Communication and Collaboration Strategy Paper
Shameika Johnson
GEN 200
June 7, 2010
Kristine Faultner

Communication and Collaboration Strategy Paper
Communicating and collaborating in a group of strangers can be challenging at times because of different learning styles and personality types. No two people will have the same opinion on every subject because everyone comes from different backgrounds, environments, and beliefs. Our backgrounds have a big influence on how our personalities are and how we all learn different information. There are several different learning styles but three that stand out to me the most are visual/spatial, verbal/linguistic, and intrapersonal. People who are visual/spatial learners are great at recognizing relationships between different objects. They draw maps, charts, graphs, and develop graphic organizers for new material. People who are verbal/linguistic learners generally remember definitions easily, are great teachers and can convince most people into doing anything for them. A lot of the time they will rewrite notes, use highlighters and read different materials and rephrase them into their own way understanding it. You also have some people who are intrapersonal learners. These people are better at expressing their feelings, visualizing information, keeping journals and often tend to study in quiet places. My strategy for this group of learning styles put together would be to use a lot of visual aids like charts and graphs along the way. This way it will be easy for the visual/spatial learners to draw mind maps, the verbal/linguistic learners will be able to take in the information by discussing it and the intrapersonal learners will reflect on the personal meaning of the information. Three different personality types that stand out to me the most are the thinker, the organizer, and the adventurer. The thinker in the group is the one learns through problem solving. They also enjoy going above and beyond established guidelines and often find ways to work only so they can concentrate. The organizer is organized and very neat. They use a planner and organize work material with high lighters, rewrite class notes, and appreciate feedback.
The adventurer is more hands on. They often a get bored and look for other methods to learn through activity. I think these three different learning types would be perfect in a group. My strategy for this group would be for the adventurer to come up with the new non-traditional ways to learn outside of the traditional classroom setting. Often many students do get bored or lose interest in a subject because it’s not really exciting. For example History can be boring to some people because it happened in the past. Some may say “So what” or “Who cares”? That’s where the adventurer may suggest new ideas like taking a trip to a museum or Washington D.C. where the 1st president lived in the white house. That would keep a lot of students more interested that way. The thinker will help bring it all together. Any problem the adventurer comes across to make his plan work, the thinker is there to solve it, and none of this would be possible without the organizer to keep everything in order. The organizer is very detail orientate, loyal, and responsible. For a team to be successful there must be diversity within the team. A lot of time we often forget that there is no “I” in team, therefore each team player plays an important role in keeping the team together.