On Monday, the 3rd of March, in Management class, my heart broke a little as I received our first test back, with my painfully low grade (71%). However, half way through the class Prof.Kurpis salvaged the day by explaining his offer. To negotiate alerations to this test grade, and the style of the next test, as long as the whole class could come to an agreement.
So, supposedly, this is how people "handle conflict":
Compete to win
Assertiveness to get one’s own way
Avoidance
Withdrawal; used when there’s “no chance of winning”
Compromise
Used with decision making under pressure; all members are equal
Accommodation
Seeing issue as more important to others than self
Collaborating
Requires bargaining and negotiation among group
Multiple group insights required
1)Which one of these ways did you personally use to handle the chaos during the class decision making exercise?
I used "compete to win", "compromise", and "accomodation".
2) Why did you choose this method?
I used "compete to win" because certain things were very important to me. I felt that i could addapt if needed for the next exam, and MY focus was on damage control for the first one. I was a little agitated by the amount of time being used for discussing changed to the next exam's format, given the shortage of time.
I used "compromise" because i understood that there was no way for me to have any more of a say than the rest of the students. Despite what i'd like to think, i was just one student out of 80, no more important, no less significant. Also, i understood that some people may feel as passionately about some aspects (say changing the next exam's format, rather than adding poiunts to this one) because they did not have my confidence for the next exam.
Finally, i used "accommodation because i knew that just as some parts were very important to me (such as curve/extra credit/dropping lowest grade) other students might feel as strongly about taking care of the next exam. and although i disagreed with some parts of the exam they wanted to change, i also knew that they could have struggled with those parts much worse than i had, and that in the long run, arguing it would just waste time. time that we simply didnt have.
3) Given that you know now the pattern of communications, the reactions of classmates, and the results of the decision making process, what OTHER way to handle conflict could you have chosen to get a more desirable result?
I think that the results were very good. also, we worked very well together. i felt that some people were being too talkative, and it was sometimes excessive, and a mistake to let them talk that much, given our very serious time constraints. Had i been the one in the front of the group, i would probably have tried to take on more of a leader role, and restricted the amount of comments each person made, since it was a specific few who i felt were wasting too much time.
4)Why would this have been better?
I can't say that this would have been much better, because i can hardly imagine any better outcome. However, i know that i was very tense throughout the activity, terrified that we wouldn't come to a conclusion, and therefore lose it all. Had we worked more strictly with time, we could maybe have finished a few minutes earlier, and been more relaxed about the whole thing.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I think that people were more concerned in having that multiple-multiple choice section in our exam that just wanted it to be completely eliminated from our next exam. You are right though. We should of have spent more time in deciding what to do with our present grade. However, I think we had pretty good results. The extra credit and the curved was a good idea and very generous from the professor as well as the second test format. I hope everyone gets a better grade next time.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Kim. I welcomed the opportunity for extra credit and a curve, as well as a new format for the second exam. What killed my grade the most was the essay. It was on a topic that I did not review and considering the difficulty of the questions and its multiple parts, I felt that our class time was not sufficient enough to answer questions AND write an essay. Hopefully, our second exam will be less of a hassle.
ReplyDelete71 is not a "painfully low grade" , it just is our class average. With the extra credit and class wide curve, it is not a very low score. furthermore, the great decision excise result will help us get a better grade for next exam
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you that some students were talking way too much and wasting way too much time. I guess those were the "compete to win" characters, but instead of winning they were just making it much harder for the rest of the class to negotiate. I am glad that their voices were over powered and we were all able to accomplish a very nice deal that in some way helps everyone.
ReplyDeletei think u realized a pretty obvious aspect, yet so important and something the class lacked; everyone is different and therefore our wants will conflict with others. you have to give a little to get a little and some demands i heard were completely unreasonable and inconsiderate towards others. all in all, the class did progress and we reached a superb decision. i feel the class was very proactive and made decisions that attacked the exam format from all angles. however, i'm pretty sure the professor has a few tricks up his sleeves. we'll just have to wait and see. good luck!
ReplyDeleteUnlike yourself, I used the withdraw method, where I let everyone else to the arguing for me. And in the end, the result came out as perfectly as I could have hoped for. My only criticism would be that I do not believe that one could both use the "compete to win" and the "accomodation" strategy at the same time because there seems to be a conflict of interest between one's personal goal (compete to win) and the goal for everyone else (accomodation).
ReplyDeleteA combination of approaches was probably necessary in this case since it was such a large group so we all had to take on deiffernt roles or it would have been chaos.
ReplyDeleteI too was a little nervous about us all coming to a final agreement under the time limkit but was very happy with the outcome.
Good luck on the next exam!
This is a great analysis Ruth. I completely agree that the outcome was great and that the class worked very well together to come to a conclusion. I cant think of another way that wouldve worked better.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, I was worried about the time as well but i think with the help of the leaders we paced ourselves well.