1 / 12

Why Would A Student Say That? Strategies for Unraveling Unanticipated Classroom Conflicts

Why Would A Student Say That? Strategies for Unraveling Unanticipated Classroom Conflicts. Ilene D. Alexander, PhD Resources at http://tinyurl.com/db7j2x. Goals of this brief session:. Gain an understanding of “flashpoints”

tad-deleon
Download Presentation

Why Would A Student Say That? Strategies for Unraveling Unanticipated Classroom Conflicts

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Why Would A Student Say That? Strategies for Unraveling Unanticipated Classroom Conflicts Ilene D. Alexander, PhD Resources at http://tinyurl.com/db7j2x

  2. Goals of this brief session: • Gain an understanding of “flashpoints” • Review frameworks for understanding & resolving classrooms conflict / hot moments • Practice – through review of cases – ways of assessing a classroom situation by generating possible responses, then selecting a plan of action with follow up assessment

  3. What Is Multicultural Learning? • Sustaining Multicultural Learning involves creating classroom climates in which students and teachers can acknowledge and address the discomfort of working across boundaries, learn how to respond to difference and grow intellectually and personally as a consequence. • To make multicultural learning both possible and effective, instructors must structure classroom interactions to be respectful & challenging, creative & meaningful, engaged & transformative. In such an environment, inaccuracies, mistakes, hasty generalizations, intolerance are addressed with honesty and care.

  4. Shifting Perspectives The work of a teacher involves • (1) development of critical thinking skills, so that students understand how to organize data, analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and draw conclusions; • (2) recognition of meaning attribution and the power that emotions, values, and personal experience have in shaping one's interpretation of information. • “Bridging Emotion & Intellect” Jane Fried. College Teaching: Fall 1993.

  5. Shifting Perspectives The professor, therefore, becomes responsible for teaching students three sets of skills: • first is separating facts from cultural assumptions & beliefs about those facts • second is teaching students how to shift perspective • third is perhaps the most difficult to learn, that of differentiating between personal discomfort and intellectual disagreement

  6. Shifting Perspectives • Learning Is Uncomfortable / Dissonant • Cognitive development: • Dualism (All things are right/wrong, black/white.) • Multiplicity(Everyone is right…no one is wrong.) • Relativism(Well, everyone has his/her own opinion and could be equally right.) • Commitment to Relativism(Some ideas are more right that others. One has to look carefully at the claim, supporting evidence, and other factors.) • Perry and Belenky, et al

  7. Shifting Perspectives • Jackson/Hardiman Model of Social Identity Development • Social identity development theory describes attributes that are common to the identity development process for members of all target and agent groups…. In reality most people experience several stages simultaneously, holding complex perspectives on a range of issues and living a mixtureof social identities. • This developmental model can be helpful in understanding student perspectives and selecting instructional strategies, but we caution against using it simplistically to label people.

  8. Diversity Flashpoint • … involves a difficult interpersonal situation during a faculty-student interaction that originates from an area of identity difference (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, ability/disability, language or linguistic ability, religion, age, size, family structure, geographic origin).

  9. Flashpoints – Perceptual Filters • We can anticipate having such differences due to a number of factors that create "perceptual filters" that influence our responses to the situation: • Culture, race, and ethnicity • Gender and sexuality • Knowledge (general and situational) • Impressions of the Messenger • Previous experiences

  10. Conflict • Conflict resolution involves series of steps including: • Listening • Finding common interests • Reaching an agreement • Creative response • Empathy/Internal Civility • Appropriate assertiveness • Cooperative power • Managing emotions • Willingness to resolve • Mapping the conflict • Development of options • Broadening perspectives • Brainstorming possible solutions to the problem • Considering multiple views of proposed solutions

More Related