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.