Decisions, Decisions

    When I saw my test grade, I was horrified, and was hoping that there would be a curve.  Luckily, the class ended up getting that, and then some, but getting there was quite an interesting process.  Professor Kurpis asked us to come up with a solution that the whole class had to agree with, or else we would get nothing at all.  I personally was using the Collaborating approach to handle the decision making because not everyone in the class will want the same things, so there would need to a give and take regarding what options would be acceptable to everyone.  I saw all the other four methods being used in class.  The people in the front were or less using both the compromise and accommodation methods and were acting as mediators, as well as organizing the ideas that popped up and integrating them into our package of demands.  Amongst the class, some also used the avoidance method since it seemed really hard to try to reach a consensus.  I would have to say that the most enjoyable approach for witnesses of this decision making process would be the students using the "compete to win" approach.  There were various individuals that knew what they wanted and weren't afraid to speak up and tried to get everyone to see it their way.  An example would be taking out the essay question, which did end up happening, and the test's essay is now just extra credit.  I didn't really want this, since it would mean more of the other types of questions that are not as open ended, and would possibly make the test more tedious.
    Having gone through this experience, the other way I could have used to handle this conflict would have been accommodation.   I realized that the essay was hard for the students who aren't native english speakers, so I can see why they wanted to get rid of it.  There were also others who didn't want the essay for various reasons, and I guess if there were a lot of people that wanted to make the essay not as important, I should be accommodating.  This would have been better because the time taken to reach the decision would probably be less than the collaborating approach.  Overall, I was happy that we got it done as a class when it counted.

The Broken Egg

    Designing a contraption to save Shelldon (the name of my team's egg) from breakage as a team was quite the experience.  Step 1 of the planning process went smoothly enough, as we had a clear idea of what needed to be done before the deadline.  When it came to step 2, our team was able to identify the resources that were to be given, but we didn't identify the strengths and weakness of our group.  I think at that point, everyone was individually trying to come up with an idea about how to make something that will allow the egg to land in peace.  After some thought, we moved on to step 3, where we shared our ideas, although not everyone had one.  However, that may have been better because we were able to decide on one design and possibly another as a backup.  For those group members that did not have their own idea, thinking about how to improve someone elses design would have been a good way to contribute.  As the time allocated toward planning was winding down, we should have actually implemented step 4.  We didn't assign roles throughout the team, so we ended up having to wing it when we actually started on step 5, where we actually began to build it.  I think that after this project, we have learned that it would have saved a lot of time if everyone knew exactly what they had to do.  When we actually began step 5 of implementing our plan and building the design, we ran into many problems.  The most glaring one was where the person who thought up of the design was the one actually building it.  While we all did help, such as giving him tape, and helping him with the materials use, he was the primary builder.  If we were able to figure how to divide it into parts and then putting it all together, we would have used our time much more efficiently.  At the end, with about a minute left, we had to rush to just tape whatever straws we had left on the bottom for cushion, since we were not able to complete the contraption.  Shelldon eventually went on to have his shell broken, but that's okay.  I feel that the team's ultimate performance came up short because we actually decided to modify the design from the one in the planning process.  We could have been more effective as a group in the planning of the task by making sure that we can build the entire thing in the specified time, and trying to work out a way to break up the design into more than 1 part so more people could work on it at once.