This month’s blog post was contributed by Teri Koch, Coordinator for Serials, Acquisitions & Electronic Resources at Drake University.
For this month’s blog post, we wanted to focus on a single open textbook, Small Group Communication: Forming & Sustaining Teams. The textbook was written by Jasmine R. Linabary with contributions from Moon Castro for Emporia State University, and it fills a very needed niche in the area of small group communication. We don’t often highlight single OER in this series, but now that we’ve been doing this blog series for a year, we may showcase more OER as our contributors find them!
Small Group Communication was brought to my attention by Dr. Lynn McCool, Assistant Professor of Business Communication at Drake University.
As Dr. McCool stated:
“I have found this text particularly helpful in discussing how groups form, how to negotiate power distance, and how to create a supportive climate that will sustain the group through the project. Additionally, the text addresses practical matters such as facilitating group meetings and presenting as a group.”
Its interdisciplinary nature makes it especially useful, since small group work has become increasingly prevalent across almost every discipline, as well as in most workplaces.
Book Organization
The book follows the following format:
- Group & Team Communication Overview
- Forming Groups
- Sustaining Groups
- Putting Group Communication Skills into Practice
- Appendix A: Professional Communication
- Appendix B: Citing Sources in APA Style
- Glossary
The text is clearly written and broken down into chunks that are easy to navigate. Discussion Questions at the end of each section are especially helpful for Instructors. In addition, the end of each section also has a section labeled Review & Reflection Questions (See Fig 2) which is helpful in ensuring that students have understood the main content of each unit.
I found one particular chapter, entitled “Working in Diverse Teams” particularly relevant and useful. This chapter describes how diversity can enhance decision-making and problem-solving, but at the same time, also identifies challenges and best practices for working with multicultural teams. Students have the opportunity to test themselves by taking the test called Assessing Your Cultural Intelligence. This test helps students diagnose their cultural intelligence based on their head, body, and heart.
Questions for You!
What do you think of this textbook? Would you be interested in introducing the book to your students, or even using it yourself to brush up on best practices for communication? Let us know in the comments, or share your thoughts on the Iowa OER mailing list!
Finally, if you have an open textbook or other OER you’d like us to feature in an upcoming Resource Highlight blog post, let us know!