Teacher Behavior Continuum Scenario

Except for my first year of teaching, I have rarely experienced situations of defiance by any of my students. This is primarily because I learned early on in my career that creating engaging lessons that interest and involve students, is an effective preventive measure for students who act out as a result of boredom or frustration. The most common conflict issues in my teaching relate to disagreements between students because my teaching incorporates a significant amount of collaboration.

In the majority of serious conflict situations between students, my usual response was to jump in and solve the problem by directing students who was right, who was wrong and what their next steps would be. In terms of the teacher behavior continuum outlined by Dr. Charles Wolfgang, I jumped directly to the rules and consequences stage and commanded solutions to the conflict (Laureate Education Inc., 2008). The power rested completely with me and the students involved were not given the opportunity to analyze the situation and work out a solution. While initially effective, this approach did not empower students to practice solving their own problems and was not effective at exposing the source issues related to the conflict between the students. “If we are to assist students, we need the clearest possible understanding of how the view a situation. If we merely punish or remove students, we will be the last to find out what may be influencing their behavior, and we may be the first to incur their frustration” (Jones & Jones, 2008, p. 355).

Conflict between students is going to be a natural component of projects that incorporate collaboration. Instead of performing the role of judge and jury, I think it is more effective to explicitly familiarize students with methods of solving their own problems. In this way, students will have opportunities to practice conflict resolution skills that will serve them well in the future. In my own teaching, I plan to train students with Glasser’s steps for problem solving as well as to experiment with student facilitated peer conflict resolution techniques such as the think-feel-act model (Jones & Jones, 2008).

In my current role as a facilitator for increasing the use of collaborative learning models that incorporate technology, I need to include problem resolution as one of the components. This means training educators on how they can mentor and teach their students effective techniques for conflict resolution. Because I work with educators at all grade levels, I plan to incorporate an inquiry into conflict resolution skills and lesson plans. Websites example such as the following will be included in this research: http://www.teachervision.fen.com/classroom-discipline/resource/3038.html

Training students to effectively solve interpersonal conflicts, in a manner that provides all parties with acceptable solutions, will provide a multiple of dividends in the classroom. Foremost, students will be engaged in active problem solving and practicing conflict resolution skills that will continually benefit them in the future.

Resources:
Jones, V., & Jones, L. (2007). Comprehensive classroom management: Creating communities of support and solving problems (Laureate Education, Inc., custom 8th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon

Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008a). Program eleven. Limit Setting and Anger Management [Motion picture]. Classroom management to promote student learning. Baltimore: Author.