I have struggled with working in a collaborative group setting for most of my academic career. I am very defensive when it comes to the quality of work that I submit, which poses a problem in groups where I do not have total control. It wasn’t until I took an approach to social research class that my mind was changed how to work in a group setting. What changed was we decided on each person’s role before the work begins and this allowed everyone to contribute to the group in an equal and fair manner. We worked with five specific roles for group work: the note taker, the reporter, the facilitator, the timekeeper, and the equal opportunity representative. Having these clearly defined roles in place before beginning any group work helped me to “let off the gas” a little and allow my peers a more active role in group discussions. I learned the importance of working with others to define the importance of a project and following through on my work without forgetting the group. Due to this, I learned many things from my peers that I might not have otherwise due to varied backgrounds and differing talents. I’ve even learned how to be a better leader when that role does fall to me, assigning tasks in a respectful manner and keeping lines of communication open. I’d like to demonstrate the work I’ve done with collaboration and leadership in three pieces today: the first project was a group final for a music theory class I took where I fell into the “leadership” role; the second project was a paper I wrote after collaborating with others on parenting principles; the third project is a group presentation I helped with that we did about the neural disease, Alzheimer’s.
The first piece I have on display is a performance of the song, “Yellow Bird” that was for a group final in an intro to music theory class. I fell into a leadership role for this project because I have a background with music theory and guitar. Learning a simple song on the ukulele posed no problem to me. However, the other members in the group had a much harder time learning the song. I had to be patient with each member, working within their limitations to teach them their parts for the song. Willem suffered a traumatic brain injury, so I had to overcome his limitations while not excluding him at the same time. One of the group members, Karina, went into that class with literally no background in music and she ended up blossoming, I hope partially as a result of my encouragement in helping her learn. I am immensely proud of the final product that we produced.
The second project I have on display is a “parenting principles” paper I wrote for an Ethics and Parenting class I took Autumn quarter 2019. We worked in groups to come up with sound principles based on published and peer-reviewed research. I recall us coming up with a list of over 100 principles, each backed by academically published papers. Had that task fallen to me, I would have been pigeon-holed into one or two things that I was already aware of. Of the final 10 principles that I produced for the paper, only two of them had been my original ideas. The other eight came from discussions I had with my peers in the class and the research that they produced. I feel much more confident in this project and have a stronger thesis with supporting arguments due to the collaboration with other students.
The final piece on display is a presentation I did for a Brain and Behavior class that I took Winter quarter 2020. I found myself in the role of group leader again, mostly because the other members seemed to think the project wasn’t going to be time intensive. I had to calmly and respectfully discuss with them at length that the project wasn’t difficult but it would be time-consuming. After much discussion, I finally succeeded in getting the group to meet together to go over individual parts and record our respective narrations. When the moment of truth came, the rest of the members of the group thanked me for pushing so hard for collaborating instead of doing four individual projects pushed together. It turns out I was right, that the project required much more work than the other three members had originally thought. Due to my calm and respectful yet firm leadership, I am proud of the project that we produced and it received top marks.
In conclusion, I feel that these three projects strongly support the work I have done in the areas of collaboration and leadership. IAS has forced me to learn to “step off the gas,” so to speak, and relinquish full control over the work that I do. Instead, I have learned how valuable it can be to work with others and how much can be accomplished by respecting diversity instead of shutting it down. I was able to produce a rather charming video performing a sweet song. I learned how “many hands make the load light” by relying on others to help produce a list of sound principles backed by science to plan for the day that I become a parent. Finally, I learned that gentle, respectful, yet firm leadership can take a group that doesn’t want to work together to turn around and produce an amazing presentation that I am proud of. IAS has helped me immensely learn to collaborate and be a better leader.