The Code Red Event presented an insight into the dangerous, volatile world we live in today. The event posed many questions, some of which addressed the scientific process, and others, our abilities. It challenged each attendee in many ways, but for me, I was left with only one question. How, as a future scientist and Christian, can I improve at Baylor through personal growth? Our planning and eventual completion of the assigned task was actually due in part to the scientific method. During the event, chaos ensued and a frantic scramble began as people tried to establish leadership and stand out from the crowd. I quickly realized how important it was to remain calm during this event. It was an exercise meant to help us improve, not to see …show more content…
As I walked along the halls and grounds of the campus I noticed something amazing. Almost every student had on Baylor colors or apparel. Out of every college I visited only Baylor can make such a claim. I began to ask every student I saw the same question, “What do you think about Baylor?” and the response was incredible. Every single student answered that it was the best place in the world. Before I visited Baylor I already knew I was a driven person, dedicated to whatever I chose, but after seeing drove after drove of happy Bears I realized I wanted to be a part of the Baylor tradition. Every student at Baylor had a drive so deep and profound, it must surely be from the Lord. I realized that I could work harder, and be more dedicated to a worthwhile purpose. I could grow and become more driven in a Christian environment like Baylor. This weekend was full of opportunity’s to grow and learn, about myself and others, and in these opportunities I see a chance for …show more content…
I saw how applying these methods, to a problem we had not been educated for, nor prepared to face, brought the problem down to a manageable level. Hypothesis, Procedure, Conclusion etc.: these cold and detached words used by students and emphatic researchers came to life in a room full of chaos. By using the scientific method we were able to successfully identify and prescribe a plan of action for the hypothetical crisis. In learning about the scientific method, I also learned about myself. I realized that I am willing to go the distance to achieve my goals of helping others, and Baylor is the perfect school to pursue these goals. The strong sense of community at Baylor fosters a kinship among its students. Every person at Baylor is proud of being a Bear. Green and gold is like the field of dandelions promising a glorious future and offering a sign, fostering proud students and inspiring who they will become. I want to be a part of that line. Baylor asks much of its students, and who much is asked of, much is required. I excel when challenged, and I feel like Baylor is the perfect mix of risk and
One of the main issues impeding the efficiency and preventing successful teamwork in this situation was uncertainty with the structural design of this project team. I was more familiar (and comfortable) with a rigid chain of command structure. My belief that we should be precisely executing the stated orders of our Navy leadership created obstacles for the other team members. Other more academically inclined team members were less oriented toward this centralized structure and therefore did not comprehend my opposition to their content ideas.
Instead of making decisions independently, now people always rely on others, such as groups or computers, to help them make a decision. Small groups often gives people different points of view and let people understand their situation much more clearly. However, these opinions from others may not be suitable for everyone. James Surowiecki uses the story of the Columbia Disaster to discuss efficiency of small groups. In his essay “Committees, Juries, and Teams: The Columbia Disaster and How Small Groups Can Be Made to Work”, Surowiecki tells us how the small groups can work properly instead of making people “dumber”. Even though, the small group contains people with great
In class we had to work as a group to take notes which was somewhat of a challenge for me because I my note taking skill is unique to most others. I had to compromise on a strategy with my group; while working in a group it is important to not simply acquiesce to the ideas of a majority, but to also be able to present your own ideas in a respectful manner so that the best strategy is set forth. This is a skill I will have to carry with me in other classes and in my future occupation. I will also use this skill while practicing as a physician because medicine is a collaborative effort. It is a practice that is dependent on the work and talent of many instead of one person. Now I realize that this class will allow me to gain a better understanding of how anatomy relates to other sciences like chemistry or biology, and even more on how I can apply all three of these sciences simultaneously in my
Even though the groups possessed positive characteristics, their disadvantage was the lack of group development. The leaders could have taken more time to develop the team and encourage open communication. While it was important for members to have an authoritative figure on the mountain, it would have benefited them to rely on each other resources early on in their journey. Identifying and acknowledging the assets of their co-members could have played a factor in members creating support groups early in the ascent and ultimately led to more informed decision making while completing the task.
A relevant example is the ‘Nasa’s Moon Survival Test’; it has shown during the class that when people work together, they share their ideas, experience and knowledge and they get a better score than when they do the test individually.
In 1972, Irving Janis presented a set of hypothesis that he extracted from observing small groups performing problem solving tasks; he collectively referred to these hypotheses as groupthink¹. He defined groupthink as “a quick and easy way to refer to a mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ striving for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action²” A successful group brings varied ideas, collective knowledge, and focus on the task at hand. The importance of groups is to accomplish tasks that individuals can not do on their own. The Bay of Pigs, Watergate, and the Challenger disaster are all forms of failure within a group. Specifically, you can see the effect of groupthink of Americans before September 11, 2001. The thought of harm to the United States was unfathomable, but only after the attacks did they realize they were not invincible. When a solid, highly cohesive group is only concerned with maintaining agreement, they fail to see their alternatives and any other available options. When a group experiences groupthink, they may feel uninterested about a task, don't feel like they will be successful, and the group members do not challenge ideas. Stress is also a factor in the failure of groupthink. An effective group needs to have clear goals, trust, accountability, support, and training. Some indicators that groupthink may be happening are; making unethical decisions, they think they are never wrong, close-minded about situations, and ignore important information. Many things can be done to prevent groupthink from happening. One way is to make each person in the group a “critical evaluator”. The leader must ...
