To me, after a lot of group work I see that teamwork is a vital component of human nature. By participation in various activities I was able to identify elements that involve good teamwork, through the mistakes that we made during the exercises. Good teamwork involves the awareness and consideration of all other group members. Everyone has a right to their opinion, which should be listened to and then in turn they should listen to everyone else’s views.

Group work is only successful if all members of the group give their all to the task at hand. Speaking out can become difficult if everyone talks at one time, consideration of others feelings in the group is very important. I am a confident speaker and during the exercises I expressed my views fully, although other members were shy and embarrassed to speak out; maybe they thought their views weren’t important. Leadership often occurs in a group to me this is someone taking command and using their initiative.

Other group members didn’t seem to appreciate this, but I feel that a good organised group needs a “head figure”, someone using their initative to guide the group and construct ideas into output for a realistic and achievable outcome. A lead figure must; * Listen to all others and not consider themselves to be more important and not suppress anyone else’s ideas. From various exercises were we were split into individual groups, we needed to work together and help and listen to one another to succeed. We only realised this after a long period of debate etc…

But we learned from this. Good teamwork involves commitment and persistence of the group. During “Broken Squares” I realised that the commitment of all members of the group was vital. In the individual group which I was assigned to, we got annoyed, frustrated and we quickly lost interest. Everyone needed to help one another otherwise it was impossible to complete this exercise. We finally got it completed through better organisation and communication. We came together looked at each others squares passed them around and got it complete even without talking.

In this particular exercise the group needs to commit fully, and even though we got fed up and bred we pulled through and managed to complete the task. In team work it is essential to share responsibility for the completion of tasks. In the “get to the other side game” we came up with a plan together before the task started. It failed but during the actual game we used our initiative and just shared the responsibility to help each other to choose a route across the squares to the other side.

The involvement of each group member is essential in this game everyone has the same responsibility as the group cannot finish until the last member of the team gets to the other side. In my group everyone every one started to talk at the one time, we got confused and gave away penalty points, it was important for every one to share responsibility and talk and share their ideas, but we soon learned that we had to take turns talking, as it became too confusing for the person on your team on the square grid to take In the instructions.

An example of teamwork involving risk taking is the “getting to know you questions”. I felt a lot of the questions involved were personal and therefore involved a lot of risk taking to answer the questions truthfully to people we were only beginning to know. I gained a lot of confidence from this question and answer task. I also thought it brought the group closer. I think that good teamwork involves the group being comfortable with each other and trusting each other with things that has occurred to your personal life.

I am a confident person, but I thought that every time I spoke out I was taking a risk because sometimes the group doesn’t share the same views as me and they would laugh now and then this can e very embarrassing, but nothing personal. Group work is all about planning, as it allows communication to occur. It gives people their chance to express their opinion. Planning is made easier if the views are written down.

It gives the group a chance to get a better view of the situation and work more together. It helps them to see what approach to take. However this is very seldom done. To ensure that the day’s activities are planned and agreed on together we write the views on the board and take a vote, this to me is a fairest way to do it. I think the whole team lacks the ability to sit down and plan together efficiently. In the “all in one sheet”We performed poor as we did not plan what we were going to do well.

Then someone shouted out an idea which we carried out and it worked, but if we had of taken some time to plan properly then the task would have been completed better and quicker. I think there needs to be active support for each member of the group as it is very important to make sure every one feels part of the team. Team work involves the ability to work together to achieve a certain goal, it should involve people feeling comfortable and it is up to each member to ensure that everyone feels welcome and secure in the group.

There has to be a level of trust present to take part in the tasks. Teamwork involves each member of the team. A good example of this the “all on one sheet” the whole team had to stick together and had to hold on to each other for support, we even had people on each others shoulders to fit everyone on the sheet. Trust was shown here as me and a few others were high in the air on someone else’s shoulders and we trusted them not to accidentally drop us.

If one person fell out of the sheet the whole team had to start again. This is where active support came in, and we gave this to the full in this exercise. Everyone was aware of the position of everyone else and it was up to the whole team to make sure everyone else was on the sheet. In the “building the squares” exercise we had to give each other support to finish their task, as the whole team could not finish until each individual in the team made their square. We had to work as a team.

In this particular exercise we had to motivate and give each other support and it contributed to the good output of the team. I think the team made a good attempt to understand and fulfil the elements of teamwork. I don’t think I was ever in a team which I would label as “bad” but there were a few times when groups I was in were we didn’t co-operate to the best of our ability. We didn’t support or listen to each other. Our whole class as a whole needs to develop their communication and contribution planning skill could also be sharpened.