A performative and dialogic approach to teach group roles, group conflict, and conflict management styles

Abstract

Undergraduate courses on small-group communication often cover group roles, group conflict, and conflict management styles. Although these concepts are valuable to learn, merely memorizing them does not address the practical skills students need to employ conflict management strategies when situated in group conflict. This activity provides a dialogic and performative approach to teach small-group roles, small-group conflict, and conflict management styles. Through a dialogic role-play, this activity asks students to create and to perform scenarios depicting small-group conflict where other students in the audience step into the scene to perform new strategies to resolve the conflict.

Courses:

Small-Group Communication, Organizational Communication, Business and Professional Communication, and Conflict Management and Mediation. This activity is designed for courses that meet in-person for 50 minutes three times per week and have an enrollment of no more than 25 students. The activity may be adapted for courses with larger enrollments that meet in-person for 75 minutes twice per week, but three class periods will still be needed to complete the activity. Additionally, the activity can be adapted for a hybrid modality. However, the conflict scenarios should be in-person.

Objectives:

This unit activity helps students to (1) understand the roles people perform in small groups, types of group conflict, and conflict management styles through reflecting, writing, discussing, staging, and performing those concepts for the class; (2) apply concepts of small-group roles, types of group conflict, and conflict management styles through scripting, staging, and performing those concepts for the class; (3) analyze and evaluate concepts of small groups, types of group conflict, and conflict management styles through reflecting and discussing those concepts in class; and (4) create a performance to embody concepts of small-group roles, types of group conflict, and conflict management styles.

Notes

1 Boal’s (2001) “joker” is different from, and should not be confused with, the role of joker found in some group communication literature. Boal’s joker is a playful master of ceremonies of the activity.