Group work

Today at school my tute group had to present a talk on a government model for training and retaining indigenous health workers. It went pretty well. I even managed to buy some cheap laughs by referring to the task as "an arduous assessment task cooked up by eccentric academics".

We had to submit a page to the lecturer afterwards outlining our contribution to the group and how we felt the group had worked together. I was originally going to submit a bit of garbage glossing over everything and saying nothing but how lovely everything was and how it was like an enchanted fairyland where nobody ever got angry or had to go to bed without their dinner, but then I realized that everyone probably writes that sort of nonsense. So I tried to write down what I really thought, and it was actually quite enjoyable and even a little bit educational.

Since I have had no other original thoughts today, I have decided to share what I wrote with you. I'd be interested to know what you think...

"I am part of group 16 which presented its talk today on the Canadian AHHRI model for training and retaining indigenous health workers.

"First, let me say that as a raging introvert, I always dread group projects. The process of trying to find a direction for the group without actually adopting a formal method of group leadership and decision-making is painful for me. This is exacerbated by my 7 years of prior employment in the public service which has given me a fondness for resorting to bureaucracy in order to resolve disagreements. Although I recognise that having formal meeting procedure and voting is too heavy handed for such a small project, I can't help but think it would have been useful a few times as a way of drawing the group's attention to an elephant in the room. More on this later.

"Fortunately, the group worked well together. Relations were always amicable, everybody was cooperative, and everybody contributed in roughly equal proportion. Out of everybody I honestly had the least impact on the final content of the talk although since I presented half the talk and wrote my own speaking notes (including hilarious knee-slapping jokes) I suppose that was my main contribution. I always tried to contribute to discussions that the group was having about the project, for example by encouraging people to explain their ideas or asking them to explain things that I didn't understand.

"I was pleased that everyone in the group seemed motivated to contribute, and that the group as a whole took the project seriously and wanted to do well.

"There was a small hiccup early on when the group's topic changed from an Australian model to a Canadian one due to difficulty locating information. Unfortunately, the decision to change was made without the input and awareness of the whole group, which subsequently led to a very confusing meeting where myself and possibly others were totally confused about what had happened and why and when. This meant that I, at least, was left thinking that the decision was probably made too expediently (as similar problems arose later with the Canadian model as with the Australian one) and I felt somewhat disenfranchised with the process. Due to this, my project libido took a hit for a week or so. I think that such a major decision should probably have been subjected to a group vote rather than a straw poll. However, given that I had an opportunity to suggest this at the time and chose not to, it's fair to say that my grievance was not major.

"My other sad memory was that we did not take the opportunity to present something more interesting than just a talk with slides. Early on I floated the idea of presenting the information in the form of a drama, with characters acting out the barriers encountered by indigenous health workers, and a "Mr Government" figure offering assistance. I think it would have made the final presentation much more interesting, albeit at the cost of having to do more preparation. The reception by the group was mixed, which is to be expected, but somehow the idea just drifted away without really ever being discussed seriously as a possibility and we fell back into the default option of giving a talk. I regret not drawing the group's attention to this and requesting a vote on the idea, as now it is hard to avoid the sneaking suspicion that we took the easy way out rather than acting out of more honorable motivations, such as stage fright.

"Overall I found the process a lot less unpleasant than I had expected (yes, my wife accuses me of being a pessimist) and I was satisfied with our final presentation which I think focussed well on the topic at hand. I think that working on this project helped us to bond better as a group and led to an improvement in our PBL tutorials, which is a nice spinoff benefit.

"This email has been circulated to all group members."

STOP PRESS! The lecturer emailed me back thanking me for my "honest appraisal". How disappointingly bland. I suppose getting 140 of these things would get a bit tiresome...