After our midterm, the professor assigned gave us an activity to decide what to do with that midterm and how to structure the next one. According to the slides, the professor had very low influence and the group had very high freedom. We were allowed to make the decide anything we want, within a certain limit. Professor Kurpis stayed in the back and has no role in the group’s deliberations. However, the group did not have strong communicating skills and people were pretty much throwing ideas around and disagreeing with each other. One student took a leading role and tried to organize the class our ideas, it helped a little but if we didn’t have a time limit to work under, I’m sure we would have been there for hours or until most students just quit. Most of the class was competing to win; they all felt their idea was the best and that was the way to go. The students that didn’t say much simply raised their hand to vote against.
If I were to decide, I would give both the leader and group moderate power so they can split into groups and present a more organized idea. This way they have a suggestion and can try to influence the rest of the class. I think it is very important to accommodate and collaborate in order to reach a decision in a professional manner. I am personally not satisfied with the outcome of the chaos, but I chose to compromise.
I also felt that most of the students were competing to win. But I also think that it later shifted to people collaborating where ideas were being discussed and then eliminated to reach the final decision. In the end, we ended up with a decision that has a combination of ideas which was pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI agree that most of the class used the competing to win method. I also like the compromise method, which I used, but would that work for such a large group?
ReplyDeleteI'm not satisfied with the results either. I agree that the collaborating method would probably have worked better, but I'm also thankful we got something out of it for the first exam. I really think we could have milked the professor for more on the second one though.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that most of the class was competing to win and that wasted a lot of time. I'm happy we got something for the first exam but I wasn't happy about having no say for the second exam, I really didn't want to have the essay part.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, we should have divided ourselves into groups to make it easier to come with a decision. Also it was a good thing that we had a time limit because it made us try to come up with a solution faster, rather than having all the time we wanted and taking all day to decide.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your observations. Although the leader helped to focus the chaos, it was overall much more chaotic than it could have been. Up to the last few minutes, we were still debating a possible plan to present to the professor, and I thought we would not be able to agree. The professor tried to also knock us of the course by asking if people were really sure about the plan and trying to get some classmates to disagree. I was surprised that we really did manage to choose something however, so thankfully, the cooperation and collaboration were enough to at least settle on something.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your post, but it is only human nature for a person to be selfish and to worry about their own grade. Once everyone began to realize that they weren't going to get anything unless they compromised a bit, more middle of the road solutions were given.
ReplyDeleteI've heard the previous classes had success so I came into this activity with a positive mind despite my natural "cynical' instinct. However it turned out that we really couldn't agree on what we wanted for our next test other then having extra credit, which even became a battle on itself.
ReplyDeleteWe at least managed to get some results, but compared to certains classes in the past, they were very minimal, but you are right, that was because everyone thought they're idea was the best, and there was not enough time to breakdown each idea's pro-s and cons or debate about a specific idea. I think the best method would of been to cut out certain things from teh beginning and put a little focus on the ones with minor opposition.
I thought the leader did a good job considering the circumstances. We had limited time and such a large class. But yea I agree with you that it might have been far more beneficial if we split up into groups. In the end I wasn't 100% satisfied also, but I was glad we came to a conclusion.
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