After taking our first midterm, Professor Kurpis let the class decide what we wanted to do with the results and what format the second exam should be in. He gave us the entire class period to come up with one main decision as a class. This is a large class and fortunately for us, someone stepped up right away and decided to take charge. She went up to the front and asked us each to give our ideas until we came to a conclusion.
I personally used two methods to handle the potential of chaos during the class decision making exercise: compromise and collaborating. We used compromise because we were under pressure to make a decision, given the fact that we only had about an hour to come up with one decision that the entire class agreed on. Also, all members of the class were equal and had a fair voice in the decision, so that if one of us didn't agree with something, it wasn't an option. We also used collaborating because we had to bargain and negotiate amongst a large group and all all insights were considered. Another way to have handled this conflict would have been to split the class up into groups of 6, had each group come up with one decision, and then have the entire class vote on one decision. The reason I choose this method as an alternative is because I felt as though we had too many options up on the board, thus making picking one more complicated; so by minimizing the options by splitting the class up into groups, we might have created less chaos.
All in all, thank goodness we had a group leader otherwise the entire class would have started talking at once and we might have never came up with a decision!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
An Eggs-cellent Way to Plan
During this class activity, we were split into teams of six to work on building an egg-protector so that when dropped from ten feet in the air, the raw egg would not break. Although unsuccessful, I did feel as though my group had some benefits to it. We had a team leader (or two) who took initiative in getting the ideas rolling. That's where I believe our downfall happened: we had too many ideas and only 25 minutes to plan, so by the time we picked an idea we didn't have much time to fully construct a great way of exercising it.
Our team completed all of the steps in the planning process. We did Step 1, where we defined our goals and objectives. The goal was to build a successful egg protectant so that our egg would not break when dropped from ten feet in the air; and we had 25 minutes to come up with a strategy. We also did Step 2 - we identified our resources (6 group member, 8 straws, tape, and a raw egg). We also decided who was the more artistic one of the group that would draw the picture at the end. For Step 3, we had many ideas for how to build the egg protectant. We suggested anything from building a circular cushion around the egg, to setting up some sort of fort at the bottom to catch the egg. We also generated alternative scenarios for what may happen to the egg for each idea when it was dropped. For step 4, we decided that the best thing to do was to build the circular cushion around the egg and see what happens. We evaluated how strong the straws might be in protecting the egg and how strong the tape would be in holding the straws together. We also decided how to bend the straws and tape them together so as to have half the egg showing. For the last step, we stated who would do what as soon as we received our resources, and how we would go about building the egg protector (who would start bending the straws and taping them together).
My group's planning process was pretty successful, although our actual egg protector was not. The only thing that I think would have made a difference is if every member of our group would have participated, seeing as how some people just let others do the planning. Other than that, the project was lots of fun and I enjoyed seeing what the other groups came up with! :)
Our team completed all of the steps in the planning process. We did Step 1, where we defined our goals and objectives. The goal was to build a successful egg protectant so that our egg would not break when dropped from ten feet in the air; and we had 25 minutes to come up with a strategy. We also did Step 2 - we identified our resources (6 group member, 8 straws, tape, and a raw egg). We also decided who was the more artistic one of the group that would draw the picture at the end. For Step 3, we had many ideas for how to build the egg protectant. We suggested anything from building a circular cushion around the egg, to setting up some sort of fort at the bottom to catch the egg. We also generated alternative scenarios for what may happen to the egg for each idea when it was dropped. For step 4, we decided that the best thing to do was to build the circular cushion around the egg and see what happens. We evaluated how strong the straws might be in protecting the egg and how strong the tape would be in holding the straws together. We also decided how to bend the straws and tape them together so as to have half the egg showing. For the last step, we stated who would do what as soon as we received our resources, and how we would go about building the egg protector (who would start bending the straws and taping them together).
My group's planning process was pretty successful, although our actual egg protector was not. The only thing that I think would have made a difference is if every member of our group would have participated, seeing as how some people just let others do the planning. Other than that, the project was lots of fun and I enjoyed seeing what the other groups came up with! :)
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