This session was the last one hosted by the Norwegian students. The activity organised was called power test. This involved a series of physical challenges including group piggy backs up a hill, carrying rocks, collecting water and putting up a lavvo as quick as possible. The Norwegian and foreign students were spilt into groups of 6 to 7 and each team was timed on every task, points were then given and the group that won were given a prize.

These activities were quite strenuous especially the group piggy backs and rock carrying. These activities however were very good at making the groups communicate as although these tasks were predominantly physical, there was a lot of talking during deciding how the task should be undertaken, for example the orders of which people should run, who should be carried and also on the more technical task such as putting up the lavvo, who should do which job. The fact that there were people from many different countries participating in the activities, forced me to think clearly about what I was trying to get across and say, also it made me think about the way I say things as the other members of the group may not understand when I was joking or being serious, these two things will help me whilst in Norway and also in my future career as Barnes (2010) highlighted these aspects as two of the most essential methods of establishing effective communication.

As the group had never worked together in this combination a lot of time was spent in the storming stage of Tuckman’s (1965) stages of group development. This was due to the fact that there were more than one person “jockeying” for position as the leader of the group, this lead to quite a lot of disagreements arising about the best way to go about aspects of the tasks such as when putting up the lavvo.   

Overall this was a good session as it made me think about how I communicate, as I always believed myself to be a good clear communicator, however as there were many other Nationalities present it became evident that I can confuse people if they do not fully understand the English language, this will be very useful over the course of my career.

References

Barnes, P. (2010) Leadership with young People. Dorset, Russell House Publishing

Tuckman, B. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin, 63(3), pp.384-399.