Building Conflict Competencies Through Service Learning

WELCOME TO OUR SERIES!DR 7890 - Final Seminar in Dispute Resolution

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WSU MASTER OF ARTS IN DISPUTE RESOLUTION

Come study with Us! - http://madr.comm.wayne.edu

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Building Conflict Competencies Through

Service-Learning

Bill Warters, Ph.D. Department of Communication

Wayne State University

Fostering Community Engagement

Presentation Agenda• What is Service-Learning?

• Some History – Personal/National • Benefits for Community Partners • Distinguishing Elements

• What is Special About Conflict as a Learning Opportunity?

• Conflict Resolution Service Learning • Some Examples • Your Ideas

• The Example Case of Community Boards

Prof. Donyale Griffin and WSU Students

Some stories from UCSC

▪ Intro to Feminism ▪ Resource Center for Nonviolence ▪ Conflict Resolution and Change

Course ▪World Pole Project ▪ FSH Mediation Project

Stories from Your Past?

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Service Learning History▪ There is a long history of support for

connecting service projects and formal learning

▪ A timeline of significant moments will provide a sense of the scope of this movement

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Recent History• 1980’s: National service efforts were launched at the

grassroots level, including the Campus Outreach Opportunity League and Campus Compact, which help mobilize service and service-learning programs in higher education. !

• 1990-1994: The National & Community Service Act: Congress passed the National and Community Service Act of 1990. The legislation authorized grants to schools to support service-learning and demonstration grants for national service programs to youth corps, nonprofits, and colleges and universities.

What is Service-Learning?

• Are integrated into the academic curriculum • Meet the needs of a community • Provide structured time for reflection • Help foster civic responsibility !

Adapted from the National and Community Service Trust Act, 1993

A method of teaching whereby students learn & develop through active participation in

organized service experiences that:

From the Faculty Perspective

Program Characteristics• Academic Experience

• Links the learning in the classroom to the activity in the community…and vice versa

• Reinforces what is learned in the classroom

• Designed with clear academic goals

Characteristics excerpted from Eyler, Janet and Giles, “Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning?” San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.

Program Characteristics• Community Project

• Connects the student to the community in activities that are mutually beneficial

• Projects take place at the community level

• Ideally, students and community leaders participate in planning the project

Program Characteristics• Reflection Requirement

• Built-in opportunities to reflect on the experience

• Creates a deeper understanding and better application of subject matter

• Increases appreciation of problem and encourages solution analysis

• Includes spontaneous “teachable moments”

Some Reflection Activity Examples

▪ Personal Journals ▪ Directed Writings ▪ Classroom

Assessment Techniques

▪ Agency Presentations ▪ Presentation in a

Public Forum

▪ Ethical Case Studies ▪ Student Portfolios ▪ On-line Techniques ▪ Experiential Research

Paper ▪ Minute Papers ▪ Stand and Declare ▪ Letter to the Editor

(Hatcher & Bringle, 1997)

Program Characteristics• Civic Role and Appreciation

• Experiences have a higher purpose that emphasizes the reward and value in service

• Increases civic engagement of the University

• Gives the student a better understanding of their individual role in society

Americorps Video Contest

Grand prize winner in the 2010 AmeriCorps Video Contest. Author: Julie Walker

Service-Learning is…• Cleaning up a river bank is just

service. • Looking at water samples under a

microscope is just learning.

• Biology majors taking samples from local streams, analyzing the samples and then presenting the information to a pollution control agency is service-learning.

Service-Learning is NOT…

• Community Service • Volunteering

These are “Service”

• Experiential Learning • Hands-On Learning • Internships

These are “Learning”

Service Learning Opportunities May…

▪ Be an optional course component ▪ Be a required course component ▪ Be a group service project ▪ Extend work done by previous

participants

Benefits to Community Partners

▪ Provides short-term volunteers to meet community needs.

▪ Provides potential long-term volunteers and potential recruits for agency employment.

▪ Increases awareness of agency services and social issues within the community.

Benefits to Community Partners

▪ Provides community with substantial human resources to meet educational, human, safety, and environmental needs.

▪ The talent, energy, and enthusiasm of college students is applied to meet these ever increasing needs.

