Photo: Justin Lubin / NBC.
You are expected to prepare in advance for the twelve in-class negotiation activities. Each negotiation preparation activity has you respond to questions asking you to organize your thoughts around course concepts while considering how you may apply them during that negotiation.
- Here’s What I Want You to Do
- Here’s Why I Want You to Do It
- Here’s How to Do It
- Here’s How You’ll Earn Negotiation Experience Points
- Specifications for Negotiation Preparations
- Using Philosopher’s Stones
- Collaboration & Academic Integrity
Preparation is key for effective negotiation!
Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.
Here’s What I Want You to Do
Each negotiation preparation activity asks you to respond to a list of questions. These questions have you apply course concepts to an upcoming in-class negotiation activity. Your goal for each negotiation preparation is to demonstrate your understanding of the course material while making a good faith effort to apply those concepts to better approach and roleplay that negotiation activity.
These are meant to be relatively short write ups that are not assessed too critically by me. That is, I expect that you will make lots of mistakes when applying course concepts to a negotiation for the first time. The real challenge here is to remain focused and thorough in answering all the assigned negotiation preparation questions while not getting sidetracked with inessential details.
Otherwise, your negotiation preparations should use APA-style citations to cite all your sources (this includes the required course readings), acknowledge any assistance (this includes assistance received from me outside of our regular class meetings), and otherwise conform to the formatting requirements.
Please use the templates for the negotiation preparations. These templates are set up to satisfy all the formatting requirements, including a blank cover page for you to complete.
Most importantly, negotiation preparations without a properly filled out Commitment to Academic Integrity Form will not be read and will automatically earn 0 negotiation experience points.
Photo: Andrew Eccles / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images.
Here’s Why I Want You to Do It
The purpose of these negotiation preparation activities is hopefully self-evident: they give you practice in, well, preparing for (simulated) negotiation and conflict resolution situations. Indeed, one theme of this course is that preparation is unavoidable for productive negotiation and conflict resolution. So it is essential that you continue to practice and develop your skills for such preparations.
This means that the negotiation preparation activities will develop your abilities for achieving all four learning outcomes for this course:
| 1. | Apply models explaining the nature of conflict and the process of negotiation, |
| 2. | Compare and contrast different strategies for negotiation and conflict resolution, |
| 3. | Reflect on and develop your own approaches to negotiation and conflict resolution, and |
| 4. | Transform conflict into an opportunity for joint problem solving with others. |
Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.
Here’s How to Do It
When they are posted, be sure to read the questions for each negotiation preparation activity carefully, making sure you understand what each is asking you. This will ensure that your answers are comprehensive while demonstrating your understanding and application of the relevant course concepts. For instance, be sure to define any and all course terminology you use in your responses.
Please, though, don’t create extra work for yourself by regurgitating information or performing tasks not relevant to the activity’s questions.
Since your responses should demonstrate your understanding and application of material to an upcoming in-class negotiation activity, please keep direct quotation to a minimum. That is, quoting directly from the readings would show that you know where to locate relevant information, but it does not itself demonstrate that you understand what it means or can apply it to new situations. So be sure to explain course concepts in your own words.
Finally, familiarize yourself with my expectations, which consist of a detailed list of specifications, for the self-reflection activities. These should give you a further insight into how to do well on your self-reflections.
As always, if you have any confusions about how to succeed on these negotiation preparation activities, let me know!
Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.
Here’s How You’ll Earn Negotiation Experience Points
Each negotiation preparation activity is worth 300 negotiation experience points.
If a negotiation preparation satisfies all of that activity’s specifications, then it is marked “Accepted” and earns all 300 points. However, if a negotiation preparation fails to satisfy any one of those specifications, then it is marked “Incomplete” and earns 0 points.
Partial credit is not awarded. So be sure that your negotiation preparations follow all the specifications very carefully.
Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.
Specifications for Negotiation Preparations
In order to be Accepted (and earn the full 300 negotiation experience points) a negotiation preparation activity must satisfy all of the following six specifications:
| NP1: |
Make a serious effort to answer each and every preparation 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: |
Strictly follow the specified word count. (The precise word count may vary from preparation to preparation.)
The cover page, title information, references, and acknowledgments, do not count. |
| NP3: | Number your responses to each question. |
| NP4: |
Be in your own words.
In other words, please paraphrase material without directly quoting me, the text, or any other sources. |
| NP5: | Follow the formatting requirements, which include having a properly filled out Commitment to Academic Integrity Form. To help you with this, please use the templates for the negotiation preparations. |
| NP6: | 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), artificial intelligence (AI) tools, as well as from me). |
If your submission fails to satisfy any one of those specifications, then it will be marked as Incomplete (and earn 0 negotiation experience points).
Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.
Using Philosopher’s Stones
The following philosophical power applies to the negotiation preparation activities:
Guidance
Cost: 4 philosopher’s stones.Area of Effect: 1 negotiation preparation activity.
Duration: Instantaneous.
You select 1 negotiation preparation activity and give up 4 philosopher’s stones. You then gain the full 300 negotiation experience points for that activity.
You may do Guidance at any time during the semester. For example, in week 14 you may use your stones on a negotiation preparation activity from week 2. For that reason, I encourage you to save your philosopher’s stones until the end of the semester. At that point, you may then decide whether to use them on any negotiation preparation activities.
Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.
Collaboration & Academic Integrity
Since the negotiation preparation activities are meant to assess your progress in achieving the learning outcomes, I expect you to write up your negotiation preparation on your own without resorting to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to do these for you. (Perhaps not too surprisingly, AI tools do a terrible job in preparing for this class’s negotiations.) After all, I am primarily interested to see how you prepare for the negotiation activities!
Negotiation preparations are not group activities; you must complete them up on your own without any outside assistance. Let me know if you are struggling and I’ll gladly help!
However, please just be honest if you do receive any outside assistance or use the ideas of others. This includes using AI tools. In any of those cases, be sure to:
- Note the assistance you received on the cover page’s Commitment to Academic Integrity Form, and
- Properly cite that assistance and/or acknowledge it at the end of your negotiation preparation.
In addition, please do not share anything in your confidential negotiation instructions with anyone. This ensures that no one has an unfair advantage during the negotiation.
If anyone asks you for help, direct them to me instead. I’ll be glad to help them out!