Week 16, Question 3

One of my favorite concepts that we went over this past semester was active listening. Listening seems like one of the easiest things we do, but after I learned more about this concept I realized that there have been numerous times in my life where I have not been an active listener. Active listening is more than just sitting and listening to someone talk. When you are an active listener you are actually listening to what the speaker has to has and you are letting them know you are paying attention verbally and nonverbally. Anyone can sit in front of a speaker and look like they are listening when they are really off in their own little world. It takes a lot more effort it show someone that you are really listening to what they have to say. I know I have a hard time actively listening when I am in a class and I'm stressed and have a lot of other things going on in my life. That is when my mind tends to wander and I don't listen like I should be. When I catch myself listening I have to refocus and pay attention to what is going on.

Week 16, Question 2

I have learned many valuable things throughout this semester that I will use for the rest of my life. Small group communication is something that I know I am going to be involved in in my professional life and my personal life and I have learned many skills to improve the skills I had before I took this class. My favorite thing about this class was the blog we had to keep. I thought it was an interesting way for the class to interact. We could have easily done our discussions on desire2learn like the majority of the other online classes, but the blog was a creative way to conduct the class. Although I really liked the blog, my least favorite part about the class was the time restrictions. I know the time restrictions were set to keep us on top of our work, but sometimes it was hard to make sure I got it done because I would get really with other schoolwork. That is the only thing that I disliked. I really don’t have any suggestions to improve the class because I thought it was run very well and I really enjoyed it.

Week 16, Question 1

I really liked the group observation project. I thought it was a really good way for us to actually get a chance to apply what we learned to a real life situation. Especially since this is an online class and we didn’t get the chance to interact with our classmates face to face. I thought that the exercise was very useful to me personally. I was able to look at my small group from a completely different perspective. I have observed this group before, but this time it was different. I picked up on things that I hadn’t before. I feel that I picked up on more detail than I would have if I didn’t learn the various course concepts. One thing that I thought was very good about this project was that it got us out there and had us practice our skills before we get out there in “the real world” I don’t have any suggestions for improvement for this project. I thought it was good just the way it was.