Collaborating for success!

The method I used to handle conflict during our class assignment was "collaborating". I did not really have as big of a role as some of my other classmates, but I did speak up whenever I disagreed with the proposed options. I felt as though the "drop the lowest grade/curve on the first test" option benefited everyone and thus did not object to it. However, I disagreed with the option of knowing the essay topic before the exam because I felt that if that were the case the professor would just make the essay question a lot harder. I brought this point up to the class and we ultimately decided not to go with that option.

I was a little more indecisive with the options of multiple multiple choice (MC option #1) vs. regular multiple choice (MC option #2) vs. multiple multiple choice in which we knew how many options are correct(MC option #3). I think that initially I just wanted regular multiple choice but the one of my classmates (a girl whose name I don't know, oops!) brought up a good point -we have more of a chance of getting it wrong with regular multiple choice. And while I yet again feared that reforming the test may make it harder in going with the multiple choice option #3, I wasn't quite as fearful.

I therefore bargained and negotiated to get what is somewhat the ideal option for me.

I suppose that the better option would have been "Accommodation". As the professor pointed out there are many students in our class who aren't native English speakers and may thus have more difficulty with the essay portion of the exam. I wasn't really thinking of them when I voted against the proposal of knowing the topic beforehand. This may have really helped them and others who may need an improvement in their test grade more so than I do.

Eggcelent?

As far as the steps go, I think we (or rather the professor) obviously got step #1 done. I also believe we completed step #2 in that we evaluated our resources and tried to figure out how we could best use the straw and tape. However, we definitely didn't do step #3 -one of our team mates had an idea from a previous project we just sort of went with, without really considering other alternatives. Step #4 on the other hand we did complete because although we simply went with that one idea we did think of what the best way to realize that idea is. And I'd also say we completed step #5. Therefore, we simply eliminated step #3 in our planning process.

It may seem as though eliminating a single step wouldn't make much of a difference but I believe that it really made a huge difference. Our plan was unsuccessful and that may largely be because we didn't think of alternatives (aka step #3). But I would like to add that although we did skip step #3 we worked well as a team in getting the rest completed.