Drawing to a close.

With it being the last blog of the semester, I would like to reflect a little bit on my experiences in COM 320 this semester.  Throughout the duration of the semester we have encountered many different aspects of small group communication; ranging from culture differences, to communication theories, to the different types of small groups.  I will say that this class was much different than what I first imagined it would be when I signed up for it and to be honest, I've really enjoyed it.  The way that Jasmine takes the material we have learned and puts them into practice through the activities we do in class is very helpful and also fun!

To reflect back on my favorite activity in the class would be a no-brainer.  The service learning project gave us a chance to work in depth with our small groups, it allowed us to be very creative and design an event from scratch, and also help out the community.  Although I have worked on community service projects in the past, I have never worked with such an elaborate type before.  This gave us the chance to develop our own project, work out the problems, and actually make the idea a reality.  We all had a lot of fun working on this and I would love to do it again.

With all that being said, even though this is our last blog, the class is certainly not over.  There are still three weeks remaining and I'm looking forward to what is in store.

Tyler Oehlman

The End

They say all good things come to an end and they sure do.  We have reached the end of the semester and everyone has made it unscathed.  We have made it through every presentation and had a great turnout to our service learning project.  Only a few more weeks and we are home free.  

As we draw to a close it is hard to stay focused though. With the weather becoming more like summer actually should be and grand prix week upon us it will be the toughest few weeks ever.  With our actual service learning project finished the only thing we have left is to present our check to the boys and girls club.  After that we have one last presentation then it’s all downhill from there.  Our group has worked together very well over the course of the semester and became pretty good friends on top of our scholastic involvement.  We never thought we would but we used a lot of what we learned in class to get everything done on time and do the best we possibly could.  Some of the assignments were pretty difficult, but we learned a lot and had a great time doing it.  I hope all the other groups had as much fun as us and hope they were successful with their projects as well.

Gary Burgin

Inside Scoop Vol. 7

Wow, this is a sad, sad day. You probably are wondering why I said this. Well, the reason why is that this is the last blog I will ever do for COMM 320. I have greatly enjoyed this class and feel that a lot of topics that I learned in the class will help me with my future endeavors. I am a Business Construction Management major and will be making deals and working with small groups my whole life. Now, when I am put into a small group situation I will be analyzing the group and just not be a part of the group. Depending on the type of people I will work with will determine what type of leadership style I may have to use. For example, if I am working with a group of guys that I have worked with for awhile and have built trust with them a laissez-faire leadership may be okay. Another example may be if I am working with people that have a reputation of not getting work done on time I may have to use an autocratic leadership style.

As far as Prestige Worldwide, we have one final presentation left to go. Last weekend was our Service Learning Project activity, and, in my opinion, it was a great success. We were all very concerned with the turnout, but were still able to field twelve cornhole teams, receive other donations, and just have a great time hanging out with everybody for a good cause. We had hot dogs and soft drinks on attendance, which were a big hit. Overall, I was very happy with my first Service Learning Project, and enjoyed it greatly. 

Tyler C. 

The End

I know I say this every semester, but where has the time gone?  It doesn’t seem that long ago that we began.  Still, in this seemingly short period of time, I’ve managed to learn a lot from COM 320.

I knew that I would probably find something in class that stuck in my mind, but I didn’t know what all I didn’t know about communication when I started.

A lot of people back in the day came up with theories regarding communication.  With the exception of playing Jeopardy, I don’t see myself ever needing to know their names, but the observations they made were helpful.

I thought that the lessons about verbal and nonverbal methods of communication were interesting to learn.  The things that presenting groups did to illustrate the points were good for entertainment, too.

The service learning project itself didn’t have much to do with communication, but planning the event required us to learn to work together and make long term plans.

Learning all this stuff makes me more aware of how I communicate with people and gives me something to fall back on when I need to know how to get my point across.  Next year, (which hopefully won’t pass too quickly) I’ll be looking for a job, and these skills will hopefully help me get one.

-Mason Moyer

And we are done

It seems like we just started working on our service learning project a couple weeks ago, but it has been over a month and we are done.  Our event went really well and we raised a decent amount of money for the Boys and Girls club.  Everyone at our cornhole tournament seemed to have a lot fun and everything went really smooth.  The best thing about it was how organized we seemed to be for not even knowing how many people were coming; although we did start a little later then originally planned.  I can attribute our success to the rules we set at the beginning of the project.  According to the structuration theory, a groups success comes from the rules and regulations they set up at the beginning of the group meeting.  I can say that we followed these rules very well and that really contributed to everything going well.  I can't believe all the planning and all the meeting finally are over for the service learning project.

Great Turnout

Over the weekend our group, Prestige Worldwide, hosted our Service Learning Project.  It was a nice day out for the event as well as a great turnout.  The even ran very smooth and our final winner was team Ben & Amnie. They asserted their dominance early on while running through the rounds in the winners bracket and followed up that success by beating the winner of the losers bracket in the last game by two points.  It was very close.  Though we had a great turnout and overall great event we still ran into a few problems.  The largest of which was bad timing with the campus wide volunteer event Boiler Blast.  Once we changed our starting time to 3pm we were back on track.

I think the largest reason the event was a success was due to the crisis planning COM 320 introduced us to.  I know it is not as serious as what we were introduced to, but the same principals apply.  We encountered an unforeseen complication in our plan and were forced to make a quick group decisions regarding our short term plan of action.  As we did not plan for Boiler Blast to be at the same time as our event we chose to change our schedule and notify each participant of the change.  While our crisis wasn't near the magnitude of what we went over in class the basic principals still applied.

Gary Burgin

Notes from the photographer.

(click the pictures for a larger view)
On Saturday, Prestige Worldwide’s long awaited, much anticipated Charity Cornhole Tournament took place.  The event was held at McCormick Place apartment complex.  Due to scheduling conflicts, only twelve teams showed up, but the event was a great success.



Cornhole, if you don't know, is a group sport that relies on communication between team members.  Throwing a bean bag from thirty feet away, a person can't always see where it's going to land, so their partner at the other side has to tell them what to aim for.  It's possible to play the game without interaction, but good communication skills are a plus.

All members of Prestige Worldwide participated in the event, except for me.  I was too busy taking pictures and video.  Things were well organized and everyone who participated seemed to have a great time.

Hot dogs grilled up by Prestige Worldwide were provided for players.  Only one of them was lost to Gary’s dog.

The players all competed well, and there were many close games.  In the end, the coed team of Ben & Amnie won.  They were rewarded with a cash prize and custom made t-shirts.

The whole point of the tournament was to raise money for the Boys & Girls Club.  Official figures have not been released yet, but I think that the local branch of the Club will be very happy with the money we were able to raise.

-Mason Moyer