First, I was under no time constraints. Last week, I had to get to class for presentations and was frustrated by being cut off even though I had given up some class time. Looking back at it, I think what frustrated me the most was not the lack of my input, but delaying the students. I can empathize with students who are about to present being put on hold. The nervous energy must have been skyrocketing! But the group that did perform did a good job. This week, I have the flu and had called out for the second day in a row. (My wife turned me on to that term: "called out." She said you can't really "call in" to stay out! Made sense. I've been using the term ever since.) So physically I was trashed, but mentally I did not have the "Must Go Now!" mentality.
Second, obvious rule changes had taken place with respect to entering comments. This new norm was NOT spoken about, it just happened. That is why I had a problem with the group charter being declared "a list of our normative behaviors" because the research I have looked at says norms are created mentally, not in writing, and you only know you have broken a norm by breaking it and receiving the "punishment" of the other group members. In this chat, we specified who our comment was directed to versus just commenting. I had asked that we do that early on last week, but got no responses. This week, people would start or end their post with the name of the person the line was directed to instead of simply making a statement. "Yes, Ann, that is a good idea." "No Josolyn, I haven't heard from Grace." "Does that answer your question, Brent?" This new normative behavior was very successful and helped keep the conversation understandable. Biggest point? This was the perfect example of a group norm developing as it was unwritten and the "punishment" for not following it was a quick rebuke: "Who does that 'Yes, I agree' go to Stanley?" A "real" group norm!
Third, multiple people kept the conversation on track. Michelle, last week's group leader, joined Ann (this week's group leader) in reminding people what the question was and the need to finish the discussion of that issue before moving on. For example, Brent asked early on about naming a new group leader for next week. His post was ignored as we were discussing a different issue and when he brought it up again, I wrote that he was correct that it was ignored! Michelle then wrote a summation of what we were talking about and all agreed with the recap BEFORE we got to Brent's comment.
Finally, the phases of group development theory came out over the last two weeks as well. When groups first get together, they suffer from what Bales called "primary tension." Last week we were all wondering how we would work together, what our roles were, wondering about the class, etc. and our communication was kept, for the most part, in the abstract. This week, the communication was more concrete and very little use of abstraction took place. If somebody was being more abstract, "I think I should shorten my answer" for example, someone would immediately enter "Yes, Stanley, answer the question without all of the supporting material as we know that already. Refer to it and then answer the question." The preceding was a good example of how we switched to more concrete language choices in today's group.
We did suffer from what Bales called "secondary tension" when we were discussing who would be the next group leader as, initially, nobody wanted the responsibility going into our last week. As our charter specified that we would go in alphabetical order, Stanley should have been the Leader in Waiting (someone to help the leader out during the week) this week, but he had begged off. So I took his place as my name would never come up in the rotation for leader (being a "W"). So for next week it should have been simple, but the next person in line has not been as active as a leader should be due to outside issues. My name kept coming up and I really did not want to do it explaining that I had served the group already. Josolyn said she could not be the leader, but could serve as the LIW, so Stanley finally volunteered (as he was next in the alphabet) to lead us next week. This secondary tension should occur every time a group gets together and we are lucky that the conflict was substantive and not interpersonal (which we experienced last week).
Overall, a much more positive outcome for us this week in the chat room versus last. Moral of the story? I believe that we need to limit outside interference when meeting synchronously, enjoy the new norm of naming people when writing, and allow some of the socio-emotional aspects of the group to come out, but temper it with the need to fulfill the task at hand and our chat experiences should run smoothly. Chat rooms can work for a group!
