Page 251 - Learning to Learn

LEARNING TO LEARN: BECOMING A SELF -GROWER 251
EXPERIENCE 9: PERFORMING WHEN BEING EVALUATED READING
Everyone looked at Fred and waited for him to explain.
He swallowed and continued, “You know, Sir Edmund Hillary, the guy who climbed Mt. Everest
first. Everyone knows who HE is, but he was really part of a team, right? You have Edmund, but
you also have Tenzig Norgay, the sherpa who made it possible. Ed didn’t make the climb alone.”
Jennifer raised an eyebrow.
“Look, surfing the web doesn’t just mean watchingYouTube. It’s amazing the stuff you could learn,
like maybe how that eyebrow thing you do is actually a silent plea for help.”
Ken cleared his throat. “I think Fred’s got an excellent idea. We have to come up with a list of
ten instances where teamwork is more useful than people working alone. What if we do a bit of
research on people like Hillary—people who are maybe the famous name or the front-man but
who were really part of a team and it was the TEAM that made the success possible?”
Fred grinned broadly, feeling good. Sandra smiled at him and gave a brief thumbs-up.
Sam whistled under his breath and said, “Fred, Sam, that’s great, really great. Why don’t you and
Jennifer see if you can chase down ten people who fit the criteria Ken shared? You have the midas
touch for finding information, and Jennifer our journalist could probably rattle off twenty ‘famous’
front-men like Edmund Hillary. Will you two spearhead that effort?”
Fred turned to Jennifer and did an excellent impression of her, raising his own eyebrow.
“Sure, Sam, that’ll be fun” said Jennifer. “And Fred will make an perfect sherpa for this research trek.
Let’s get started. Fred, I’ll let you warm up to your new role by carrying my backpack.”
Fred shook his head, chuckling, but picked up her backpack as they began walking towards the
parking lot, deep in discussion about what names would make their list of people to investigate
further.
Step 5—Select Medium
Decide what form (oral, written, electronic, etc.) the message will take and how you will communicate
your message. Determine what medium (or combination of media) is most effective and appropriate based
on the audience, objectives, scope of the communication, and resources available. Remember it is not only
what you communicate but how you communicate that determines the effectiveness of the message. For
example, using a multimedia slide with regular sized type is not a good idea if the people in the audience
are seated too far away to read what’s on the screen.
Their presentation would be delivered orally; that was part of the assignment. But beyond this,
Jennifer wanted to take advantage of the media-friendly classroom by bringing in audio-visual
aids: she and Fred had found great online content about famous people and the teams who made
their success possible. The classroom was small enough that the team would be able to make
effective use of the LCD projector to show the team profiles that Fred downloaded and prepared.
At their next teammeeting, Jennifer shared a short piece of video which showed a hilariously disas-
trous teammeetingat a famous fast-food franchise.“I thought thismight give a gooddemonstration
of how team roles are important by showing what happens when they AREN’T used.”
“That’s great,” Sam said, laughing. “In it goes.”
“Wait,” Sandra said. “We have to be careful about how we use negative examples.”