What are group dynamics? Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group. When we built our first group, we really didn’t know how to start it, so we decided to follow group building process, first of all, know our team, so we decided to use some team building activities to help us get to know each other, building trust, facilitating communication and teamwork.After we introduced ourselves to each other in our first meeting, we decided use “show and tell” game to get to know each other better, it is a low-pressure way to help people learn about each other. holding a “show and tell” session where members share their hobbies and interests can help team members discover things they have in common. After we knew each other, it seems like we have a lot of things in common, so it is much easier for us to start conversation. According to Bruce Tuckman’s research, there are five stages for us to build a highly-productive team. The stages are: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. So when we shared story with each other, we were going through Forming stage, because in this stage, we were all positive and polite, some of us were anxious, we didn’t understand what the team will do and our team members’ role weren’t clear. After the Forming stage, we went into Storming stage. At the beginning, we decided to find a common goal, it is really hard for us, everyone of us had an idea, but end with doubt and frustration, we didn’t have any argument, but we had some common question: what does this class want? What is group development? Why should we do this? These questions stopped us for a long time, we really didn’t know how to solve these questions. In my own point of view, I think some of us began to have a panic, because we needed to do a presentation about group development. But Brain and Danielle did a great job leading us go forward, they kept coming up with new ideas and encouraging us, and finally we figured out an idea and began to move on. In the Norming stage, we began to create our project, we separated this project into different parts fairly and everyone of us chose one to start working. Sometimes culturally diverse group have difficulty in learning, as an international student, I had some questions about our project, my team member were all willing to help me, we were closer than before, we began to try out best to achieve this common goal, during this stage, we communicated online frequently, if someone had a question, other people were willing to help him/her. In the Performing stage, everything was good, our team operated like a well oiled machine, everyone did a great job and we communicated well. In the adjourning stage, we did a great presentation and achieve our goal, everyone was happy about it, we hope we will have a chance to work together in the future.
Through these stages, I understands the process of group building, it is not a easy thing, different people has different personality, in our group, our group member always be patient, if there is someone who has an aggressive nature, then our group would confronts more difficulties than we did. Sometimes the first time is the most difficult one, so when I joined the next group, the process became much easier than the first one, because everyone had a experience and understood how to deal with certain situations. I think communication is the key for a group, as a Chinese student, I don’t like talk too much, but from my group, I have learned that if we want to achieve a common goal, we must communicate well, everyone should make sure that we are on the same page, nobody is special, when I was in my first group I didn’t want to talk at the beginning, some of my team members had the same feeling, it was really awkward, Communication is a process because changes in events and relationships are part of a continuous flow. But sometimes communication can be
