This year, I grew in the skill of time management within a group. I developed this skill within the Chinese Chant/Rap Project. Within the project, we had to work as a group to write a chant/rap that that encompassed content we learned in Chapter 7 of our Chinese Book. My group did well at first, but we wasted time. In order to do well in the project, we learned time management strategies to use the rest of our time.

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The main challenge that I faced in order to grow in time management within a group was time mismanagement within the group. In detail, the Chinese Chant/Rap Project was a project we did in Chinese Class, where we wrote, performed and recorded raps/chants that encompassed Chinese content we learned in Lesson 7 of our Chinese Book. Based upon our work from Lesson 7, we wrote phrases into our rap that asked how people did at certain things, such as “How well did you do on the test?” or “How well did you write?” The Chinese Chant/Rap Project was a group project, which composed groups of about three people. Within the groups, each person had a role. Each person within the groups were either a Scriptwriter, a Director, a Camera Man or an Editor. The Scriptwriters sole responsibility was writing the script, the Director was responsible for designing the performance, the Camera Man was responsible for using the camera efficiently, and the Editor was responsible for editing the video of the performance. Most people in the groups had to have multiple jobs, and everyone had to have an equal role in the script and performance. We had about three weeks to do the project.

 

At first, my group did well in the project. In my group, I acted as the Scriptwriter, but instead of working on my own, my group worked with me to make the script. Working as a group made the process quicker and easier. Since we worked together on the script, we had more time than the other groups in the class. This is where the problem started. Since we were ahead of all the other groups, we began to waste time. Once we finished the script, we chose to brainstorm ideas over how we were going to choreograph our performance. Although choreographing our performance was important, there was better uses of our time that we could have done instead. However, we procrastinated and goofed around, trying out dance moves rather than working on something slightly more pressing. For example, when one of us in the group suggested we try to record our performance, another one of us in the group would say that they were either not prepared, or that we were not dressed properly for the video. The largest evidence of our time mismanagement was in recording the audio for the video. Although we did not require items such as costumes to do the sound recording, we put it off until it was too late. After a few days, we had gotten to the same level as everyone else, but we were unprepared.

 

The first artifact, the broken audio recordings, show our unpreparedness. In the artifact, my group began to do the chant, in which we did it well, but eventually towards the middle of the chant, we started to forget our lines. If listened closely, a muffled swear can be heard from the recording at the end of the recording. After we had messed up our first attempt, we tried to start where we messed up, only to barely finish the chant coherently. In the end, though, we had wasted time. Upon listening to the recordings again, we heard that we had mispronounced some of the words and phrases. This artifact demonstrates our unpreparedness and time mismanagement because our procrastination caused the recordings to be incorrect and choppy. If we had used our time more efficiently and experimented with either recording the video or the audio, then we may have possibly been able to get the recording done on our first try. Instead, we misused our time and failed at our initial attempts at recording, as the broken recordings show. After failing at recording, we realized we had a problem with our time management, so we started to brainstorm strategies over how to fix our situation.

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Reflecting on our failed recording attempts, we brainstormed ideas over how we could improve our time management. One time management strategy that we used was making a schedule. The schedule we made was not physical, but vocal. Our first attempt at scheduling our time was with our audio recording. Although the recording was not specifically required in the project, doing an audio recording in for our project was important in order to get proper audio for our video. In the recording, we “rapped” the lyrics from our scripts along to a Royalty-Free beat that we found online. The scripts needed to be at least eight lines long, and then had to repeat twice. Instead of doing a series of trial and error to create a good recording, we decided as a group what we needed to do for the rest of the project, even beyond the recordings. In our schedule, we agreed to practice our lines and do tests with the recording device (in this case, a computer) before recording. However, we did not only organize ourselves for practicing, but for the rest of the project. Due to our scheduled practice, we created an excellent recording in one try for or rap/chant, but we were also prepared for the rest of the week and a half remaining for the rest of the project.

 

The second artifact, the complete audio recording, does not demonstrate my growth as much as it symbolizes it. Due to our scheduling, we were able to do a professional and well-crafted audio recording for our chant. For example, the volume held in the recording is quite consistent all the way through for all of the participants. Also, is listened to closely, one can hear how I fixed my pronunciation of one of the phrases, “太好了，太好了 (Tai hao le, tai hao le)”, from sounding like “Sai hao le” to its proper pronunciation “Tai hao le”. In addition, we were finally able to start filming due to scheduling. We practiced our actions and brought our costumes for the rap, as well as agreeing over what shots to do at what point. We were able to get back on track with the project, as shown with the complete audio recording, due to our time management strategy of scheduling. So, the complete audio recording shows my growth in time management skills within a group because it shows how a time management strategy that we brainstormed worked successfully, meaning that we were using our time more effectively and that we could use the time management strategy for projects in the future.

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In addition, another strategy that we did in order to grow in time management skills was sacrificing parts of our plans. In order to get all of what we needed for our project done, we focused only on the requirements rather than extra parts that we wanted to add. We mainly used sacrifice in making our video recording. The video recording was the recorded performance we used for the rap/chant. As mentioned before, most groups tended to wear costumes for the performance. The video had to be at least two minutes long. Everyone had to have a part within the video. At first, my group wanted to add many scenes and details to our video. We planned dance moves, cameos, humorous scenes and many other smaller details into our video. However, our procrastination prohibited our availability to do the scenes. Due to our inability, we had to look at what we needed rather than what we wanted. To do this, we had to look over our script and decide over what scenes we needed to do, and what scenes we needed to sacrifice.

 

The third artifact, the video recording, demonstrates and symbolizes the time management strategy of sacrifice and cutting. For example, in the introduction, we wanted to do a corny sequence of the members of the group walking towards the camera flashing fake gang signs. We thought it would be a funny start to video. In the actual video, though, the introduction is all of us dancing badly. It was equally corny, but less intentional and more due to time constraints. In fact, all of the video appears to miss something within itself. Since we were on time constraints, we had to sacrifice many scenes in order to have the bare bones of what we needed. Yet, we got a good grade on the project. The video was very cheesy, but that was intentional. In reality, our video had done quite well because we had everything we needed in the video recording. Rather than waste time on minor details, we focused on what was most important. That is why the third artifact shows growth in time management skills. The strategy of cutting certain scenes out of our original plans worked in the end, ensuring that we had everything we needed in the time that we had. Therefore, even if the video was not the best it could be, it was good enough.

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Through the Chinese Chant/Rap Project, I grew in time management skills within a group. Having struggled with time management within a group, I am now more able to notice when a group is having time mismanagement, and recognize strategies to prevent further time mismanagement. With the growth I have gotten from this project, I was able to do well with other group projects, and even individual projects, such as the Cancer Project.