Week 16; Post 3

3). What did you learn over the course of the semester? Please give extensive detail.

Over the course of the semester, I learned many things. I really have a stronger grasp on how to handle conflict and what to do in a conflicting situation. I enjoyed the projects that we did. It was really beneficial to me to be able to try out the methods in my personal life. I also never would have know how I handled conflict without tracking my conflicts and tracking how they changed over a few weeks. One concept that I realized that I will use in any conflict situation is the S-TLC system. After learning about it, the steps to handling conflict made more sense. I think that the greatest thing that I learned this semester is how beneficial conflict is. Before, I thought that conflict was unnecessary and troublesome but now I see its benefits and I see how important it is to how people grow as individuals. I really learned a lot in this class.

Week 16; Post 2

2). Summarize what you liked most and what you liked least about this class.  In other words, what were the strengths and weaknesses of this class?  Would you recommend this class to other students?  Why or why not?

This class ran kind of hot and cold for me this semester. I really enjoyed the material and I really enjoyed the concepts but for some reason, I just have not been able to do well on the quizzes and tests. I have studied and read the material and done all of the assignments but for some reason, I just couldn’t get decent grades on any of the quizzes. I guess I can attribute that to senioritis. Other than that, I don’t know if I enjoyed the structure of how we did the posts. I have taken a lot of online classes and this was the first to use an outside blog source and the first to require such strict posting rules. The topics were enjoyable to write about but the fact that I work 3 jobs plus school full time made it hard to post them 12 hours apart when I normally just do all of my schoolwork on Wednesday and Sunday. I will definitely recommend this to other students because while it was tedious, it forced me to stay organized.

Week 16; Post 1

1). After reading Chapter 16 in its entirety, answer the following question: Why do you think people have such negative views of conflict?  Do you think that as people know more about conflict, they fear it less?   Why or why not?

I think that people have negative view of conflict because they associate it with fighting and confrontation. Many people are afraid of what might happen when it comes to fighting and confrontation. They think that it will always end badly. These negative thoughts and emotions give conflict a negative connotation. I think that if people start to learn and know more about conflict they will definitely fear it less. If they are more knowledgeable about how conflict can help them and be beneficial to how you communicate. There is a lot to learn about conflict, but if you learn how to deal with conflict in a positive manner then it can help raise confidence and increase communication skills. Also, the more that you deal with conflict rather than avoiding it, the easier it will be to deal with it. I definitely think that the best thing for people to do is to learn more about conflict and maybe examine themselves and how they deal with conflict.

Week 11; Post 3

3). Pick one concept or idea from this week's assigned reading and discuss it.  Be sure to relate the concept/idea to your personally by using examples from your life and/or experiences

One topic that I found really interesting this week was the topic of Revenge. It is something that some people really have a desire to partake in and some people just don’t. Personally, I never really had any desire at all to participate or seek revenge on anyone. It is something that I just never really thought was worth my time. BUT I know tons of other people enjoy the aspect of getting revenge. One of the girls I coach for cheer came to practice not too long ago with a crazy story of fun teenage revenge. I guess one of the boys from school came and set fireworks off in her front lawn. It upset her parents and upset her. So both of her parents, a friend of hers, and her all climbed into her dad’s truck and set off to get their revenge. The found a road kill opossum scraped it off the ground with a shovel, drove it to the boy’s house and left it on the hood of his car. The next day everyone knew and everyone knew to not mess with her or her family. In this case, revenge is sweet, but I have seen too many times that it just causes too much hurt.

 

Week 11; Post 2

2). After reading Chapter 12 in its entirety, answer the following question:  When have false attributions you have made about another exacerbated a conflict situation?  Have there been times when making accurate attributions about the other has helped you?

Chapter 12 is all about false attributions. According to the text, an attribution is “an inference made about the causes of another’s behavior.” That means a false attribution is a false assumption made about the reasons for someone else’s behavior and an accurate attribution is an assumption about the cause for someone’s behavior that ends up being true.

At one point, my manager at one of my jobs was being rude and was just difficult to work with. I kept thinking that it had to be because of something that I did or that she just had decided that she didn’t like me. I didn’t really know why either of those things would be true but it seemed like the only reasonable answer. It turned out that there was a new position opening up and the company was going to ask me to fill it. She was acting like that because she wanted the position and was upset that I got it over her even though I was technically below her on a hierarchy. This was a false attribution that I made.

An accurate attribution that I make often has to do with my boyfriend. He is generally a wonderful person to be around and does not like any type of confrontation, but every once in a while he gets upset and yells at me for little or no reason. When this happens, it means he is hungry. There has never been a time that I’ve been wrong about this, it is definitely an accurate attribution!!

Week 11; Post 1

1). Going back to Chapter 10, answer the following question:  Do an internet search using the terms forgiveness, reconciliation, and revenge.  What kids of sites do you find?  Which term produces more results?  Why do you think that is?

When I looked up Forgiveness I found “About 55,300,000 results.” There was everything from forgiveness in the encyclopedia, forgiveness and religion and forgiveness in psychology. The most common thing though was music videos for songs called Forgiveness.

Reconciliation got 51,900,000 results and all of the results were definitions, encyclopedia entries, and religious websites. It seems that most of every link that was not a definition or description of the word, was about reconciliation with religion. There was the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Reconciliation Ministry, and The Sacraments: Reconciliation.  

When looking up revenge, I found mostly links to the ABC show (amazing show). The first 3 pages of my 264,000,000 results were all about the definition and/or the show. Towards the end of the third page there was one video of a driver taking revenge on another driver…Other than that, nothing.

The term that produces the most results is Revenge. I think that is mostly due to its staggering results for the TV show and the use of revenge in video games (there was a ton of links to video game revenge ideas).  

Week 10; Post 3

3). Pick one concept or idea from this week's assigned reading and discuss it.  Be sure to relate the concept/idea to your personally by using examples from your life and/or experiences.

One topic that I really enjoyed this week was the concept of online communication. I have done some research in the past on online communication as nonverbal communication such as emails and instant messaging but now days, online communication is so much more. Less than ten years ago, there was tons of online communication. I definitely had two email addresses, 5 or so screen names to IM people, and a MySpace. Most communication was through written word like emails or IM’s or comments on a social media site and every once in a while, people would use a webcam. When I used to webcam with someone, It was mostly just looking at them and then IMing them. It was not common to use the microphone feature at all. Now days, we have access to all of those same technologies as well as new technology. All of these new technologies have taken nonverbal online communication to a whole different level, online communication is no longer mostly non-verbal. Skype, Facetime, and even Chat Roulette that use the internet to connect people nonverbally. I feel privileged to be a part of this era where people get to use so many different and new types of technology!