1.7 Learning with a Group

Let’s review each of these three reasons one at a time, starting with why you learn more in a group than you can learn alone. The best illustration I know is when I get stuck on how to use a mobile app. So, I call my tech-savvy daughter (yes, I grew up before smartphones and still prefer to call rather than text) and ask her, “How do I turn this thing on?” Alone, my “learning zone” is limited. I can’t activate the app. I’m stuck. I can’t go any further. But then my daughter says, “Dad, you just touch this icon.” So, I touch the icon, the app is activated, the interface is pretty intuitive, and before long, I’m using the app like a pro! Think of your “learning zone” like in Figure 1.1.

So, for example, you ask a member of your group, “I don’t understand how to cite my sources in my speech.” Your classmate replies, “Oh, you just give the author’s name, the name of the article and the publication, and the date it was published. But you can give them in any order, so long as you mention them all. See, it’s like this. . . .” And in your next speech, you follow that advice and get a great grade! Then, later in the semester, a group member approaches you and asks, “I want to use PowerPoint for my speech, but I don’t know how to put pictures in my slides.” So, you reply, “Well, you start by clicking the Insert tab and then. . . .”

The second main reason this book emphasizes group learning is that peer support reduces your anxiety and increases your motivation. Being in a small group that you keep all semester gives you a safe and familiar setting where you can ask questions about anything you don’t quite understand. You can bounce ideas for your next speech off your group members and get some good suggestions. And as the semester goes along, being in a small group is like having your own “cheering section” when you give a speech in front of the class.

Then, too, being in a small group increases your motivation. Why? Let me illustrate with a teaching experiment I did some years ago. I split a college writing class into two parts; half the class wrote an essay assignment for the teacher, while the other half wrote the same essay assignment but were told their essays would be read by writing students at another university. The half who wrote for the teacher put more effort into using proper grammar and spelling, but the half who wrote for their college peers were more motivated to develop their ideas and content. The difference was the audience. A teacher feels like an “artificial” audience, but fellow students feel like (and are) a more “real” audience.

The effects of having a “real” audience are many. A “real” audience of classmates, of people who you really know, provides a realistic context for your speech. Because you can envision how these real people will hear your speech, you feel motivation. And when you’re motivated, that triggers what education theorists call inner speech. That doesn’t mean you talk to yourself. It means you engage in a mental dialogue that amounts to “How can I give a good speech in front of these people that I really know?” In turn, that pushes you toward skill development, or developing the skills to give a good speech. Finally, your application of these skills gives you an experience of success so that you can start to visualize how public speaking skills will help you achieve your goals for other audiences—employers, clients, customers—that you want to reach in the future. And as you visualize how you can reach these audiences, the cycle reboots. Figure 1.2 shows how this learning process works.

Since visualizing future success is important for learning, this book also follows a teaching practice called forward referencing. You’re probably familiar already with backward referencing or reviewing at each new step what you learned before. But to help you visualize where you’re going—to give you a blueprint, if you will—chapters in this book will also look ahead and explain how each step leads to the next steps. Remember how constructing knowledge is like constructing a building—block by block, one block at a time? We’ll not only look back at the building blocks we’ve put together so far, but also look ahead to the next building blocks. For example, in Chapter 2 “Best Foot Forward: Introducing Your Speech” and Chapter 3 “All’s Well That Ends Well: Concluding Your Speech” when you’re asked to practice reading a model speech introduction and a model conclusion before your small group and then before the class, we’ll explain how this prepares you for the next step of learning to deliver them from notecards without reading or memorizing. This way, as we go along throughout the semester you can visualize what the whole building will eventually look like.

Finally, learning how to collaborate Work cooperatively with others in a group to achieve a shared goal. with a group on a project is an essential skill in today’s workplace. A generation ago, most businesses were organized into multiple levels (president, vice presidents, directors, midlevel managers, junior managers, employees) and divisions (finance, administration, operations, sales and marketing, corporate communications, etc.) as shown in Figure 1.3. The technology didn’t exist to easily and instantly communicate and share information between different offices and locations. So, project tasks would be divided up. The different assignments were passed down the chain of command to the employees. The employees would perform their individual parts and send their contributions back up the chain, and management would assemble the parts into the finished project.

Today, however, networking technology allows businesses to instantly communicate and share information not only across the building but across the world. This development has given rise to networked organizations Companies that are organized as a “network of networks.” , or companies that are organized as a network of networks. Figure 1.4 is a graphic representation of a single network located inside a larger networked organization. Imagine that you’re a member of this single network. The members of your network team are clustered around a central node. You’ve been assigned a project and put on a team with members who bring all the skills needed to accomplish the project and who can instantly cross-communicate and share information with each other. That means you don’t have to wait for each part of the project to be completed before working on the next part. Instead, your team can discuss and collaborate on the various parts all at the same time.

Finally, imagine that your project team network is one of multiple such project team networks within your organization. When that happens, the networked organization might look something like Figure 1.5.

The point is that learning to collaborate within a group on a project will be an essential career skill after graduation. You can start learning that skill now, as you communicate in your small group—with people you may have never met before (just like in a real workplace)—on various class exercises and projects throughout the semester. To illustrate the important lessons you can learn, consider this Real-Life Career Scenario:

Let’s think this through. Our natural tendency, of course, is to avoid confrontation. So, your team goes to the vice president and makes her “aware” of the situation. Problem solved! Nice and neat! No messy personal confrontation! And your procrastinating team member immediately comes up with the missing portion of your presentation. Everyone has time to rehearse, make a great pitch to the client, and win the contract. Case closed, right?

But wait a minute. What’s your boss thinking? “I gave them that project, but apparently they can’t handle it on their own.” “Why are they passing the buck to me so that I have to do their dirty work?” “If there are negative vibes on that team, are they spreading negative vibes to other teams?” Then, too, you’re running the risk that the boss will impose a solution that’s not as beneficial for your team as the solution you could have worked out yourselves. Maybe after being “made aware” of problems on your team, the boss requires that you submit a draft and deliver your presentation to her, before you give it to the client—costing you extra time rather than saving you time. Or maybe the boss sends an assistant to watch your client presentation and report back to her.

Meanwhile, what’s your procrastinating team member thinking? “The team went to the boss and complained without even talking to me first.” “I’ve been dealing with some stuff at home and could use a little understanding. It’s temporary, and, when it’s over, I’ll be glad to pick up the slack when another team member needs someone to cover for her.” Thus, you’ve not only jeopardized your boss’s trust, you’ve also hurt the internal trust your team needs to function.

By now, you see the parallels to your own group experience. Your instructor is not saying, “Go away! Don’t bother me with your problems!” How to collaborate and communicate in a group is something everyone is just beginning to learn. Your instructor is there to mentor you through the process. But you should first take the opportunity to learn how to work out group relationships among yourselves. The good news is that, if you’re like the great majority of students that I’ve taught over the years, being in a small group that you’ll keep throughout the semester will give you time to develop satisfying group relationships and achieve success.