Productive Group Work

"However, consider what is missing from interacting via written media—all the information we take in from others that is nonverbal. In a face-to-face conversation, we construct meaning not just from the content of words but also from the gestures, movement, and expressions that our partners or groupmates use. Think about your own behavior when you are talking on the telephone with someone. You may gesticulate and change your facial expressions as you speak and listen, even though the person on the other end of the line can't see you. Even our e-mail habits reflect our need to assign meaning to our words. The use of emoticons (those little smiley faces used within e-mail messages) is widespread. Short message service (SMS) programs used for text messaging and instant messaging routinely include graphical images to represent a range of facial expressions. Receiving these nonverbal signals is important to our understanding each other and may be an important step in learning.
The Neural Basis of Face-to-Face Interactions
Have you ever found yourself caught up in the contagion of a yawn? Perhaps you were sitting in a faculty meeting when a colleague began to yawn. Before you knew it, you were yawning too. You might have noticed or recall from your undergraduate communications course that people who are talking to each other often unconsciously adopt the gestures and body language of each other to synchronize their conversation. You can see this phenomenon at any local gathering place where people are striking up conversations.
This mirroring behavior has roots in the workings of the brain and may be key to how we learn. In the 1980s,
neuroscientist Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues at the University of Parma made a chance discovery..."
(Frey, Fisher, and Everlove )

Now tell me, did this make you yawn, too? I thought it was hilarious.

Frey, Nancy, Douglas Fisher, and Sandi Everlove. "Productive Group Work." (2010): Print.