Collaborating Productively

Working with each member of the orchestra to create beutiful music. Utilizing each instrument and musicians strength when playing and composing. Knowing when to lead with the melody, or follow with the harmony.

My Current Understanding

Being able to Collaborate Productively means working well with others to complete an endeavor. Collaborating Productively almost always requires a leader or leading body to organize and coordinate everyone. Collaborating Productively requires being able to recognize each person's strengths and weaknesses and understand their potential impact on the endeavor. You split the task among people so that together, they can maximize the efficiency and quality of the work. I think a really common misconception of collaborating productively is that people just split the work among each other. Collaborating Productively requires actual collaboration between people, not just each person working individually on the same project. Now, that's not to say that individual work can't be collaborative, in many projects, you can split up tasks individually. For example, in research, you might give each person a subtopic to research to try to get the most information out of your research. Instead of just doing your research, you would communicate with your other group members to strengthen their work. Research isn't the only part of a project however, when Collaborating Productively, you need to know how to properly distribute work based on each person's strengths and weaknesses. For example, someone who is a great writer, but struggles with research could be paired with someone who excels when researching, but can write very well. By tailoring work to people’s strengths, you can create the best work possible in the most efficient period.

My Growth

When I first started at SEEQS, I was fairly shy, and not very social. I hung out with my only friend at the time, David, who was a 7th grader new to the school and also did not have any friends. I had come from a really small school where everyone was good friends with everyone and my goofy personality was accepted as the norm. Coming to SEEQS, and interacting with the people who had been built by and conformed to social media, I was sort of rejected from everything.

Over time, I developed more confidence in myself, I adjusted to how things worked outside the bubble of my old school. That took all of 6th grade. Gradually throughout that year, I gathered more friends, eventually, along with David, becoming a part of a friend group of 7th grade boys. The first semester of 7th grade was when I found myself as a leader in group work, which became my role and strength through every group project going on from that point. Before that project, I was shy and weird and didn't work well with others. That project completely changed that and made me one of the best group leaders in the school. This has posed a weakness at times however, because I found myself in a comfortable and skilled role as a group leader, when I’m placed in a position of needing to follow, I can have trouble Collaborating Productively. For example, in my 7th grade elective class “Media Production”, we had a project about making a documentary about SEEQS. I didn't have anyone to work with at first so I joined a group that already had a designated group leader. By then, I wasn't used to working with others on the same level of authority or being told what to do.

This led to conflict with the group leader as I tried to take control and, all in all, a very poor representation of Collaborating Productively. I didn't find a beneficial role for myself in the group, and I mostly just caused conflicts and disagreements which slowed everyone else down. Following in group work is something I still struggle with as an 8th grader, especially if I'm working with someone a grade or two below me due to my fragile ego. I think I will continue to grow moving on into high school and become more able to be a follower. But next, I'm going to tell you in more detail how I found my place when collaborating, as a group leader.

My Project

That one project that really shifted my attitude around group work was in EQS the first semester of 7th grade in EQS TASC Force. TASC stands for “Transient Art for Social Change.'' In this EQS, we learned about three major injustices happening around the world, racism and bias, gender norms and stereotypes, and earth health. In this project we created a short scene about one of those specific injustices. Our scene was about the injustice of earth's health. It is about a man named Jerry who works at a factory that is polluting the water system. His wife gets sick because of this and Jerry reports the company which then shuts down. Then Jerry is fired because he said bad stuff about the company.

To create it, first we researched the injustice trying to come up with a main idea for our scene. We found water cleanliness to be an issue coming up more and more around the world. Then we began drafting the script. I was the group leader and I was grouped with David, Hanuma, and Jayson. We ran into several problems along the way when drafting our scene. This was because something hadn't worked out the way it was supposed to in our head, or we had to rethink some of the basic parts of the plot. We eventually finished with a script we were happy with and that was based on real problems we had learned about from our research. Next, we finished building the set, props, and costumes we needed for our scene. And at long last, we started to rehearse. I acted as the director along with some side characters like Diane, Jerry's wife, and the doctor on the phone. We finished our rehearsing process with everyone having solid lines and blocking and a scene that effectively communicated our message. Finally, we had our project exhibitions where we performed our scene in a lineup of everyone's scenes for the parents and community members.

David (As Jerry) Speaking to me (His wife diane) after coming home from work

David (As Jerry) and Hanuma (As his friend and coworker Phil) going to their work station after checking in

My Diane costume the day of the exhibition

David, Hanuma, and I when I first tried on the Diane constume.

How It Connects

This project was my personal doorway into the collaborative worker and group leader I am today. This project ties into Collaborating Productively in many key ways. This was a group project, so we had to Collaborate Productively. One of the most prominent ways we Collaborated Productively was by delegating tasks based on people's strengths. Hanuma and David were sort of rowdy and liked to not do the work and get off task a lot. Jayson on the other hand was willing to help out with whatever and was more quiet. Because of this, we decided to let David and Hanuma plan out the plot and incorporate their humorous personalities into the idea process while Jayson did the bulk of the research and I wrote down everyone's ideas. By doing this, we maximized the efficiency and cooperation of the group because if David and Hanuma were doing research, they would have gotten off task and played games or just not done the work at all. I got them to do what they wanted to do anyway, talking to each other about funny stuff, in a productive way by having those conversations be about the scene and ideas about the scene's structure.

My group selected me as the leader which shows we knew when to lead and follow. There were several instances in this project that my group and I failed to Collaborate Productively. For example, David and Hanuma, as they were good friends of mine, often got me off task chatting and laughing with them and leaving Jayson to work alone. I also paid more attention to David and Hanuma and didn’t give full support and direction to all members of my group. David and Hanuma individually also didn’t always participate and do the work required of them by the rest of the group. Overall however, this project was the one that opened me up to group leadership and Collaborating Productively as a whole which I brought with me going forward throughout my journey at SEEQS.

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