, 2010).  We say goodbye and look forward somewhere in the future to come together again as a team.

Reference:

Abudi, G. (2010). The five stages of team development: A case study. Retrieved from http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-team-development-a-case-study.html

Conflict Resolution

Normally I tend to avoid conflicts or I look for ways to understand why that person is aggressive in tone and actions before I respond.  However, when it comes to my ex-husband I am the opposite.  I will be on the defense with him at all times.  We argue like cats and dogs, I have tried many avenues of ignoring to using positive communication with him, but it just does not work.  He is very demanding, insensitive, controlling, and uses foul language in a conversation.  I hope that with the tactics I have learned in this course about non-violent communication will help as we continue to see and talk to each other.  I tried using the win/win approach with him today.  We were talking on the phone about our children and he kept asking me question after question about them to the point I just said, “Have you talked to them today?”  He responded, “No.”  Then I said, “I am sure they can answer all your questions, if you give them a call because I do not seem to have the answers you are looking for.”  That is the first conversation in years that we agreed and hung up without being frustrated with each other.  Therefore, I was able to use the cooperative strategy to get him to stop questioning me instead of using verbal aggression.

After being married to him for 28 years and now that we are divorce, he is still in the picture due to the children and grandchildren it is very hard to ignore his tone and aggressiveness.  However, with the Holidays being here and knowledge from this class I am sure I can get through this with using the win/win approach and the cooperative strategy.

If anyone has any suggestions on how I can make it through this holiday in peace with my ex-husband?  Please share them.  Thank you

Who am I as a Communicator?

I evaluated myself less than what others evaluated me.  I was surprised in the area of Communication Anxiety.  I evaluated myself as moderate whereas, others evaluated me as low.  I will need to build my own personal confidence on speaking in large and small groups.

In the listening styles profile, I assessed myself as people-oriented and so did my granddaughter and daughter which surprised me too because my daughter always says I do not listen to what she says.  However, she actually sees me as empathetic and concerned with the emotions of others.  This is the way I am and have been my entire life.  However, I have gotten hurt often due to improper judgment because of trusting everyone.

The verbal aggressive scale I scored a 68 and my children scored me as a 59.  This demonstrates that I think I am a person that may cross the line in attacking personally.  However, my children feel that I know how to maintain a good balance of respect and consideration for others but I will attack the facts.  I agree with them that I do avoid attacking someone personally when I argue but I do tend to sway to a higher level if someone attacks me.

I believe that I need a lot of work on verbal aggressiveness because I need to be respectful of the viewpoints and intelligence of others.  This practice comes from the use of the “Platinum Rule” To treat others the way they want to be treated.  It is very difficult for me to move from treating others the way I want to be treated.  In addition, I need to use the listening styles profile to help improve my communication anxiety level.  Therefore, I can feel comfortable speaking in large or small groups.

The evaluations taught me to stop being hard on my communication skills.  I learned that what I perceive of myself is what others see in me (Rubin, Palmgreen & Sypher, 2009).  However, I tend to lack confidence in myself, which makes me have a higher level of anxiety.  After these evaluations, I feel a need to use more self-monitoring skills to improve my own perception of myself.

Reference:

Rubin, R. B., Palmgreen, P., & Sypher, H. E. (Eds.) (2009).  Communication research measures: A sourcebook.  New York: Routledge

Communication and Culture

When it comes to communicating differently with people from different cultures and groups, I speak in different ways.  When I am with family I speak as myself, I feel free to speak to them about anything and in anyway.  I always use respect in my communication by use of less non-verbal as much as possible.  Although I may use slang to keep up with my adult children, however when I am with my parents I speak proper English because that is what they taught me as I was growing up.  As a child, I lived in England for four years of my teenage life and I spoke with an English accent but when we returned to America, I learn to speak like people I was around even if it was a southern accent or northern accent (Gonzalez-Mena, 2010).  I seem to be able to adapt to all types of accents and vocabulary of different culture (Beebe, S.A., Beebe, S.J., 2011).  I consider it a blessing to have that ability.