▪ Many students commit to a lifetime of volunteering after this experience, creating a democracy of participation.

LA AFSC Intern video

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CONFLICT AS A KEY LEARNING OPPORTUNITY

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What is so special about conflict for learning?

▪ George Herbert Mead noted that we spend much of our life going about routine activities that don’t require much thought

▪ Situations that make us have to stop and think are thus special opportunities

▪ Dewey articulated the value of learning by doing, not just reading/thinking

▪ Conflict motivates us to action/reaction, but often we are in a “less than optimal” learning state when we are in the midst of it

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Brazilian Educator Paulo Freire▪ Was interested in teaching literacy ▪ Found he was most effective when

he took community conflicts/problematic situations and used these as the basis for learning

▪ Special focus on informal education and helping the oppressed

▪ Students learned very rapidly!28

CONFLICT HANDLING IS AT THE CORE OF DEMOCRACY

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Picture is cover from a new book from David Mathews and the Kettering Foundation

Conflict!

democracyis.us project

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Raymond Shonholtz

Some CR Service Learning Examples▪ Fort Lauderdale Public Library - Peace Place

Special Collection ▪ Syracuse Symphony Process Consultation

Team ▪ English as a Second Language Conflict

Consultants (Miami) ▪ CPR Team for the Counseling Center (WSU) ▪ Conflict Coaching for Students (Temple

University) ▪ Others?

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George Mason University ICAR Program▪ APT - Applied Practice and Theory courses ▪ More recently - Conflict Service Learning

Intensives

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Service Learning Example – Mediator Mentors

Mediator Mentors Training Video

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EAST SIDE CONFLICT RESOLUTION OUTREACH

35A Project of Wayne State University’s Department of Communication’s Master of Arts in Dispute Resolution Program

An Expanded View of Community Engagement

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Community Boards

• An attempt to draw on past experiments with “popular justice” such as Polish “Good Neighbor Committees” and worker conciliation boards

• Based at the neighborhood level • Developed by Raymond Shonholtz

(consultant to MADR at the start) • First boards were in San Francisco • Seeking to promote civic engagement • Where Professor Warters got his start...

The model

Core Values of Community Boards

Regards conflict as an opportunity for change and growth;

Values and supports the peaceful expression of conflict within the community;

Values and supports individual and community acceptance of responsibility for a conflict;

Core Values of Community Boards (continued)

Values the voluntary resolution of conflict between parties;

Values diversity and respects and appreciates differences.

Should Dispute Resolution Be Attached to the Courts?▪ Most of our mediation

skills training these days is tied directly to the needs of court-affiliated mediation centers

▪ Students work to get certified to be on the court roster

▪ Most don’t mediate as much as they’d like 41

“From the viewpoint of community conciliation systems, the answer must be no.”

Discuss with a Neighbor?

Impact of BoardsPossible Effects on the Community of a Community Board

10 Principles for SL▪ 1. An effective program engages people in responsible

and challenging actions for the common good. ▪ 2. An effective program provides structured

opportunities for people to reflect critically on their service experience.

▪ 3. An effective program articulates clear service and learning goals for everyone involved.

▪ 4. An effective program allows for those with needs to define those needs.

▪ 5. An effective program clarifies the responsibilities of each person and organization involved.

Wingspread Principles of Good Practice for Combining Service and Learning (1989)

10 Principles▪ 6. An effective program matches service providers and

service needs through a process that recognizes changing circumstances.

▪ 7. An effective program expects genuine, active, and sustained organizational commitment.

▪ 8. An effective program includes training, supervision, monitoring, support, recognition, and evaluation to meet service and learning goals.

▪ 9. An effective program insures that the time commitment for service and learning is flexible, appropriate, and in the best interests of all involved.

▪ 10. An effective program is committed to program participation by and with diverse populations.

Can we come up with a sustainable model? !

What will it take?

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Additional Resources I will share

▪ Case Study of Community Boards “Neighbors as Peacemakers” by Kirp et al.

▪ Teaching for Justice collection on Service Learning for Peace Studies

▪ Article on the successes of the Mediator Mentors program from CRQ

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