9/16 Pre-Class Reflection
During these first two sessions, I found communication to be most effective when in small groups. More specifically, communication was most effective when we had broken into smaller groups to work on a given assignment. The format made it easy to share one's understanding as well as for people to ask clarifying questions as needed. One person's understanding became the group's understanding very quickly. In contrast, in larger group formats, or in inter-group formats, where back and forth communication was slower or not possible, this was far less effective. The ability to ask clarifying questions and to have a back and forth between members was integral for successful communication. Even when creating supposedly comprehensive directions, there were little things that the authors considered implicit that were lost, resulting in a various different mistakes. The ability to quickly get clarification would have solved this very effectively.Â
As far as features that support communication, the biggest thing that comes to mind, both from the activities and from this reflection, is that communication needs to be open and reciprocal. It is incredibly important to be able to ask questions, and have a brief discussion about them. I would argue, it is far more important to be able (feel comfortable/have space) to ask so called "trivial" questions. Quick clarifying questions are often the most efficient at resolving confusion in previous communication. Everyone makes mistakes, and no explanation or set of instructions is going to be perfect. Being able to ask, "what did you mean by this?" or "are you sure about ____" is incredibly important for ones understanding. For communication to be effective, it must go both ways. Simply sitting and listening to a lecture (or the written equivalent) is far, far less effective.