PROBLEM-BASED LEARNING - Essay Example

Cheryl’s husband was sent to jail the previous year and Cheryl is stressed up. Cheryl’s children are aged 13, 14 and 17 seem aggressive to her and even to the nurses in her presence. She confessed that she is a self harmer for several years as a tissue scar was noticed during examination. This trigger was a very personal matter to some of the group members as they had relatives who had undergone such situations. This made our group work harder than I thought (Jasper, 2003). As a result on our first day of presentation one such member failed to turn up.

I personally felt bad and betrayed since we had really worked hard in our daily group discussions. I felt that that member was a letdown and did not deserve to be in our group any more. My feelings kept being pushed form bitter to pity since I put myself in their shoes and I understood the pain and trauma. Conversely, I thought that members should learn to separate their feelings and work so that there would be no conflict of interest. I felt that the member was just lazy and used their bad experience to intimidate the other group members to do their work as we quickly researched their part and presented the presentation.

To my surprise this was just the beginning of the bad side of being in a group. During the following group discussion meetings, there were conflicts surrounding the group leader and the ordinary members. It is normal for groups to have conflict especially at the forming stages (Hackman, 1990). This member actually wanted to be the chairperson. Moreover, she expected the other group members to agree with her suggestions and responses without question (Burtis & Turman, 2010). In short she was always right and everyone else was wrong or should just follow her.

As expected some members hit back and this led to more problems in the group as little work was being done and more conflict added (Corey, Corey & Corey, 2010). By this time I was almost giving up and since I am not