Saturday, November 22, 2014

Communication



This week in our communication class we were to take self-evaluations in regards to anxiety and verbal aggressiveness.  Then, I asked two acquaintances to evaluate me in regards to anxiety and verbal aggressiveness.  The evaluations from my self-evaluations and their evaluations were quit similar.  The scores came back within a few numbers different from each other and ranged within the same brackets.  It revealed that I show mild signs of anxiety in communicating and it stated that I am not concerned with communication.  This would be an accurate statement that I feel towards communication. The evaluation of the verbal-aggression reflected that I am respectful of others and their opinions without attacking them verbally. This I feel is also an accurate statement of how I feel I communicate with those whom may disagree with me. 
As I studied this week’s information in communication, I realized I truly did not understand what the words self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy truly meant.    I now understand that self-concept is when you truly understand yourself in terms of your strengths and weaknesses.  Self-esteem is the way you feel about yourself, and self-efficacy is the prediction of your success in situations (confidence) (O’Hair & Wiemann, 2012).  I have realized that over the past five years I have increased my self-awareness, self-efficacy, in understanding what my strengths and weaknesses are.  I have also realized that when you are working in a field that hones in on your strengths then you seem to have more self-confidence and the ability to complete the job at hand comes naturally, providing self-confidence.  I try and help my own children learn what their strengths and weaknesses are because my hope is that they chose a career that capitalizes on their strengths.

References
O'Hair, D., & Wiemann, M. (2012). Real communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's.

4 comments:

  1. Hi, Tisha, I enjoyed your blog this week. My assessments were close in numbers as well. Anxiety is something that can take over, when a person has to speak in front of a crowd. It may even cause panic attacks. I am the type of person that if I have to speak in front of others and I am not very confident in the topic than I will be extremely nervous. I know that is something that I need to get stronger with and I have confidence that the more I speak in front of others that I will become more comfortable. Truly understanding our weaknesses and strengths is important, I agree.

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  2. Tisha,
    My self-evaluation and the evaluations of the two people I chose to evaluate me were very similar as well; I found that the results were accurate as to how I feel and how I communicate with others. I too have gained a better understanding of self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. I have shared my new found communication skills with my family, friends, and coworkers, and we are all focusing our efforts to become competent communicators. I feel I am making considerable progress and with the knowledge I have gained in the past two courses along with this course I am confident that by the end of this course I will be a better communicator than I was before taking this course.

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  3. Tisha,

    Thank you for sharing. I too gathered clarification from learning self-efficacy and self-esteem definitions. Learning and growing with regards to communication is a large part of our jobs as early childhood educators. I hope we all come to understand ourselves better and how to effectively communicate with colleagues, families, and children.

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  4. Hi Tisha
    The evaluation exercise was truly an interesting and enlightening one. Over all, this week's reading and study reveal more about our selves. We learned that we display more in our verbal and nonverbal communication than we realize. We also learned, based on the scores of the test, that others know us more than we think they do.You shared an important point with which I fully agree, that I (we) have gained a better understanding of who we are, and is working to be, based on the increased understanding of the self-esteem, self-concept and self-efficacy. We are definitely growing week by week,from our course and that is awesome because as we study, the aim is to improve on what we already have. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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