Upon completing the Everest simulation, it was obvious that in order to complete such a simulation direct actions had to be taken which were carefully thought out. This which was done by sharing resources between the whole team and ensuring individuals met their own goals. My role as the observer was assumed to help and advise the team along their journey through the simulation, although this was very limited help as it wasn’t first hand it was still a learning experience. The simulation itself offered restricted time to complete the task and so we found ourselves to not be able to complete the tasks efficiently within the time given.
It was already Friday, the last day of the conference. I was melancholic, I didn’t want to leave. On the other hand, my heart rejoiced of felicity because those two days had been the best days of my entire summer. It was 1:00 pm; it was time for the groups to present themselves at the conference and explain the projects they had done to help their community in order to promote a peaceful environment. My group presented our project “Mapping”. A project where we had to map our community to identify the areas that needed the most help with. I was surprised by how many people raised their hands to ask constructive questions after we ended our
The main challenge was the conflict between individual goals and team goals and thus collaboration using the information displayed to us about our resources, weather forecasts, health and hiking speed was a must. Based on this information we build our plan of trying to reach team goals while also focusing on personal goals. Reaching the summit was a common goal so we based our plan to move from one camp to another as a group. The plan was put into practice when the physician provided the inhaler to the Environmentalist and we as a group decided to wait before continuing our journey. There was also a conflict of goals two of the team have the option to earn a point for staying extra day at camp while others didn’t have this option and thus we decided to change the plan and respond to the changes so we divided the team based on the option of either staying at the camp or continuo hiking to reach the
The cohort participated in a desert survival simulation, in this simulation the cohort was divided into two groups. Each group was given the same scenario. The scenario involves the two groups being in a plane that has crashed in the desert. My group was asked to determine what we thought our ultimate goal was? Were we going to hike out or stay with the wreckage? Then once that determination was made, we had to rank order a list of items in order of their importance to achieve this goal. At first my group had conflicting notions about what to do. Were we going to stay with the wreckage? Were we going to hike out? Then there was the list of items. Which items were most important to the group? Which item was the least important to the group? But towards the end of the exercise we used synergistic decision making to come up with what we thought would get us to our ultimate goal, which was being seen and being rescued.
Thus, if we visualize how uncomfortable it must be to set in a circle with half a dozen participants with a trainer and/or team of observers analyzing your every word and gesture. And then take into account that the group is restricted to focus all discussion in the here-and-now without any given agenda, in the presence of a trainer ready to interfere if anyone strays from the rules. The author agrees that this format sounds like a situation ensured to promote participant frustration, anger, and resistance. Appropriately, a large portion of this resistance is a result of performance anxiety. The majority of attendees are professionals who are used to mastering the necessary skills for success (Weis et al., 2009). But, the ability to interact naturally and genuinely in the present moment without an agenda is not an easily mastered skill and they become frustrated and angry with the format and the trainer (Weis et al.,
We believe this was the moment our group began to transition into the Norming Stage. During this part of the assignment it was crucial for us to communicate effectively in order to ensure that everyone had an understanding of what was required from each perspective. Thus, once we began the research, everyone did a great job of keeping the group goal in mind by finding sources that could be used for every perspective. Additionally, each member kept their personal goals in mind and submitted the required research to our shared document at the agreed upon time. This was a perfect example of how we dealt with a group dialectic. Another dialectic arose when it came time to finalizing who would present each perspective. Some of the group members did not want certain perspectives because they did not have as much knowledge in that subject area as other members did. Furthermore, some group members did not want a certain perspective because their personal opinion might have had an effect on the assignment. In the end, we were able to balance the heterogeneous and homogeneous characteristics of our group members by asking questions, having trust and exhibiting strong communication
It’s a Mid-August day and you have just crash-landed in a desert. You and four other passengers are uninjured, but the pilot and co-pilot of the plan are deceased and the plan is destroyed. You are 70 miles from the nearest known habitation and 65 miles off course of your original flight plan. The temperature outside is 130 degrees and you have minimal water and scarce provisions. This was the situation that was presented to us as a group (Group C). Our task was to rank the provisions in the order we perceived their significance. Group C incorporated a synergistic decision making style which combined problem solving and interpersonal relation skills to reach a cohesive group resolution that provided self-actualization among group members.
It is actually like the example in the notes; I was in an elevator and two people came in and turn backward like not the normal way people stand in an elevator. I just stood there like, “what are you doing?” I was so confused. Then one more person came into the elevator and did the same and by that point I turned around too. One person got off and another on and they at first stood the normal way, but then looked around and also turned. It will always be something I will remember because the fact it is so simple of a change but it felt so wrong to do at the same time. Before taking this class I never thought that could have been an experiment to see what people would do. I kind of want to try it myself to get reactions from people. When they say that groups are powerful influences they aren’t kidding. I could probably think of many more things that I’ve been influenced on by
What happened was that six individuals became a team and the team gave itself wholeheartedly and spontaneously to co-operation in the experiment. The consequence was that they felt themselves to be participating freely and without afterthought and were happy in the knowledge that they were working without coercion from above or limitation from below. They were themselves satisfied at the consequence for they felt that they were working under less pressure than ever before. In fact regular medical checks showed no signs of cumulative fatigue and absence from work declined by 80 per cent.