During the class decision making exercise, I use compromise to handle the chaos. Most of the time, I was quiet and listening to others' opinions and thoughts. When I disagree with some ideas, I make sure that others hear my concerns and point of view. When one of our classmate wanted to leave the classroom, it was pretty obvious to me at that point that we need to negotiate with each other to get everyone's vote. That would be the only way we get the most of what we want. The mood and atmosphere of decision making process gave me a feeling of how the Declaration of Independence might had been written in the same situation, where every representative/classmate expressing their needs and wants. At the same time, we weren't sure what we ask for is the best for us and might never be the best we can get.
Given that now I know the pattern of communications, the reactions of classmates, and the results of the decision making process, I think it might be a better idea to form subgroup to discuss possible plan. Then, present them to the whole class so we can adopt the best plan and make change from it. Overall, I think we did a great job handling conflict. Many thanks to our facilitators that lead us through our difficult time during the debate.
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I also thought that it would have been beneficial to the group as a whole had we broken down into smaller groups and collected our thoughts then presented them to the class group by group. However, I do think that our moderators did a great job in getting us to agreements with the professor. I'm not sure if what we as the group and the professor agreed on was the best we could have done. Given the time restraints and the spontaneity of the situation we did well.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the idea of smaller groups. I think that would have added a lot of time to the process that did not have. I do agree that the process was frustrating in the beginning but really came together nicely in the end. I like you Jenny was very quite in the beginning. But my reason was because I got a bad grade on the test and was depressed. But I was talking and discussing the ideas that were being shouted out with the person my right and left. But I do believe that we got a good deal by the end of the process and I was much happier.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea about the small group idea. I think that it is a really great idea, if only we have more time in hand. Forming a small group will allow more students (including myself) to participate and it is possible that more ideas might float around but at the same time forming small groups will take up a lot more time.
ReplyDeleteI was someone who didn't was sitting there hoping to get to a final decision, but the minute I saw one of our classmate wanting to leave and said "We're not getting anywhere" (something like that) I realized that we were running low on time and it is best for us to come up with something fast. Overall I believe we managed to have a pretty good decision for our curve and our next test.
I didn't even think of the analogy of the Declaration of Independence, but that is a great way to think about it. I could not even imagine the amount of discussion, debate, and argument that went on in that room!! And they managed to accomplish something that was so great that is still relavent today.
ReplyDeleteI dissagree with your idea about dividing the class into smaller groups only because we were on such a time constraint, and that would take a lot more time. If we had longer to accomplish this task, I think that would be a great idea and we would probably be able to get even more our of it!
hey Jenny. I just got off another classmate's page who suggested smaller groups and I must agree that would be a good idea. It could have worked in the timeframe we had, but would have needed to have been implemented in the beginning. Glad to hear that you participated in the group decision with feed back on ideas that were blurted out. At least you used that time to get across some thoughts. If I had to sit through the whole class without an outlet to vent some ideas out I might have exploded. haha. Well if we are given an opportunity like this again, hopefully we will have more knowledge to get better results!. =)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that sub groups will make the process smoother and straightly forward, or even conclude a better outcome. It’s my first experience that making a decision out of a whole class with about 80 students and that was really frustrated. There are many useless and repeated ideas and people who with good ideas may keep quiet and comply with others since the class is too big and noisy. Dividing students in to many sub groups will eliminate these problems and each group can come out their best ideas and we can come out our best decision.
ReplyDeleteI think that the subgroup may produce a better result than what we had done in class. However, if i had to choose the method that i think it works effectively for me i would should to have all students write down their ideas so that the facilitator can collect and in turn eliminate the ones that are repeated. After that he can write down on the board the ideas that remain after the elimination. THen we all can vote on whatever present on board, that way everyone would feel that they are not beong left out or anything like that. All in all i prefer the democratic way of dealing with situation where we have to deal with many ideas from many people.
ReplyDeleteI think the sub group might have helped us brainstorm better and handle the task more professionally. Since we had to make a decision among 80 people, we had diffciult time negotiating. There were too many people talking at the same time and arguing. I do not think we could have made a decision if Teddy did not step up and helped us make a decision.
ReplyDeleteI think sub groups might be beneficial but giving the constraints I think we manage a good deal. It was chaotic to say the least, however when our classmate wanted to leave i think this was a turning point. Everyone knew that we need to step it up and compromise for the greater good of the whole.
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