The first thought I had in my mind is "Would we be possible to come up with a plan that everyone agrees on?" Since we are such a big class, I think it is just impossible to come up with a plan that everyone will agree on. So after Professor Kurpis said we can start to discuss the plan, everyone has their own idea and I realize that people start to have a conversation in a group first. I can see many people try to persuade a smaller group to accept their idea before they persuade the rest of the class. In my case, I start to talk with Jia of how we should come up with a plan that can benefit the most of us. And then as we start discussing, many people start to join us and talk about their own ideas. I think we are trying to handles this conflict by collaborating. We try to discuss our own view about the plan and each of us try to negotiate of how the plan is the best for the class. We chose this method of handling the problem is because we think that it is the most effective way to get everyone's idea and it is the fairest way for everyone to present their ideas.
However, in the middle of the class, many people just stepped up in the middle of the classroom and start to form a small group discussion. And as I and Jia saw people just form a small discussion group in the middle of the classroom, we just step up to them and try to participate in their discusion because we believe by participate in their small group discussion, we increase our chance to express our thoughts. However, our small group discussion in the middle of the classroom doesn't last long because another girl stepped up to us and told us that it shouldn't be a small group discussion and whether we should have a whole class vote on the plan. Therefore, our group just dismissed and those people who participated went back to their seat.
Then after approximately 5 minutes of people just discussing on their own, a korean guy just step up to the classroom and try to be the leader for the class. He said that he would write down all the ideas on the board and we will vote on the issue. And out of sudden, people jus
t became quite and listen to that korean guy. I don't even know why that we just percive him as our leader once he stepped up without questioning his ability to lead the class. And through his leading, our class got a compromise agreeement of having 1 test curve, drop the test with the lowest grade and let us do the extra credit to improve our grade for the class. Everyone seems satisfy with this idea.However, many people are still having comment on the plan because they believe that the test format is a also a problem for them. Many people said that the multiple multiple choice question should be replace by the multiple choice questions which only have 1 answer for each question. However, many people think that we can get some partial credits on the mutiple mutiple choice question by having some answers right. Personally, I don't really care about the format of the test because I think the format is fair. Therefore, I choose to accomondate of their ideas on the format of the test because I believe that the format is more important to other people than me. But many people just so concern about the format of the exam and many people even get so frustrated when their ideas didn't get accepted by other. Many people just try to compete to win in this situation. Many people just start to debate about the format. However, at the end, we get a 100% approval from the class for setting the plan as drop the lowest grade test, curve the first exam, extra credit and keep multiple multiple choice question with hint of how many correct answers within the 5 answers provided. Many people are satisfy with this plan including myself. But I still see many people just compromise at the even though they don't agree with it. I guess that it is the class pressure that made them surrender to the majority's ideas.
I think collaborate is the best way to handle conflict. Everyone is exchanging their idea and we got to negotiate of which one is the best for the majority. In this way, everyone's idea is being respected and no one's idea can overtake other people's idea. Also, I believe that many people will satisfy with the plan more if we collaborating together than just having one people or small group people decide the plan. I think I will still chose this method of handle conflict next time when I face with another conflict that need to settle among group of people!
2 comments:
After hearing what the professor wanted us to do, my first thought was the same as yours. Could this entire room of people agree on something? After thinking about it, I thought that it was without a doubt, possible. In fact, we would be out of the class in five minutes. I really underestimated the magnitude of greed. Maybe I was just "settling", but I like to think of it as: it doesn't take much to make me happy. I would have been more than happy with a curve and a drop, but everybody else just wanted more and more.
I agree with you in that at first I had no idea why we were listening to some random guy who just got up in front of the room. I think that the class as a whole was tired of a million separate little groups talking without getting anything done as a whole. The bigger picture was what mattered, and in the end, we finally reached a decision.
Like we discussed in class, we were satisfied with the decisions made halfway but I'm glad we went up and contributed with our own ideas because it's now part of the package. Did you look at the extra credit assignment yet? It looks pretty awesome and challenging and I think it will be another great activity for us to blog about.
I felt the turning point of the class activity was when the korean guy stood up and took control of the class. It wasn't exactly a dictactorship but it was definitely helpful to have the class settled and be on the same page. Standing in the small circle made me feel like we were putting on a show rather than making a decision. If we kept with the small group all throughout, I don't think we would've gotten a consensus. What do you think?
Post a Comment