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Group Projects as Conflict Management Pedagogy

Conflict Resolution as a field has wrestled with the tensions between practice and theory. My course, introducing the field to undergraduates, shares this struggle—or it did until I reconfigured an assignment called the Conflict Map for teaching conflict management by using small groups. Based on Paul Wehr’s 1979 book, Conflict Regulation, the Conflict Map is a research paper that requires students to analyze a current case of conflict by researching its component parts and then assessing conflict regulation potential. When assigned individually to students, this assignment does not bridge the gap between theory and practice. As a group project, however, the assignment requires students to navigate personal conflict within their groups while applying theory and practical skills from the course to their shared case. Groups are a natural and appropriate source of conflict from which students can learn because their participation is driven by personal goals for success that may potentially be hindered by their reliance on the participation of group mates.