musings for speech 111

mod 8, participation in small group discussion.

In February, I volunteered to do the application for the fire grant. Just another reason among many why I am behind in Speech class.We discussed some ideas that we as a department thought might benefit us. As it turned out, this small group turned out to be just one person, me. Anyway, after reading chapter 18, I have realized that having 3 people working on this would have made it much easier and less time consuming. As a small group, we could have sit down and discussed some equipment problems, brainstormed some solutions,developed a list of goals, and then applied for what was eligible, and what we needed. With the right personnel, we could have avoided interpersonal conflicts, eliminated any hidden agenda that may have been present, and worked through this tedious process. The reflective thinking method of discussing problems would have worked well. Some of the problems that we could have defined would be: 1) air pack equipment for the pesonnel in the Oak station, 2) a reliable source of water for the Oak station, 3), and composing a list of equipment for the Nelson station. Some of these ideas were presented to me after the deadline for submission of application. Next, we could have analyzed the problems, and prioritized a list, based on need and eligibility. Third, we could have established criteria for solutions. We would need to make a budget to establish what the equipment would cost, determine how much the cost-share would be, and ensure that the solutions would alleviate the problems we were addressing. Fourth, we should have generated potential solutions. We could have derived a list of equipment with bids from different manufacturers, with the different prices listed.Also, with more than just my perspective, we could have developed a much better list than I did, and the need expressed in the grant could have been more clearly defined. Last, we should then select the best solutions and present the recommendations to the entire squad. We could have done this via an oral report, explaining the purposes, procedures, and recommendations of our group. Then we could have answered questions. We could have held a symposium, and each member of the small group could have presented an aspect of our solutions to the squad. Then each person would be able to answer questions that pertained to their subject. A panel discussion would probably have been to formal for the needs of this group. Instead of all that, I came up with some ideas, obtained pricing, submitted the requests, researched the answers to the questions on the application, and am now hoping that all goes well.

posted by kevin @ 11:17 AM