An Experiential Exercise to Dramatize the Five Modes (5/14/12) Ralph Kilmann Several decades ago, I developed an experiential exercise for classroom and workshop settings in order to accelerate people’s understanding and internalization of the five modes (Competing, Avoiding, Collaborating, etc.). This articles walks readers through that example, and also provides insights for instructors as to why different parts of the exercise works. 1 Comment
GenWhy--A Site for Young International Mediators (5/07/12) Aik Kramer With its platform Generation Why supports young mediators, and through its website enables them to become more visible. Also, Generation Why wants to facilitate this ‘light community’ of young mediators by organizing various kinds of activities. Generation Why is convinced that in future mediators will fulfill an important role in solving social issues. Peer mediators are, by definition, in step with their generation and can help make complex social conflicts involving youth and young adults manageable again.
Looking Behind the Curtain (3/12/12) Roger C. Benson Mediation training has developed ad hoc over the last few decades. As the field begins to get a foothold in the legal industry, however, it is important to be intentional about what should be necessary in training a mediator. The author suggests some topics that should remain, points out some topics that are often inadvertently left-out of many trainings, and invites suggestions for additional topics.
Teaching Conflict Management Courses: Part 1 (11/21/11) John Wade Professor John Wade takes an honest look at themes and challenges of teaching dispute resolution courses in this 3-part series. He begins by examining the cycles of change and the worldwide themes.
SCMA's 23rd Annual Conference (10/24/11) Phyllis Pollack The conference itself, on Saturday, November 5, 2011 at the Strauss Institute of Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University’s Law School in Malibu, includes sessions exploring the many different aspects of mediation: international, intercultural, transformative, ombudsman, online and even conflict coaching. By the end of the day, we will have all learned how pervasive mediation can be in our everyday lives.
New Year’s Resolution (1/03/11) John Crawley CMP are resolving to get even better at communicating with you about dispute resolution. On that theme here are some additional ideas for how to promote mediation, continuing from December’s 2010 blog and white paper.
Stulberg, Joe: Teaching Conflict Resolution - Video (11/28/10) Joseph Stulberg Joe Stulberg emphasizes his love of teaching and notes that the teaching methods used in conflict resolution and mediation trainings are innovative techniques within the field of pedagogy.
Conflict Resolution Education: An Examination of Student Learning Outcomes (10/25/10) Judy Rashid Learning should be a transformative activity that integrates academic learning and student
development. Often students are expected to know how to handle conflict without being taught
the skills; thus, student conduct could be affected. This paper describes quantitative student
learning assessment results from an undergraduate course in Conflict Resolution. Results
indicate changes in students attitude and learning toward conflict resolution and self-perception.
Holding Up The Mirror: The Role of Emotion In Achieving Success In Mediation (10/18/10) Katherine Stoessel This article looks at what constitutes successful resolution. I believe success is often defined too narrowly resulting in missed opportunities for a thorough exploration of interpersonal issues, the potential for repair, and the expansion of options. Broadening the definition of success also has implications for how we train and develop new mediators.
Zumeta, Zena: Joys and Satisfactions of Training - Video (9/28/10) Zena Zumeta Zena Zumeta talks about what has pleased her in terms of the field. She states that training professionals is a joy so they can in turn train and use collaborative techniques with clients and employees.
Joe Folger: Ideas for Mediation Training - Video (8/20/10) Joseph P. Folger Joe Folger feels that an important aspect of mediation training is to impress upon the participants that as mediators they will have influence on the disputants and to make conscious choices about what kind of influence they want to have and to be clear about their ideological principles behind these choices.
How About Making Mediators More Stupid? A Training Agenda (8/08/10) Michael Jacobs Much of current mediation training is consciously "additive," in that it puts forward various frameworks, theories and models. This article argues, only partially tongue-in-cheek, that training mediators is fundamentally "subtractive." That in order to be effective, trainee mediators need to unlearn much of what they think they already know. The article refers to this process of unlearning as becoming "more stupid." 4 Comments
