Conflict & Dispute Resolution: Self-Reflection

Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.

There will be 9 self-reflections this semester. Each of these assignments has you respond to a questions that ask you to connect course material to your own experiences of conflict and negotiation.

You may be surprised at what you learn about yourself as you do these self-reflection assignments!

Instructions & Evaluation

I have adopted a form of specifications grading for this class. As a result, each of your self-reflection assignments is marked Accepted or Incomplete based on whether it satisfies a detailed list of specifications.

Now in order to be Accepted, your self-reflection must satisfy all of the following eight specifications:

Specifications
NP1:	Make a serious effort to answer each and every reflection question as clearly and completely as possible. There is no expectation of perfection here. Just make that real effort to answer all those questions.
NP2:	Illustrate your major points with real (not merely hypothetical) examples of your behavior from your life outside of class and/or from your experiences during our in-class activities. I will be the only one reading your self-reflections, and I will not share them with anyone else. That said, be sensitive about what you would and would not like me to know about yourself.
NP3:	Break up your longer answers into multiple paragraphs so they are easier to understand and follow. A good rule of thumb here is that a paragraph should not be longer than a full page. Even better: no paragraph is longer than half a page.
NP4:	Be at least 750 words long. The cover page, title information, references, and acknowledgments, do not count.
NP5:	Number your responses to each question.
NP6:	Be in your own words. In other words, please paraphrase material without directly quoting me, the text, or any other sources.
NP7:	Follow the formatting requirements, which include having a properly filled out Commitment to Academic Integrity Form.
NP8:	Use APA-style citations to cite all your sources (this includes the required course readings) and acknowledge any assistance (this includes help from classmates, your friends and family, Center for Excellence in Writing (CEW), as well as from me).

If your submission fails to satisfy any one of those specifications, then it will be marked as Incomplete. To help you with all this, please use the templates for the self-reflection assignments.

I highly encourage you to look over the grading scheme for this course, which goes into a lot more detail about how your performance on these negotiation preparations will influence your final course grade. As always, though, do not be a stranger—reach out to me if have questions about any of this!

36-Hour Grace Period

All self-reflection assignments have an automatic 36-hour grace period. This means that you are free to finish any self-reflection assignment up to 36 hours after its posted due date/time without penalty.

In short, all self-reflection assignments have an automatic 36-hour extension.

Revise & Resubmit

If you receive an Incomplete on a self-reflection assignment, you may use one free pass to have up to one week (after it was returned to you) to revise and resubmit it.

Collaboration & Academic Integrity

Your self-reflections are closed to collaboration. This is not a group assignment. After all, I am primarily interested in your reflections about all this!

Ultimately, I expect that you write your own self-reflections. Even so, I actually encourage you to talk to each other about these questions. You might also do so with friends and family. Reflecting on these topics, and seeing the different ideas of others, is a great way to learn and grow!

In doing all this, please just be honest if you do receive any assistance or use the ideas of another. In that case, you must do two things: