Reflection

Theme of Portfolio: Teamwork

My main contributions to the project were: thinking of the "car wash" metaphor to capture the 3-part sequence of our overall exhibit design flow; designing the flap curtain doors (with input from other members) for the entrance and exit to the sensory tunnel to achieve as much darkness as possible, completing the sewing machine training (I also did the trainings for 3D printing and laser cutting), ordering the fabric and supplies, sewing these curtain doors, contributing photographs of transitions from my life, executing and editing four interviews for the gallery of portraits (Sr. Aline, Joyce, JoAnn, and Julia), and contributing a question to the class survey on the section of the exhibit where we would not be able to directly observe people's user behavior and experience (the middle section of the experiential tunnel). I provided feedback to others on the elements they were designing and invited a dozen or more people to the museum exhibition (about 10 of them came!). 

I assisted the collaboration in our group by suggesting a standing meeting time (9-10 am before class most Wednesdays), creating the Google folder for our group work/notes and a shared WhatsApp group for ongoing texting, taking photographs each time we met or worked for potential use in our portfolio and putting them in the shared folder, securing storage space in Campion for our materials (there was a lot of storage needed because of the size of our exhibit), drafting the Google Slides presentation that would showcase the Transition portraits within the exhibit, and building the basic structure of our Google Site portfolio and contributing content. 

As a spiritual director, it is not surprising how this "powerful idea" of transitions appealed to me or how much I enjoyed interviewing people about life transitions for this project. I can imagine much longer conversations that would comprised qualitative research about transitions, not only short testimonials. 

Two of the people I interviewed talked at length (20-30 min.), and this made editing and trimming necessary. I was concerned that no one would watch a ten minute interview. To my surprise, in fact, many people watched these two longer interviews with interest. For example, my friend who is a Jesuit priest who attended the Museum found Sr. Aline's reflection her work as a vowed religious woman living and working in a different country really inspiring. As a Jesuit from Vietnam, he is also living in a community with people whose first language and culture are different than his own and found her insights helpful and inspiring.  As for editing, I enjoyed adding some still photos (where possible) from the people's lives to close out the video.  

I also enjoyed the sewing task as it reminded me of my now-deceased mother, who taught me how to sew and was quite the seamstress (in addition to being quite the elementary school principal). 

Part of my motivation to helping to establish a regular meeting date outside of class and creating the scaffolding within the Google Suite of tools was because I was traveling to present at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual conference the week immediately prior to the final Museum exhibition day. I contributed four interviews for the gallery of transition portraits because it was something I could do ahead of time, and I enjoy hearing people's life stories. I also had a clear idea for how GoogleSlides could be used to create the gallery given my work in the classroom and on a research project here at Boston College. Seeing the path forward on how to utilize GoogleSlides for the purpose, I created "the gallery" with templates my classmates could use when their videos were created. I was pleased with how this element of the project turned out and how deeply people engaged with this element of the exhibit. 

I have created several online portfolios over my educational career, so I had some sense of how a GoogleSite could be created for this purpose and shared by our team. Again, I took the lead on this aspect of our project because it was something I could do ahead of time (before leaving for AERA) and because I desired greater clarity in advance for our class assignments. I really do not like to scramble on assignments - group projects or otherwise. In high school I learned the motto "The best defense is a good offense." I tend to work ahead on my tasks so as to avoid stress and scrambling to finish or turning in work that is subpar. I have high expectations for myself (and others) and often have found that with enough lead-time impressive quality results are possible. 

Even though I have played on numerous team sports (including a track relay teams and field hockey teams), have taught on interdisciplinary teams and co-planned curriculum for most of my teaching career, and am married, I was still surprised on how much communication was really necessary to insure that we were "on the same page" as one another in this group project. For example, when we were asked by Fran for greater clarity on what size we were imagining for the photos in Section 1 of the exhibit, I was suprised that we gave her three different answers! We then talked through (again) our ideas about this part of the exhibit and came to a shared idea for the different sized images that were needed to create the effect we desired. 

I experienced some frustration in not getting responses from my group mates when I asked a question in our WhatsApp group chat (this also sometimes happened in person, as if I was not heard or somehow couldn't signal effectively that I had a question). When working as member of a team, I am used to ongoing, collaborative conversations, and people updating one another with whatever we get done / need help on or to celebrate successes / get support when feeling fatigued or setback. This team had a different amount of communication than other collaborative teams I have worked on.  

Late in our group process, I remembered the Tuckman's group process model "Forming-Storming-Norming-Performing" that we had used at the experiential education camp I worked at in college. These moments of disappointment in not hearing back or having different ideas of what we needed to get done or the needed timeframe to execute the project was helpful to reflect on in light of "Storming." I am somewhat adverse to conflict and have a hard time when it seems as if my expressed needs are not acknowledged. "Storming" is more conflictual word than accurately captures my experience was in this group, though. It was more like not "gelling." This experience provoked self-reflection in me on when and how to "lean in" into more of a leadership role or to get my needs met and when to "step back" and allow others to share the workload or to let my hoped-for outcomes go.  

I think our group "peaked" (or were "performing," to use Tuckman's wording), when we set up for the Museum. All of us being able to spend a few hours together on Tuesday evening and again early on Wednesday morning to set up the Exhibit worked well. We worked steadily and without stress or conflict that evening and in the morning. 

In the end, I realize we impressively kept to an ambitious vision of what we wanted to create and did so in a way that truly felt and was a team effort. 

Through this group project, I was struck by how I do best in a group that has a clearer leadership structure than ours had. Even though we had set aside time to meet regularly, these times could have been more productive and focused if we also set agendas or goals for this time. Instead, we tended to check in at the start of the time and then determine what we could get done during the remaining time. Sometimes there were parts of the project that had no clear ownership or plan for execution, which made me wonder how and if these elements would come together. I felt like I was already pushing ahead on pieces of the project because of my scheduling needs. Because we did not have a designated leader for the overall project (only for specific parts), I needed to discern when it would be helpful me to "lean in" and when to "step back" on the whole group process and just let things be as they were going to be. I am someone who can sequence longterm projects ahead of time and can serve as a leader of a team, but I more easily step into this leadership role when designated. 

Another insight for me came from observing what group members needed "to think" (or Imagine, to use the language of the figure at the top of this reflection) about the project. Some engaged with to the prototyping models we made early on in the Maker Space (or Plan ➡️ Create) whereas others focused on their individual part and seemed to need to have the exhibit in actual size and around them in the moment of set up (Create ➡️ Test & Improve) in order to think through possible problems and possibilities. These modalities of "planning ahead through prototyping" and "revising in the moment of set up" each added to the process, which culminated in a dynamic and engaging exhibit by the day of the Museum. It is helpful for me to see in retrospect how these different ways of thinking and our different needs in the design process helped us create what were able to as a team.  Alone, nothing so dynamic or engaging would have been possible.