Micro compassions in team dynamics:

1. Micro compassions in team dynamics:

2. Learn and Share Activity 1 Enhancing social and learning experiences– team work question 1 Take 5 minutes in class to make a start on this... Write down your response to the following question: 1. In what ways do you think you might be able to enhance the social and learning experiences of your team members?

3. Learn and Share Activity 2 Enhancing social and learning experiences– team work question 2 Take 5 minutes in class to make a start on this... Write down your response to the following question: 2. How would you most like your team members to enhance your social and learning experiences?

4. Learn and Share Activity Enhancing social and learning experiences– team work question 2 Complete the “Group negative behaviours” checklist, see slide 18 .

5. Two concepts ‘Safeness’ ‘Critical thinking’:

6. High self esteem. How do you maintain that – and does it really help feel safe? (Neff, 2003)

7. Self esteem may not be a helpful goal (Kingston, 2008)

8. Compassion under the research microscope • Compassion is agreed across psychology, anthropology and neuroscience to be definable as noticing the social or physical distress of others and taking action to reduce it. This is not the same as sympathy or empathy. • Compassion is cross cultural (Goetz et al, 2010; Immordino-Yang et al, 2009). Moreover, it reduces feelings of threat to your self or others, and so is associated with reduction in stress levels (Page-Gould et al, 2008).

9. Compassion facilitates safeness: When threat systems in the brain can be calmed down, this allows for individuals’ thinking processes to be more efficient (P. Gilbert et al, 2004; Page-Gould et al, 2008; Cozolino, 2013). That’s why self-compassion is a more useful response to stress than trying to increase self-esteem.

10. Working with others • Try to watch interactional processes in your team as these unfold in front of you. (McDermott, 1989)

11. The relationship between ‘Safeness’ and ‘Critical thinking’ • In a study at the university of California by Page-Gould et al (2008) students from different cultures who did not know each other had to meet in pairs. They were asked to share news and information about their lives and they quickly became closer, more comfortable and felt safer with each other. The study found that you can work most easily with new people, if you trust each other and feel comfortable and relaxed with each other as soon as possible.

12. Eye contact when working in your teams. What do the disciplines tell us about this when we combine their findings? McDermott (1988, 2009) Linguistics Bion (1961) Group psychotherapy Vertegaal (2002, 2003) Computer science

13. Working with others When you speak in a group, try to use inclusive eye contact. That is, look at everyone in the group, as though the whole group was just one person: • S29: I felt not as one person but I felt as a person within an entity and the entity was my group… I felt that I was part of the group and I didn’t feel like an individual at that point. It didn’t make me feel like I’m focused on it. It made me feel like we’re all focused on it.

14. What can you do if you find you are helping an over talker?

15. Could you try this? If someone is looking only at you when they speak – Gently break eye contact with the speaker a few times and look at the others in the team instead. The speaker may start to look at them too. That means you have helped the speaker to become more inclusive.

16. Team strategies based on listening and compassion Initiate and sustain inclusive eye contact (Vertegaal et al, 2002; 2003) and use this strategically to: • interrupt alpha pairs (c.f. Bion, 1961) • interrupt monopolising behaviours (Yalom and Leszsz, 2005) • draw out a more equal spread of participation around the group (Vertegaal et al, 2002; 2003) • Validate each other (Leahy, 2005) “Yes – I’ve had that experience too…” (= you’re not crazy – and you’re not alone) Moments of overlapping, or shared understanding can occur at unanticipated moments as suggested by Complexity Theory (Law and Urry, 2004) and explored in anthropology by (Scott, 1990).

17. Pedagogical strategies based on listening and compassion 4 • Proactively elicit from quieter students, verbally and/or non-verbally, and then protect reasonable silences in which they can think and respond (c.f. Turner on students’ pathologising silences, 2002). • Question for you: are you strong enough to be patient?

18. The check list of negative group behaviours • Talking a lot so that others do not get many chances to speak. • Talking in silences when the shyest students are getting ready to speak. • Fixing eye contact with the tutor only, or just one student and forgetting to look at all the other people in the group.  • Using difficult language; not explaining difficult words or expressions so that other people in the group cannot understand • Not listening carefully to other peoples' ideas • Not helping other people when they are getting into difficulty while they are speaking. Instead taking control and their chance to speak away from them.  Talking over them. • Not inviting others to speak; not thanking others for their contribution. • Not speaking at all; becoming ‘too shy’ and so giving nothing to the group. • Not even reading a little bit in order to bring something to the discussion. • Letting other people talk and talk without interrupting them.  • Letting them use difficult words or expressions. Allowing them to speak too fast for everyone to understand them. • Not asking for more explanations when understanding is becoming too difficult.

19. Remember to witness yourself : . . Listening and ensuring everyone gets involved Asking questions to help the whole group analyse a certain case/study more insightfully. • Contributing to a relaxed, respectful atmosphere within your team • Being engaging, inclusive, encouraging, supportive • Considering suggestions from peers constructively to develop ideas

20. References Bion, W. (1961). Experiences in groups. London: Tavistock Publications Cozolino, Louis. (2013). The Social Neuroscience of Education. New York: WW Norton & Co. Gilbert, P., Clarke, M. S., Hempel, S., Miles, J. N. V. & Irons, C. (2004). Criticizing and reassuring oneself: An exploration of forms, styles and reasons in female students. British JournalofClinical Psychology,43, 31–50. Goetz, L., Keltner, D. & Simon-Thomas, E. (2010). Compassion: An evolutionary analysis and empirical review. Psychological Bulletin,136(6), 351-374. Immordino-Yang, M. H. & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain and Education, 1(1), 115-131. Kingston, E. (2008). Emotional competence and dropout rates in higher education. Education and Training, 50(2), 128-139. Law, J. & Urry, J. (2004). Enacting the social. Economy and Society, 33(3), 390-410. Leahy, R. L. (2005). A social-cognitive model of validation. In P. Gilbert (Ed.), Compassion: Conceptualisations,research and use in psychotherapy. (pp. 195-218). London: Routledge. McDermott, R. (1988). Inarticulateness. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Linguistics incontext: Connecting observation and understanding. (pp. 37-68). Norwood: Ablex Publishing. Neff, K. D. (2003a). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a health attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2, 85-102. Page-Gould, E., Mendoza-Denton, R. & Tropp, L. (2008). With a little help from my cross-group friend: Reducing anxiety in intergroup contexts through cross-group friendship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95(5), 1080-1094. Turner, Y. (2009). Knowing me, knowing you, Is there nothing we can do? Pedagogic Challenges in Using Group Work to Create an Intercultural Learning Space. Journal of Studies in International Education, 13(2), 240-255. Vertegaal, R. & Ding, Y. (2002). Effects of eye gaze on mediated group conversations: Amount or synchronization? Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Conferenceon ComputerSupported Cooperative Work. (pp. 41-48).New Orleans Yalom, I. & Leszsz, M. (2005). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy. (5th ed.). New York: Basic Books.