Scheduling meetings for Group 1 was an easy process because we all made ourselves readily available and were very flexible.
Our first meeting was arranged through a Doodle poll created by the German students. We were able to find a time that worked for everyone pretty quickly. After meeting for the first time, we arranged all other meetings through our WhatsApp group. We all decided on meeting every day from eight in the morning to twelve in the afternoon for the Americans and two in the afternoon to six in the evening for the Germans.
Each time we met, we made sure to make great use of our time. For the first two meetings, we worked collaboratively as a whole. Once we became comfortable and all had a good understanding of how we were going to execute our ideas, we broke out into two groups to each work on a phase. We would give each other a set amount of time to work in the breakout teams and then come together to add ideas and chose the ideas we found to be the most innovative. Once our time was done, we would decide what task the Americans would be in charge of completing during our evening meeting and what task the Germans were to complete during their meeting the next morning. The decision to make use of our time as effectively as possible allowed us to complete our tasks ahead of time and allow everyone’s ideas and voices to be heard. Overall, we all worked very well together and are extremely thankful for this experience.
