Comparing my experience working in small teams at school and college, I concluded how much they differ. I had to deal with project work in both cases, but with different people. The main difference was that in college, the level of interaction of the group was much higher; each participant was interested in the successful completion of the task. The school experience was negative because not every team member realized the need to do their job efficiently, a completely different degree of responsibility.
In college, unlike at school, each participant had a social role within the team. Each member performed the part of the work that he could do best this affected the overall quality of the work. Here, each participant did not hesitate to ask something and ask for the help everyone contributed and helped each other. The situation was different at school because the group was formed not by ourselves but by our teacher so, the group was initially heterogeneous (Child, 205). No one had clear roles because some had to perform several parts simultaneously. After all, someone was incapable of anything. The level of interactions within the group at school was significantly lower than what I saw in college.
In the school group, the organization is much-simplified someone collected information, gave it the correct form, and directly defended the final project. Some people did not influence the work, which was very frustrating for the other band members, and it was impossible to get them to do something (Child, 210). Each member felt like an essential link in the overall mechanism in college. Everyone served common group interests and felt responsible to the others.
We could have reached an agreement with all the band members, but for this, we needed to improve communication with those who refused to work. It was necessary to find out what they like to do and use it in our project. This task is not so simple because the school still lacks the awareness to engage in this kind of communication, especially with unpleasant people.
Works Cited
Child, Jeffrey. Experience Communication. McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2014.