Teacher Effectiveness Training / Conflict Resolution¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

When a student misbehaves persistently and disruptively, strategies more active than ignoring, nonverbal redirection, or a single consequence become necessary — strategies aimed at conflict resolution, the reduction of disagreements that persist over time. Most conflict-resolution approaches educators use combine two moves: precisely identifying what "the" problem actually is, and reminding the student of classroom expectations with clarity and assertiveness, but without apology or harshness (Jones, 2004). Thomas Gordon's widely cited Teacher Effectiveness Training develops this into a four-step model.

Step 1: Clarifying and focusing — problem ownership. Classrooms are emotional places even though their stated purpose is to promote thinking, and when a student misbehaves, negative feelings (annoyance, anger, discomfort) can interfere with figuring out exactly what's wrong. Gordon (2003) frames this as an issue of problem ownership — deciding whose problem the behavior or conflict really is. The "owner" is whoever is actually troubled by it, and might be the misbehaving student, the teacher, or another student who merely witnesses it; since the owner needs to take primary responsibility for solving the problem, correctly identifying ownership changes how to deal with it effectively. If a student privately makes an offensive remark to a teacher and is unlikely to repeat it, the problem may be mainly the teacher's; if the student is likely to repeat it to others, it becomes more the student's own problem. A problem can also come to be shared — a student who offends a classmate may find that other classmates start avoiding him too, at which point the whole class begins sharing some part of "the" problem.

Step 2: Active, empathetic listening. Diagnosing who really owns a problem is helped by active listening — attending carefully to everything a student says and trying to understand or empathize fully, even without agreeing (Cooper & Simonds, 2003). This means asking questions to check understanding, encouraging the student to elaborate, and paraphrasing or summarizing what they've said to confirm the teacher's own perception is accurate. Moving too quickly toward advice, instructions, or scolding — even responses a teacher might feel obligated to give — can shut down communication prematurely and leave the teacher with an inaccurate picture of the problem's actual source.

Step 3: Assertive discipline and "I-messages." Once the student's point of view has actually been heard, responses should be framed around how the behavior affects the teacher specifically, with three features: assertive, neither passively apologetic nor unnecessarily hostile (Cantor, 1996) — "Joe, you are talking while I'm explaining something," not "Joe, do you think you could be quiet now?" nor "Joe, be quiet!"; framed as I-messages (Gordon, 1981) — focused on how the behavior affects the teacher's ability to teach and how it makes the teacher feel, distinct from accusatory "you-messages" that evaluate the student's mistake ("Your talking is making it hard for me to remember what I'm trying to say," not "Your talking is rude"); and phrased to encourage the student to consider effects on others (Gibbs, 2003) — "How do you think the other kids feel when you cut in line ahead of them?" rather than simply asserting "that was not fair to them."

Step 4: Negotiation. The first three steps work well for conflicts that are fairly bounded, but persistent problems — chronic lateness, repeated rudeness between two students, habitually incomplete homework — can become stressful enough for everyone involved that a teacher is tempted to simply dictate a resolution, which tends to leave everyone, including the teacher, feeling defeated. Negotiating a solution instead — systematically discussing options and compromising where possible — usually costs less time and effort than continuing to cope with the original problem (Davidson & Wood, 2004), and typically combines: deciding as accurately as possible what the problem is (drawing heavily on active listening); brainstorming possible solutions with the student's own input, rather than simply imposing one; choosing a solution by consensus where possible (a vote can work when feelings aren't running high, but can otherwise just let a majority impose its will while leaving the underlying conflict unresolved); and monitoring how well the chosen solution actually works once underway, renegotiating if it doesn't.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Genuine, unhurried listening before responding — the model explicitly warns against moving to advice or discipline before the problem is accurately understood
• A teacher willing to frame feedback around their own experience of the behavior (I-messages) rather than around judgments of the student

Constraints¶

• Not a fast technique — active listening and negotiation both take real time, which is worthwhile mainly for conflicts that are persistent or complex enough to justify it
• Negotiation that excludes genuine student input, or that resorts to a vote when feelings are running high, can function as imposition dressed up as negotiation and leave the underlying conflict unresolved
• Best suited to conflict a teacher and student can work through together — not a substitute for Functional Behavior Assessment when the behavior is actually driven by an identifiable environmental trigger rather than an interpersonal conflict

Target Learners¶

• Students engaged in persistent, recurring misbehavior or conflict that lighter-touch responses (ignoring, nonverbal cues, a single consequence) have not resolved

Target Learning Goals¶

• Durable resolution of a recurring behavior or conflict, achieved through the student's own understanding and buy-in rather than through a solution simply imposed by the teacher
• Modeling a conflict-resolution process other students can also learn to use with their own disagreements

Instructions¶

1. Clarify problem ownership — determine who is actually troubled by the behavior (the student, the teacher, a bystanding classmate, or some combination) before deciding how to respond.
2. Listen actively and empathetically — ask questions, encourage elaboration, and paraphrase back what the student says, resisting the urge to jump straight to a solution.
3. State the problem assertively as an I-message — describe how the behavior affects you specifically, and invite the student to consider its effects on others, without blame or hostility.
4. Negotiate if the conflict persists — decide the problem together, brainstorm solutions with the student's input, choose one by consensus if possible, and monitor and renegotiate as needed.

Related Strategies¶

• Low-Profile Classroom Control — the appropriate response tier for misbehavior less persistent than what this strategy addresses
• Repairing Harm — a restorative process that overlaps with this strategy's emphasis on repair over blame, particularly relevant once a specific harm has occurred

Related Elements¶

• Negotiation

Key Sources¶

• Gordon, T. (1981). Teacher effectiveness training. David McKay.
• Gordon, T. (2003). Teacher effectiveness training: The program proven to help teachers bring out the best in students of all ages. Three Rivers Press.
• Cooper, P. J., & Simonds, C. (2003). Communication for the classroom teacher (7th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.
• Cantor, L. (1996). Assertive discipline: Positive behavior management for today's classroom. Lee Canter & Associates.
• Gibbs, J. (2003). Tribes: A new way of learning and being together. CenterSource Systems.
• Davidson, J., & Wood, C. (2004). A conflict resolution model. Theory Into Practice, 43(1), 6-13.
• Jones, V. F. (2004). Classroom management. In J. A. Banks & C. A. M. Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on multicultural education. Jossey-Bass.
• Arduini-Van Hoose, N. (2020). Responding to student misbehavior. In Educational psychology. Retrieved from https://edpsych.pressbooks.sunycreate.cloud. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.