How well your group communicates with each other affects how you work together and how task information is stored, managed and shared. Good communication is an advantage for any group. Let's learn how to foster effective communication.
Agree on how to work together
Successful groups make decisions as a group and expect all members to contribute equally to the task.
Share your contact details and agree on the best way of keeping in touch.
Meet face to face where possible to make decisions and work together effectively.
Write a group charter to outline how you will work together, what expectations members have and how you will approach the task. Group members need to agree on the charter and sign it.
Here's an example of a group charter:
Group charter: members' responsibilities
All members agree to:
respect group members, demonstrate sensitivity and encourage learning
be fully committed to the group task and your individual agreed responsibilities
work according to the agreed time frame
give and receive feedback about your work and participate in group discussions
attend all meetings unless unavoidably prevented
agree to resolve conflict according to the group's agreed process as soon as it arises
ensure that all group members contribute equally to the task by addressing problems with tasks as they arise
agree to collectively read and edit the final group report or essay
provide contact details and respond to group communications as required
Signed:
Date:
Sharing ideas
Hopefully, in your first meeting you will have decided how you will communicate as a group. Here are some tips for what can be covered in your next meetings.
You should:
report on your work: what you have done, what you have learned, what you still need to do
address problems and talk about possible solutions (product and process problems) as they emerge
ensure everyone has a chance to speak without interruption
make decisions about individual responsibilities for actions; e.g. the development of the group's points for the report / presentation
address the issue of members not contributing ideas, if relevant, and stress that all opinions are needed and valued.
Set an agenda
Before the meeting, the note taker can send out a request to group members to suggest any topics that need to be discussed. They can then create an agenda that that has a description of each item that needs to be discussed by the group, a field for where the name of the person/people who is responsible for the task and space the actions that need to be completed.
Here's an example of a meeting agenda:
Item
Responsibility
Action
The task
All members
Brainstorm the task: each member articulates their understanding of the task
Summarise group understanding of the task
Distribute summary with other notes from meeting
Assignment part 1 and 2: information search
All members
Assign two members to each section
Discuss search strategy databases
Set deadline
Attending meetings
Josefa (leader)
Discussion of importance of attending meetings
Discussion of how absence affects the group
Reminder of the group charter
Discuss schedule for upcoming meetings
Lin (note-taker)
Discuss group member avialability for the next week
