Curve, drop!, extra credit?, eyes rolling, voices screaming, twiddling thumbs.

We were told in the previous class prior to 3/9/09, to go to go to class as this was probably going to be the most important class of the semester. I had no idea what was to be expected, but Professor Kurpis was right, it probably was the most important class of the semester. On that Monday, i came into class as usual but i was a little excited since today was supposed to be a very important day. As class was about to begin, and people started to fill up the seats, Professor Kurpis just said a word and we all knew what it was about.

Apparently our class average was a meager C, but without the extra credit from the various activities conducted in class, it would have been a C-. As the professor started handing out the exams, you heard people gasp, others were shocked, others laughed, but everyone was gloomy. Professor Kurpis then started to ask for feedback on the exam, how some people said it was too long, others complained about it being too much information to learn, and there were the people who just didnt speak at all, me being one of them. There were countless more complaints but when there was only 35 minutes left within the class, Professor Kurpise unleashed his plans. He decided to let us as a class decide what we wanted to do with our first exam grade, and how the next test was going to work, with only 2 conditions.

1. The changes be reasonable (but he didnt specify what reasonable is)
2. The whole class has to be in 100% agreement

To many this seemed like a dream come true, but in reality this was something that could have made or break the class. We only had 30 minutes to come up with a plan and have the whole class agree. For the first 5 minutes everyone was talking amongst themselves, and their little groups. But after another minute, a fellow classmate Teddy decided that nothing was going to work unless we have some sort system going on, so he suggested to the whole class, that we write down the things that we want on the white board, but Teddy decided to let another classmate do the writing, Gabriel.

Gabriel who i would consider as our first leader, had a hard time managing the class in my opinion. He didnt have a strong voice and i was easily swayed by his peers but i wouldnt blame him, it must have been hard being up there in front of 100 students, each of them having an idea they wanted to put up on the board. For 20 minutes, people were yelling, and screaming, bashing down on each other and their ideas, at first it really felt like NOTHING was going to happen even with this new system because no one had a real idea of what they wanted, and Gabriel just wrote things down on the board. There was one thing that really got me mad, that happened during class, it was when a classmate of mine suggested an idea of a Curve, and drop the lowest grade. EVERYONE laughed including Gabriel, to me this seemed very degrading to that classmate because she had the courage to speak up and suggest an idea, but instead of being criticized on why they only LAUGHED. Her suggestion did end up becoming part of the final decision but it wasnt suggested by her the second time, as she probably withdrew after suffering that huge blow, but i felt her suggestion did linger on in peoples mind. So i am thankful for her contribution even if others don't remember.

More time passed and when we had about only 10 minutes left, Teddy took charge of the room again, and dismissed Gabriel. Teddy saw that we had only 10 minutes left and told everyone that we needed to get something down, and we all need to agree, he offered suggestions and told us to compromise, but he himself was not pushing anything onto us, instead he was being a delegator, trying to create balance within a classroom with 100 different views. I think he did a great job because as soon as he got up there again and spoke out people started realizing that we had only 10 minutes left, and if we didnt come up with something fast we would all be leaving with nothing. Soon the whole class worked as one, and we all started compromising and working together. The final decision which had a slew of modifications, touching on the first exam, the next exam and the review session for the next exam. it was a curve, and extra credit on the first exam. Drop the lowest exam. Have straight foward mutliple choice, a few short answers, only 5 true and false, and no essay on the next exam. And finally a full class review for the next exam. With this professor kurpis ended class and told us in the next class we will go over what had just happpened, because it was all part of his decision making process experiement.

During this experiment i personally felt everyone was just competing to win, because we were given such power and authority that everyone was their own leader. For example when someone suggested to have a take home essay, i overheard the person who disagreed saying they didnt like that idea because they had so many essays to do at home. I felt that was a little selfish because everyone has a busy life not just them. But i think if we were to handle the situation again, it would be better off to break the class into groups and give us an alotted time to colaborate something within the group. After we have each group then write up their ideas on the board and compare to see what conflicts with each other and narrow it down from there. But of course we would still need a leader of some sort, or else it would just be chaos again, but this time it would be groups bickering amongst each other.

The Chick Who Could Have Been....

Sometime last week we had quite an interesting experiment happen in our management class. The minute I walked into class I saw a carton of egg, straws, tape, and a huge garbage bin smacked in the middle of class.

While Professor Kurpis waited patiently for the eager class to settle down, he finally spoke and with a voice of a lions might he told the class what was about to take place. As you would have guessed, these eggs were not meant to be eaten, but rather their fates were to be toyed with by our very own hands. The class was divided into several divisions, and each of them were to be given 2 feet of tape, 8 straws and an egg. Now for the most gruesome part, our job, was to create some sort of contraption that would allow the egg to survive a 10 feet drop to its death. We only had 10 minutes to come up with a design and 25 minutes to put that said design into action. To make matters worse there was only ONE scissor to go around and so many eggs to be saved.

Then without a minutes notice and a click from Professor Kurpis, the timer had started, and our Egg's fate to be decided with every passing second. I was quite enthusiastic about this whole experiment, and without a second to lose, I tried to reassure our group that I had a nail clipper that could have been used as a replacement for scissors...until I was ruthlessly turned down by one of our members, who then began to share her idea for the contraption, but little did we know her idea was all we were going to hear about. At that moment all enthusiasm I had for this assignment was lost, and that was how the first step of our planning process began.

While our group was listening to our dictator explain her idea, we all wondered if we had enough resources to even produce this idea of hers. Each of us tried to suggest an alternative or tell her the problems we could be running into, but we were ignored until someone said something she found helpful and thus at that point we all just tried to build upon her idea and gave up finding alternatives...except for I. That was how step 2 and 3 of the process came about. Not too exciting.

At this moment our 10 minutes of planning was up and it was time to place the plan(s) into action. Then with a mighty press of his finger Professor Kurpis started the 25 minute countdown, and our poor eggs came closer to their impeding doom. Each of us immediately went to work, but with so many hands and only one egg, many of us didn't really participate in the production of the contraption. Though we did try to make everyone feel special by assigning them a role, we even went as far as to give someone the role to watch the egg making sure the egg doesn't crack as it sits silently on the table. Oh how time flies with a blink of an eye. The 25 minutes were up before we knew it and it was time to let go of our eggs. As each group got up on the table and nervously dropped their eggs into the bin, some spinning, some misguided, some never even made it. It was finally our turn to go, and as we got ready to drop the egg everyone was baffled by our design, some felt cheated others applauded, but without a seconds hesitation we dropped the egg. Our egg managed to avoid its death but its many siblings did not.

Overall i didn't feel like our group was much of a group, more like a dictatorship, with one leader, and one plan; her plan. I felt it would have been nice if we were able to voice our opinions without being shunned or ignored like we were non existent, but ultimately we managed to succeed, and that's what the assignment was all about. succeeding, not.