Blog Topic 3

When the professor offered us a chance to remedy our grade, provided we all agreed- this was a great opportunity. People reacted in a variety of ways- the most popular being avoidance. The one person who stood in front of the class was acting as a compromiser. He was announcing people’s ideas, without inputting too much of his own opinion. He was trying to keep the peace, as well as be a spokesperson for the class. Many people were avoiding the discussion, but then when it came time to vote- they objected. This is probably the most frustrating response. If you are going to object, then take part in the decision process! Don’t just sit there. I saw few people competing. I witness this directly only once. One individual was basically insulting another. I see myself as a compromiser. I didn’t do the worst or the best, so I was open to concession. There were also some individuals who were accommodating. They had done well enough and didn’t really have much to lose- so they were just along for the ride. Obviously the best behavior would have been to collaborate and compromise. We should have decided on who would be leaders and separated into groups. We should have voted on each clause instead of one vote at the end, which risked us losing all that we have discussed. 

Blog Topic 2: Planning

I think that the activity involving the egg was a very interesting way to work as a team. I think that because the task seemed very difficult and almost impossible to achieve- we maybe were slightly frazzled and may have skipped over some of the steps in the planning process. I think that our goal was already defined, and we didn’t really need to do that. As far as understanding deadlines- we kept close track of time. I don’t think that the planning and implementation of our egg saving device went as smoothly as it could have. Everyone has different ideas and opinions and there was some tension regarding differences in our group. As far as alternative strategies, there was about 3 different ideas as to what to do, but we went with the one that most people agreed on. After drawing a design for the egg, we then tried to build it. We ran into some trouble actually producing the design. However, we finally finished. Unfortunately, we were not able to implement our plan. We accidently cracked the egg before we were able to participate by dropping them from the table. I think that a way we could have been more effective as a group would have been to take votes, rather than just trying to push our point of view ahead. Maybe by agreeing that we would all follow majority rules vote, we could have avoided some of the tension. We also should have spent more time actually trying to build different designs rather than just saying that the other person’s would not work.