Teamwork Reflection 2018

Purpose: First teamwork reflection for PHY 202 of what teamwork means to me at this point in my course.

When enrolling in a Calculus based Physics course, such as Physics 202, I did not expect to focus a majority of my time on teamwork and cooperation. I was more so interested in passing the course and achieving credit for my desired major. The flipped classroom concept is an interesting experience. Instead of being lectured at in a classroom full of strangers, the flipped model allows for a mixture of outside independent study and face to face interaction when the proper background knowledge has been achieved either through pre-recorded videos or assigned readings. The face to face interactions includes problem solving difficult questions and focusing on specific concepts that are hard to understand without physical modeled experiments. At first, I was quite skeptical about this style of teaching. It took me a while to adjust myself and thus be aware of the strengths and weaknesses that I posses and, in turn, be able to seek specific guidance when necessary. Overall, I was able to witness several benefits to this type of classroom – one of them being the ability to effectively collaborate in a team setting.

In a general group setting, I would say that I am the type of person to keep to myself until I am almost one hundred percent certain of what I am doing, what I am going to say, and how I am going to say it, especially in a scientific setting. However, in college, and in life in general, does everyone really know what they’re doing all the time? Before midterms, the CATME data that I received included comments such as “she is quiet,” “you should speak up more,” and “I would like to hear you opinions.” I did not notice that I was giving off a reserved vibe. These results made me feel almost embarrassed thinking about the assumptions being made of me based on whether or not I spoke up, regardless of the problem-solving journey that was going on in my head. I began to understand that the perceptions of an individual, whether correct or incorrect, determined the overall environment of group interaction. Teamwork is more so of thinking together as a unit, defining unachievable options, and thinking of over the top ideas to actually solve a problem. Thus, I decided to step it up and sharpen my physics skills in order to be able to contribute fully, because I can not depend on others to come up with all the ideas and put in all the effort.

Communicating was an essential group value. As time went on, and as we all spoke out loud more often, the group dynamic became very friendly and collaborative. We all had different ideas and accepted our cluelessness that often occurred. It felt like we were all on the same grounding with different kinds of skills to offer. I also noticed the skills that I had to offer. Surprisingly enough, preparing for class and actually doing the reading helped when taking quizzes and working on problems. Thus, I was more confident in talking about physics itself and expressing my ideas more often. During the TBLs, I had the ability to know whether or not we were all going in the right direction for discussion and the ability to discern if we were way off the direction in which we needed to go. I could tell when team members felt uncomfortable in their own confusion and would alleviate stress by expressing my own cluelessness and also breaking down questions so that they were easier to understand. I believe the mood of “we are all in this together” really expressed our equal grounding. Overall, I think having confidence in my abilities and in my self, proved to be the driving force that allowed me to become a better team player. The CATME results that I now get have comments such as “You definitely seem prepared for class”, “she really contributes to the discussion”, and “you often catch mistakes and misconceptions.” However, I still have to work on “pushing more for [my] answer choices.”

Even though I have gained confidence in my physics abilities, I still have a hard time proving my thoughts and essentially convincing the group to follow my lead. I would say, that I am not the stereotypical definition of a leader. I like to guide and move people around because I can tell their unique skills apart, however, it’s hard to be authoritative and make others follow me. It makes me somewhat uncomfortable thinking of the responsibility that comes with the job such as “what if my answer is wrong and we get points taken off our quiz” because I don’t want to be at fault for mistakes. It is something that I am still trying to work on and believe have gotten better at. For instance, in the last TBL, I expressed my struggle with knowing the answer but worked through my thought process out loud not necessarily having concrete evidence but generally speaking what I believed to be true.

Being in a leadership specialization and majoring in Business Management, such as in my case, leadership itself and the ability to persuade is an important skill that I must strongly work to develop. My experiences stem from taking courses such as Public Speaking, Bridge to Business, Organizational Behavior, and Leadership 101. In theory, I have the skill set available to demonstrate leadership, however, I have had little practice in the real-world. I believe that group work within this class has prepared me to further be able to point out the areas in which I am doing well and other areas in which I need to improve. I will keep improving especially at a community such as Agnes Scott College which allows for experiences such as the one mentioned above.