Group work doesn't have to be a classroom management headache. At Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, where collaboration is one of five core values, students regularly participate in group projects. To support productive group work, the staff uses several strategies: apply these strategies to your next group project to ensure students…

Although bullying behaviors can occur in many different contexts, classroom teachers must be equipped with the knowledge and skills to address these behaviors in a classroom setting. Every classroom can benefit from routines and structures that allow students to feel safe, valued, and able to participate fully. However, the types of routines and…

The Widget design task is an in-class, experiential exercise that affords students the opportunity to develop interpersonal skills in group negotiation. Students engage in new product design in committees of two dyads where one dyad represents Consumer Research and the other represents Strategic Management. Task information creates different…

This guide addresses the practical aspects of managing a classroom, with suggestions and resources appropriate for grades K-12. Most of the tips are applicable to students of all ages, but the actual techniques will look different for the various grades. For instance, "build community" might mean playing name games with elementary students but…

Do you remember a time when you used the right words at the right moment, and they made all the difference? With the aim of helping you repeat that experience every day, this book provides hundreds of examples of what we call "Best Practice Language" (BPL), a research-based technique designed to help teachers use words to improve student…

Because English language teachers should take into account the social-psychological situation of the students they teach, they must be sensitive to the effects of traumatic stress among learners. Refugee and immigrant children are frequently survivors of trauma, along with their peers in crisis-torn English as a foreign language settings around…

Developing teacher candidates who are able to make moral judgements to equitably resolve classroom dilemmas, conduct student assessment and allocate resources is critical for today's diverse classrooms and should be part of fostering professional disposition. However, one challenge of incorporating dispositions in teacher education and a valid…

Guiding children in finding social acceptance is on of the most important parts of the early childhood teacher's job. Opening the column with an anecdote from a pre-K teacher, Gartrell discusses what teachers can do when children cause conflicts on purpose and how teachers might prevent such conflicts.

It is proposed that the most interesting ethical problems arise from the use of legal skills within the system, and a curriculum for teaching ethics in a contracts course is outlined. The approach uses personal morality to resolve ethical issues that are unresolvable by application of the Code or Rules. (MSE)

Adolescents struggle with many types of conflicts in their lives. They must define relationships with friends, teachers, parents, and themselves. Disagreements will arise, and without the proper training, many teens are left feeling angry, confused, or depressed. Teaching middle school students to deal with conflict productively at an early age…

Conflicts happen all the time in early childhood classrooms--and just about everywhere else in life. Conflict management includes the ability to: (1) prevent conflicts from becoming too serious to resolve easily and (2) resolve conflicts peaceably no matter how serious they get. When a third person assists others in resolving a conflict, this is…

In this book, the authors provide dramatic strategies accompanied by age-appropriate stories and poems from around the world that address such issues as sharing, caring, cooperation, consequences, and bullying in order to create a positive classroom environment. The students' enactments take them to different lands around the globe, back into…

This brief article describes how classroom group time can be "talk central" for children to discuss problems, imagine solutions, even role-play hypothetical situations. It is often in the safety and support of the large group that children develop the tools they need to learn how to resolve the inevitable conflicts that arise throughout life.…

Some American schools are providing students with conflict resolution skills as part of their education. Three elementary and secondary school mediation programs in Hawaii, New York, and California that help youngsters solve their own problems are described. (RM)

Targeted to special education teachers, this article discusses why students fight and presents strategies for preventing fights among students, including: implementing rules, rewards, and consequences; providing effective instruction; providing a safe and attractive classroom environment; and heeding early warning signs. Strategies for managing…