What happens when a class full of different individuals are asked to create a method that would aid in improving their grades in a democratic setting? I certainly thought that there would be a lot of agreements as to which direction we should all take as a class. I believed that simple ideas such as removing the essay portion of future exams, simplifying the multiple choice questions, curving the exam grades, and many others that would obviously make attaining an A easier were going to be unanimously voted "yes" among the students. I was very confident that agreements would be made early and that I would be out of class within twenty minutes. Unfortunately, as soon as the professor gave his students the power to make decisions, the room exploded with arguments in favor of opposing and contradicting ideas. Chaos occured, and finding common grounds seemed very far away.
In the midst of chaos, I observed many different behaviors among the students. Some approached the fight with the "compete to win" focus by yelling very aggressively and taking advantage of the unanimous decision rule by objecting when the entire class was accepting. Others followed the "compromise" focus by playing the roles of mediators in the front of the class. Then there were students like myself who followed the "avoidance" behavior as we realized early on that this is one fight not worth struggling for because reaching a consensus, no matter the effort, was not going to happen until the last minute of the class. Had I forseen the disputes earlier, then I would have tried the "collaborating" behavior to help the negotiate an idea that could satisfy everyone before the differences split the class as drastically as it did. This would have been a far better strategy because it would have saved a lot of time and effort for many students in the classroom that day.
