Egypt Project Reflections.

              The Egypt projects were really interesting, and I learned a lot from them. I think the activity that helped me best understand the projects, was the rainbow, graphic organizer. I thought it really helped me understand, that there were different periods of time in all of Egyptian history, and many different things happened in each period. I do not think that our group worked together the best we could. I think that we could've cooperated better, and we could've worked out what each of us needed to do. I also think that we needed to agree more on the decisions we had to make. For example: most of the people in my group wanted to name our play "Finding Egypt", but I thought that it was just irrelevant to the story. So, I explained that to my group, but they didn't care at all about my opinion, and against my will, they sent in that "Finding Egypt" was our title.

        I do not think that everyone did their fair share of work in these projects. I feel like I did almost everything, and my group members did very little work. I wrote most of the script, and most of the pharaoh project. I mean, I like having control of projects, but I feel as if my group members just depend on me to do the work. I've told them that it's not fair, but they continue to do it. If I got a re-do on this project, I would've done many things different. I would've worked on my puppet-ing skills a little bit more, because throughout our video, my puppet's mouth is moving even when I'm not talking, and my hand is up above the green screen a lot too. I also would've made sure that our story for the "DLAE" project was set in one certain era of Egyptian history, because I feel like our story is just kind of a mixture of eras. And, I would've tried to make our group work together a little better. Overall, I think our projects were pretty successful, because we had good writing, a good script, and we included lots of good information.

Group Dynamics

                In groups, I usually take the lead. I talk so much so that people understand my ideas. I usually take the lead, because I get so frustrated when other people exclude me, and I can't speak my ideas. I definitely like being head of a group too, but I don't like it when my group just depends on me to do all the wok, which happens A LOT. I do like to work with my close better than working with people I don't know because I can usually understand my best friends' ideas better than a stranger's ideas. However, if I am with my friends, we usually end up talking about something totally different while we're supposed to be working, and then we get off task.

        I have definitely tried to solve group conflicts before. I try to solve these problems in many different ways. It really depends on the problem. If everyone is confused about the work they're supposed to do, I usually make a list for everyone (including me!) on what they need to do on their part, and what they need to get done. This helps SO much. For that same problem, I have also tried to give everyone partners, and share the work they need to get done. This does NOT help, because then we have another conflict of who's doing what, and we spend more time arguing then working, and then people are just talking over each other, and talking over me, and things just get out of hand. When someone else is trying to dominate the group and I don't feel listened to, I usually have to do something that catches my group's attention, like raise my voice. The most difficult group situation I've been in, is when I was with two girls, whom I didn't know very well, and one of the girls didn't do any of the work we told her too, and she was usually just off doing something on her own, and the other girl tried to dominate the group, and she didn't give me a chance to do anything, or speak my ideas, and we got like a C on our project. I was SO frustrated. The best group situation is when I was with two of my best friends, Izzy and Chloe, and we were all in a group doing a math project. We all listened to each others ideas, and we all did an equal portion of the work. And best of all, we got an A on our project.

                 If I was in Holling's position where I'd have to buy cream puffs for an entire class, I would be so stressed, but I have a couple different solutions to the problem that would minimize the stress. One of the things I would do, is tell Mrs. Baker. She could probably talk to the class, and tell them that it's wrong to do what they're doing. However, doing that would probably make the kids hate you even more. My other solution is to just bake the cream puffs yourself. It would probably be cheaper to make the cream puffs rather than buy them, but it would also be hassle to actually bake thirty or more cream puffs.