Conflict Management
When opposition occurs in an interaction, a conflict arises. Because students will have to deal with negative interactions that arise between individuals throughout their lives, they can learn to manage opposition and ideally grow from the experiences. Besides preparing students for the inevitable conflicts they will encounter throughout life, conflict management also enhances the competencies of assertiveness and decision making (Gaumer Erickson, Soukup, Noonan & McGurn, 2015).
Outcomes
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- Define the college and career competency of conflict management.
- Explain the need to look inward for one’s own personal conflict reaction, view a conflict from the opponents’ perspective, and match five conflict management strategies with the appropriate situation.
- Develop a conflict management instructional plan incorporating role play, peer mediation, literature analysis, and other strategies.
Reflective Questions
- What proactive measures do you have in place to avoid conflict?
- How does conflict between students arise in the classroom?
- Which students handle conflict better than others in your classroom?
- How do you help your students learn conflict management strategies?