When thinking of how I make decisions, the first thing that comes to mind is my decision to go to Baruch College. I wouldn't say it was an easy decision, but Baruch was the choice that suited my best interests: it was a good business school and affordable. Now putting myself in a group setting, as I was in in my Management class, making a decision becomes more difficult because everyone in the group has their own goals that they want to get out of from the decision.
After receiving our first exam grades back for this class, our professor told us that we had the choice of deciding unanimously if we wanted to have a curve and extra credit to increase our grades that were slightley low, at least for my taste. Also, we were able to decide on changing the exam's format, which, currently, was true/false, multiple multiple choice (this mean there can me more than once choice that is correct), short answers, and an essay. I was excited to have the power to better my grades and my future grades.
My agenda for this decision making exercise was to have a curve, have the chance to get extra credit, and get rid of the multiple multiple choice and the essay parts of the exam. Unfortunately, at least for me, I decided not to fight tooth and nail for the extinction of those parts of the exam. We had a time limit; we had to decide unanimously; some people wanted essays, while others wanted multiple multiple choice; therefore I decided to hear them out. Everyone's strengths are different, and although my strengths aren't writing and multiple multiple choice questions, I could live with those parts because the real problem I felt was that there was a lot to study from (which I know we can't change the curriculum). Using technical terms, I used the Accommodation method during the decision making exercise. I didn't fight for my agenda and let others decide for me on this problem because I thought others needed to keep the format the same.
Also, there were some compromises of the multiple multiple choice and essay parts, which made it easier to accept the minor changes that made those parts a little less threatening to take on during a test. For the multiple choice questions, the professor had to identify which questions had more than one answer. For the essay, one student didn't want the essay at all, which you can say acted in a Compete to Win way, but the student believed the majority of the class already decided not to have an essay in the exam, which I saw was true as well. But in the chaos, people were trying to compromise because some people wanted an essay. What can you do when people are persistent and some may say persuasive? In the end, we compromised, after hearing the arguments from both sides and down to the last minute, to say if we were to have an essay, giving the decision to be made by the professor, we would have more than one topic to choose from in picking our essay choice.
I think the better way, for me, to handle this decision making conflict would have been through collaboration. There are a lot of people in the class, and with more people, it can mean more different agendas. I think if we had more time, we could have split into groups, get a better account of everyone's agenda and prevent people withdrawing from the decision making process. Also, we could have had different ways to approach the grading system that could've benefited everyone. Overall, there would be less conflict because everyone would have been heard.
Decisions, Decisions...You can't win them all.
I agree. I thought it was too much material to memorize. Seven chapters and had to really really know everything and be able to apply to the essay questions and short answers. I think if it as less chapters then everyone would have done much better.
ReplyDeleteThere was WAYYY too much info to keep track of. And the names were confusing at some point. I didn't mind if he kept the test the same, besides the essay. If you had no idea what the essay was going to be, then you just lost 25 points already.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I did not want the essay nor the multiple multiple choice on the next exam. However, after hearing some of the suggestions that came up, I decided not to fight for it! Rather compromise, so we could come up with a unanimous decision before time was up. Hopefully, if there is more than one topic to write about, the chances of knowing something about these topics are at least greater :)
ReplyDeleteYour comment about not fighting tooth and nail for what you wanted caught my attention. The fact that so many people surrendered to the ideas of others gets me thinking of my own actions and as much as I would like to believe I WOULD fight tooth and nail for something I wanted, I definitely didn’t take on the “compete to win approach”, I only spoke when I completely felt I couldn’t let something go. However, I think people should always try their hardest to get what they want, after all were only human and were known for satisfying our own needs first.
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant to write was...WE'RE!! can't always count on spelling check! lol
ReplyDeleteI must agree with the last paragraph. If we had been given more time or if we had known before the class that we would be deciding on the first and second exam...we would have been more prepared. We could have broken off into groups and could have had group leaders in addition to Sarah leading the entire class. This would have been a better way to incorporate everyone's views and listening to all opinions.
ReplyDeleteI personally would fight for what I want, but in all honesty, I accepted my responsibility...sure there was a lot of material to study from but that was my responsibility to deal with. Now we know the level of difficulty of the exam...and we can all prepare for the second one.
I agree with the first paragraph, making decisions on your own is so much easier than group decision, especially in such a diverse environment. But I would have to disagree with the breaking up of groups making it an easier, because I feel like then these groups of people would have been settled on what they as a whole wanted, and would have fought together against other groups. I think making us all work together was the best way to go because we knew we were all in it together, and had no personal ties to any other classmates that hindered our compromising.
ReplyDelete