Demand Opportunities: Risks and Rewards

Today in class we experienced our first demand opportunity. Our discussion initially consisted of sharing our own interpretations of what we thought was being offered to us. Several people expressed concerns about our lack of having a demand available at this exact moment in class. Others offered the solution that we should have our first demand be the ability to ask for demands at any time. Although this demand seems simple, in a way it opens a lot of doors for the rest of the semester and changed the dynamic of the course in my opinion.

In saying this, I believe that the course has changed significantly after this discussion of demand opportunities because as a class we are now better at coming to a collective consensus among all thirty individuals. While we discussed our ability to request a demand, I started to think of this experience as something deeper than simply wanting to make changes to the syllabus. The exercise not only reaffirmed our ability to have a voice in what pertains to our English education, but also taught us how to properly and respectfully come to an agreement among a large group of students. It was interesting to see all of the different points that were brought up about some of the vague characteristics of the opportunity we were given and how the discussion ultimately gave everyone clarity about the situation at hand.

Moving forward in the course, I feel very confident that the individuals in this class will be able to effectively and respectfully offer suggestions for demand requests. One important point made was the importance of having an anonymous forum to allow to disagreements to demand suggestions because often times it can be awkward to disagree with a classmate’s idea. This way there is a way to voice your opinion without having to feel shy or uneasy if you have a very different feeling toward an expressed demand. Today I noticed a lot of potential among the individuals in this course to be able to come up with interesting ideas as well as keeping everyone’s opinions and thoughts on these demands a matter of importance.  

In addition to pondering the nature of a demand opportunity, we talked aabout Suny Geneseo’s Mission, Vision and Values. This statement was included in a link at the top of our syllabus for this course. By having the words of Geneseo’s mission in mind in respect to how we can use demand opportunities in the course, it can help aid us in our requests. For example, if we as a class remain diligent to keeping our goals for the course aligned with the goals of the college, we know that our demands are within reason. Even though Dr. McCoy gave us the freedom to make any sort of demand, we all felt that it is best that any demand we make would be a reasonable one as well as one that would add to our learning experience in the course. Naturally it would make sense to make demands that would improve our experience with the course rather than demands that would simply make our lives easier. I believe that reading the mission statement was a helpful tool in giving our class some direction as well as a reminder of what we are really here to accomplish.

When Dr. McCoy re-entered the classroom after our discussion, she brought up a thought provoking question about the exercise. She asked us that if she was at risk by proposing demand opportunities to her students. Immediately, I thought the answer would be yes. By giving students the ability to make changes to her syllabus and critique matters of the course, it puts Dr. McCoy in a vulnerable position. She may not agree with the demand and might feel uncomfortable disagreeing with our propositions. Or she could potentially be offended if some students voice their criticism regarding aspects of her teaching style. Even though she still maintains the power to veto any demand request that we make for her, Dr. McCoy certainly did put herself in a unique position within the classroom to allow for demand opportunities during any time throughout the course. To reflect on these inferences, I do have faith in the other individuals in the class and myself to be mindful and respectful with the content and frequency of our demands.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.