However, I had to learn to use the accents where it is acceptable.  As an educator, I speak formally with others, because of my position at work.  When I was teaching in the classroom, I spoke according to the words the children were able to understand, and then I would teach them the proper way of pronunciation and vocabulary usage.  I know I still need work on communicating in a public forum because there are many different cultures present and I become very confused on what accent or vocabulary to use.  Therefore, I have to find the third culture of my own language and use it wherever I go to establish great communication skills.  Practice will make perfection (Beebe, S.A., Beebe, S.J., 2011)

 .

According to Beebe,

“Adaptation across intercultural contexts is usually more difficult than adaptation within your own culture.”  (Beebe, S.A., Beebe, S.J., 2011)

Reference:

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

Gonzalez-Mena, J. (2010).  50 strategies for communicating and working with diverse families.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc

Communication skills: Language, Nonverbal, Listening

       I chose to watch “Living Single” in which I have never seen before.  While watching the non-verbal behavior of the show.  I saw quite of lot of nonverbal cues such as touching, using hands to communicate, facial expressions, and a lot of body language.  In fact, as I viewed the show with the sound off, I concluded that the show was about friendship and the feelings of others.  All characters of the show demonstrated nonverbal codes such as kinesics, the way their body movements and gestures sent messages.  In addition, there was the feeling of closeness of all the characters by their nonverbal behaviors.  Before I watched the show with the sound on.  I decided to see if I was right about what I saw in the non-verbal cues by making a story of the observation.  My story was that one of the friends was jealous of two or her friends doing things together without her.  One of the men in the show was tired and could not sleep, however when he was at his friend’s apartment, he console one of the girls that was upset at her friends, and then he fell asleep on the bed.  I thought that was rude and insensitive to her needs.

            However when I watched the show with the sound on I found I was right, except for the guy who was sleepy had found that her bed was squeaking and that is what made him fall asleep.  He had brought a new box spring for his bed and he missed the squeaking noise that helped him sleep nightly.  Although I was right about the girls and jealously due to the lack of not being involved in having fun with the other girls.  In conclusion, it could be because I have an Aunt who is death and I have watched television shows many times without sound.   

            This experience has taught me that I have a good eye for non-verbal cues.  In addition, I need to use this ability in everyday life to help with my communication.  The “aha” moment came when I found out I was on right about the verbal and non-verbal of the show and it is important to observe the non-verbal, as it is to listen to the verbal cues.  To my colleagues, I would advise to watch more shows with the sound off to build non-verbal skills.

Reference:

Hair, D. & Wiemann, M. (2009).  Real communication: an introduction.  New York: Bedford and St. Martin’s

Week 1- Communication

        When I think of someone who demonstrates competent communication, I think of my new supervisor, Sandy.  She is a person who speaks in a kind soft voice.  Sandy makes you feel that when she communicates to you about something that was not of good judgment, she communicates it as a learning tool instead of a punishment.  In fact, today, I had a conversation with her about communicating with staff, without them feeling that I am attacking them.  She told me that she reflects on what she said to someone before she claims if it is right or wrong.  Sometimes it is necessary to speak to a staff member immediately, but it should not be punitive.  If the staff member feels it was punitive, then take the time to reflect on how it came across to that person.  Examine the statement by asking questions like was it harsh, belittling, an inappropriate place, or time, or is that person extra sensitive?  She stated that once you have reflected over these questions and they were all no’s then you move on to the next task.  However, if it was all yes’s then you should make sure the person understand the statement in another way where it does not represent cruelty.

      My supervisor is always happy, with a smile, and she uses props to describe what she is saying.  Therefore, Sandy is a high degree of cognitive complexity (Hair & Wiemann, 2009).  I believe that is what makes her an effective communicator.

      I would love to learn to reflect and correct myself on communication to strengthen my communication skills with staff.  Being a supervisor, I have to make sure that my staff understands what I expect of them.  Therefore, the way Sandy reflects on written and verbal communication is the way I hope to be able to do as I grow in my career.

Reference:

Hair, Dan O., Wiemann, Mary.  (2009). Real communication- an introduction.  (pp. 3-28).  New York.  Bedford/St. Martin’s.