Week 5 discussion

Groups

The dynamic and increasingly complex world of health care often requires nurses to work collaboratively on interprofessional teams. In the group environment, individuals with unique skills and expertise come together to focus on a common goal; however, groups must become cohesive before they can become effective.

Your experiences working with groups—whether you perceive them as positive, negative, or neutral—can be used to facilitate insight and development. Health care, with its focus on interprofessional teamwork and collaboration, offers ample opportunities and an imperative for continuous learning.

For this Discussion, you focus on strategies for facilitating the group process.

To prepare:

Review the information in this week’s Learning Resources regarding the stages of group formation, problematic roles individuals play in groups, and strategies for facilitating and maintaining positive group collaboration. In particular, review Learning Exercise 19.14 of the course text.

Reflect on various groups with which you have been or are currently involved. Select one specific group to analyze for the purposes of this Discussion. Identify the purpose or task that the group is or was meant to perform.

Consider the four stages of group formation (forming, storming, norming, and performing). How would you describe the progression between stages? Is there a stage in which you believe your group is or was “stuck”?

Consider the task or group-building role you normally play in a group setting. How could you apply the information from the Learning Resources to improve your group participation and facilitation, as well as the functioning of the group as a whole?

In addition, think about which individuals within your group (including yourself) may fall into problematic roles such as the Dominator, the Aggressor, or the Blocker. How have you and your group members addressed the enactment of these roles and its impact on interactions? With information from the Learning Resources in mind, what strategies would you apply now or going forward?

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By Day 3

Post a description of a group with which you have been or are currently involved. Assess where the group is in terms of the four stages of group formation. If you are reflecting on a past experience, explain if your group moved through all four stages. Describe the task or group-building role you typically play, or played, in this group. Then, explain what strategies you, as a leader, can apply to better facilitate the group process and address any problematic individual roles in the group.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.

By Day 6

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on two different days using one or more of the following approaches:

Share an insight from having read your colleagues’ postings, synthesizing the information to provide new perspectives.

Offer and support an alternative perspective using readings from the classroom or from your own research in the Walden Library.

Validate an idea with your own experience and additional research.

Make a suggestion based on additional evidence drawn from readings or after synthesizing multiple postings.

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