Communication Reflection Paper

1. Review the advantages and disadvantages of group work. How did they apply to your work on this project? In the chapter “Components of Small Group Communication”, the author identifies four advantages with working in a small group, including access to resources, better understanding and retention of the concepts, diversity of opinions, and creativity. I think our group was able to take advantage of all the benefits, as we could observe each other’s talk and give out feedbacks, opinions and suggestions accordingly. We were also able to share the amount of tasks and help each other complete them in time for the presentation. And since we had three people, we had more resources, more options to choose from and less time doing research. We did not experience as much the disadvantages of group work, which according to the reading, are coordination, social loafing, conflict and misbehaviors. I think this is because the number of members and the scope of the project were both very small, so it was not enough to create conflict or problems to our cooperation with each other. I believe with the bigger and more complicated project, the group work will definitely reflect more of both the advantages/disadvantages, and show our efforts more clearly based on the process and the quality of the outcome. 2. Review the norms of small group communication. What task, procedural, and social norms did your group establish? How well did the group adhere to the established norms? What happened when a norm was broken? How was conflict managed? There are three types of norms in small group communication: task, procedural and social. For our group, we did not have to “establish” the norms but rather they came naturally as we worked together. From the beginning, each person pretty much volunteered for the task(s) they were able to do and decisions were made based on the consensus of all members. After creating the outline for our talk, we divide the presentation into different parts and let...