Thursday, May 6, 2010

Experience from Group work and learning process


There was a great deal of experience in the group work and learning process of the whole course.
I, at the beginning of the course, was not positive about working in a case which is totally different from my background. But that was my first lesson since I did not prioritize and submit my choices properly. Then after deciding to go on with the case, we found out soon that one group member was not able to continue with the course. This was also discouraging, because it was like losing one opportunity of sharing different thoughts and experiences. Moreover the load on the 3 members left was predictable to be higher.
My first weeks of the course were then full of busy days finding background information about the case and familiarizing myself with the subject. I spent too much time not knowing which was relevant to our group’s case. Here the group discussions helped a lot. I brought all the information, in my understanding, to the discussion table and it was easier to sort out the relevant ones. I usually felt that my group mates have in one way or another come across water related topics; they were not total strangers. Fortunately, they were smart enough trying to find out everyone’s potential, information and way of contributing to the group work. I learnt how vast information from different sources can be brought to discussion to make it a sensible project plan.
Then the whole process was time taking with lots of meetings and discussions. I noticed finally that our mails and calendars were full of SGT meetings. Personally, even if I was giving the course all the energy I had, it often seemed a bit challenging to be satisfied with the result. Adjusting proper time for other course studies was also another challenge to overcome. It was really time demanding. Especially the last two weeks of the course were demanding for me. After all the group managed to do more than enough having the least number of members per group.It was wonderful to see the final results and visible outputs of the group work; wonderful enough to make me forget the exhausting days.

No comments:

Post a Comment