To Team or Not to Team

For the AICE Media Studies Portfolio project I am going to work independently. This is because in past years I have worked in teams on projects and it can be very difficult with everyone's different personalities, ideas, work ethics, and so on. It can also be hard to decide on things, when everyone has their own idea of what is better, and their grade is on the line. This can cause chaos and make things even more difficult to accomplish.  

To begin, in the article, (2015)"Team building and group dynamics: creating and fostering a culture of teamwork requires trust, collaboration, and accountability." the author ,  Eli Becker, states, "I wanted to give my colleagues an end-to-end picture of who they are, from their own understanding as well as from other people's perspective--to learn that maybe you have a dominant personality style and be able to understand how that relates to your emotional intelligence or to your leadership skills." From this article I was able to learn that everyone works differently and may act one way in a setting and a different way in another. Sometimes certain personalities just don't work well together.  For example, in the "Lost at Sea" activity I was able to work with different people and collaborate on finding what tools we needed to survive. We all had different ideas on what was more important and what those things could be used for. This made it difficult to decide, taking up a lot of time that could be used somewhere else, but from this I was able to see how different people worked with others in certain situations and this helped me make my decision of working alone. Some of my traits that show I will work better alone are that I am shy, and I usually like sticking with my own ideas.  

The author, Terry F. Pettijohn,II (2010), shares that, "Social loafing is the likelihood of individuals contributing less when working on a task as part of a group than when working on a task alone (Latane, Williams, & Harkins, 1979). In reviews of nearly 80 research studies, Karau and Williams (1993, 1995) report the consistency of social loafing effects across different types of tasks (physical, cognitive, creative, evaluative, and work-related) and participant samples."(2010) This shows that some people may not work as much when working in a group then when working alone. This can really put a toll on the other people in the group because not everybody is sharing the amount of weight. This has happened to me many times in the past when working in groups, and it can be very stressful and hurt your grade.

  

 The author, Terry F. Pettijohn,II of, (2010) "Songwriting loafing or creative collaboration? A comparison of individual and team written billboard hits in the USA, " States, "The findings indicated that after 1966, songs written individually were higher in quality and more popular on the charts than songs written together." In a later study run they also found," that operas were more successful when composers wrote their own libretti compared to when librettist and composers worked together." This shows that there have been many cases where there have been better outcomes when people have worked alone rather than in a group.  

Also, in the "Social Media Peer Account" activity, I was able to see the different ways my peers in the classroom present themselves, if they are consistent, what their style was, and what they stood for. I saw that some people in my class weren't very consistent in posting and showed themselves in a busy format, which might mean that they may be hard to work with or get in touch with. Another point this activity showed me was how everyone has different styles. For example, other people might have a more edgy style whereas I have a more minimalist/basic style which won't work well when making my magazine in a group setting. 

Overall, I am going to work alone on my portfolio project. This is because after reading many articles and doing the different class activities I have found that I work better alone. This is because I am able to get things done at my pace, I don't have to wait for someone else's approval on something, and I don't have to worry about leaving parts of my project in someone else hands. Considering how important this project is I think it will be be better to work alone. I also tend to have different ideas and ways of doing things, which other people may disagree with. This can cause problems and loss of time in end.