Participant-Observer Exercise Essay

First of all, I am grateful to all class members and our instructor for the experience that I was able to acquire during this course. This is a good example of experiential learning – here we all had opportunities to transform our theoretical knowledge into real life experience. It really proved effective. I may also note that the last group engagement exercise did not disprove my previous hypotheses: with time and the experience of joint work we all got more confident about the tasks, and with the raise of confidence our productivity increased. I think we all got to know each other better and it increased the level of confidence. My hypothesis for this week is: â€Å"Group work gets real meaning and becomes more productive when group members bring in their personal insights and personal experiences instead of confining themselves to theorizing and relying on common sense. † At first, we knew each other too little to be open and share our personal experience. With time, we got to know each other better and gradually became more relaxed about sharing our thoughts. I think it had a positive impact on our performance. It helped to provide more examples of the concepts we presented. Our task was to discuss experiential learning and how it assists in exercising leadership and understanding group dynamics. We focused on several chosen principles in our presentation, and each of us was able to vitalize theory by referring to specific examples. This level of openness was quite impossible during the first exercise. Personal insights helped us all better understand theory and make a more interesting presentation. In fact, this experience once again proves Principle 9 that we discussed in our presentation: â€Å"The more supportive, accepting, and caring the social environment, the freer a person is to experiment with new behaviors, attitudes, and action theories† (Johnson & Johnson, 2009, p. 51). Since all were open and ready to introduce a personal insight, we felt the environment to be rather supportive and accepting. As a result, we felt more confident and could communicate our thoughts freely. It provided greater value to our group work and helped to fulfill our task more successfully. References Johnson, D. W. , & Johnson, F. P. (2009). Joining together: Group theory and group skills. 10th ed. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.