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There are many ways that you can encourage a safe learning place for your students, and resolving conflict in your classroom is one of the most important tools you have. Through conflict management techniques, you can ensure your classroom remains a positive environment focused on learning, regardless of the differences your students face in socio-economic status, race, cultural background, individual personalities, and academic performance.
All it takes is a look at current news and world events to see that conflict resolution is a lifelong skill that many adults have not yet mastered. Learning the fundamentals of conflict resolution early will help your students thrive from the classroom, to the office, to their home setting…to ultimately the boardroom.
Here are some tools that we’ve found to be useful in achieving conflict resolution in the classroom:
In any environment, a conflict will escalate when people are upset. If you are emotional you cannot grasp a logical view of the situation. With these emotional conflicts, encourage students to hit the “pause button”, so they can take a breath. Even if you have to move students to opposite sides of the room, allow them to have a couple of moments apart to diffuse the situation. You can also encourage students to take part in a 5-minute Meditation before attempting to create a solution.
Some problems you encounter are worth discussing and others should be let go. You, as the educator, you are responsible for deciding when it’s appropriate to smooth over a situation or tackle it head on. It is important that every step of the resolution process is focused on the student. They need to have a voice, feel heard, and be able to move forward past the incident.
Many students are not comfortable speaking about their problems, but they are okay with drawing or writing about their issues. Giving students journals to document their feelings gives them a safe space to understand their thoughts. You can even have students journal online in a Google Doc.
Encourage students to own the process and create their own resolutions to problems. Instead of telling students what to do, ask students how they would resolve their conflict. This type of reasoning also helps develop students’ critical thinking skills. You can use brainstorming techniques, like drawing diagrams, or students can use you as an impartial third party.
Once a solution has been decided upon, have students shake hands to acknowledge the disagreement is over. It is important to have a shared gesture between involved parties to agree to move forward. Your final step in conflict resolution is to monitor the involved students.
By correctly handling conflicts in your class, you strengthen bonds between students and lay the foundation to teach them how to handle issues in the future. This open communication will limit conflicts and allows you to focus on teaching students rather than refereeing situations.
Daily, we are faced with emotional issues in our lives that can be negatively escalated by mishandling situations. Your classroom is no exception, and you can handle conflicts effectively with the right tools. These methods will assist you in retaining healthy control of your classroom, ensuring that your students feel safe and comfortable in their learning environment.
General Strategies for Handling Conflict in Classrooms
The following strategies are adapted from Meyers (2003):
“This study indicates that the consequences of ignoring classroom incivilities can have deleterious effects on students, as the findings support that classroom incivilities harm the classroom climate. Further, the effects of classroom incivilities extend beyond the confines of the classroom and can damage students’ efforts to succeed at their institutions” (Hirschy & Braxton, 2004, p. 72).
“Conflict is inevitable in a classroom, and if not channeled appropriately conflict can damage relationships. Inclusive faculty did not attempt to minimize conflict; rather, they strived for academic conflict and disagreement (Osei-Kofi, Richards, & Smith, 2004). Conflict, if channeled correctly, allowed for more ideas to enter the sphere of learning. Inclusive faculty embraced conflict by preparing ahead for conflict resolution (Chesler et al., 2005); encouraging, if not demanding, students to respect and appreciate those who disagreed with them (Elenes, 2006); acknowledging that learning through a crisis can be beneficial (Kumashiro, 2003); challenging students’ resistance to learning (Tuitt, 2003); recognizing and engaging both overt and covert forms of conflict (Sfeir- Younis, 1993); and physically reorganizing the classroom to deal with negative intergroup dynamics (Chesler et al.)” (Stone Norton, 2008, p. 37).
Not all conflicts can be avoided with proactive measures. The following six steps describe a flexible response to many conflict situations. To practice implementing these steps, remember a conflict you have experienced and think about how these steps could be adapted to help you respond to that situation.
Conflict situations can make the participants feel upset, threatened, frustrated, and/or angry. These emotional reactions are unpleasant and they can interfere with your ability to respond constructively. Help to control your emotional responses to challenging situations by changing your perceptions of them. Rather than angrily thinking, “That student is a jerk” or feeling miserable because “I’m being attacked”, you could think to yourself, “That student is really upset – I wonder what the problem is?”, or “This is a distraction that needs to be addressed.” By not taking the situation personally, you control your own emotional reaction, which allows you to respond in a calm manner.
Responding immediately to student concerns, distress and inappropriate behaviour demonstrates that you are attentive to your students’ needs and reinforces your expectations for student behaviour. For example, if students are noisy in class you can respond immediately by pausing until you regain the students’ attention, making eye contact with the disruptive students, or asking if there is a problem you can help resolve. Some situations can not be fully addressed immediately. For example, addressing a serious disagreement in class can distract the students, undermine your authority and take time away from the planned learning activities. The best response can be to note that there is a situation that needs to be resolved and suggest when and where it might be further investigated. Try to be attentive to both your needs and the student’s situation when picking the time and place. If you sense that a student is intimidated by authority, you may want to meet in a neutral location, like a conference room, rather than in your office. By meeting at an appropriate time and place, you can facilitate open communication between yourself and the students.
When you meet with students, indicate that you are interested in hearing their perspectives by keeping a positive tone, and asking them open-ended questions, like “What part of the marking do you see as unfair?” When the students explain their situation, really listen: focus on their communication, don’t interrupt, and let them finish.
It’s very easy to misinterpret someone, especially if they are at all emotional. To ensure that you understand your students, you can check your perception of their accounts by describing your understanding and asking them to correct any misinterpretations or elaborate on anything that you find unclear. When describing your understanding, reframe their points as positive comments using non-blaming words. For example, “If my group members think they can do this to me again, they’re mistaken!” can be rephrased as “It’s important to you that your rights are respected.” Rephrasing the problem reassures the students that you are listening to them and it ensures that all the parties understand the problem. You can also ask lots of open-ended questions until you have enough information to understand the problem. Ideally, the feedback process would end when the students’ comments and body language confirm that they are sure that you have completely understood their message.
Now that you understand the students, you are in a good position to select a course of action. Be sure to choose an action that is in line with your teaching goals for the course. Tell the students what you have decided and give them your rationale for your decision. For example, when responding to a mark dispute, you might choose to review the assignment with the student by making reference to the marking criteria. In explaining your position, you might want to show an example of an assignment that better meets your expectations.
When you have explained what you have decided to do, you can discuss possible next steps with the students:
Finally, in many cases, you will want to document your decisions and, where appropriate, the information upon which you have based your decision.
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