After reading an article written by a recent immigrant, your class is discussing the pressures immigrants feel to adopt the culture and language of their new country.
One of your students asks, "Isn't that kind of a good thing, though? Isn’t it good to assimilate?"
Another student quickly jumps in saying, “How is it good to be pressured to erase your culture and that part of your identity?”
The first student replies, “I mean fitting in isn’t the same as erasing your culture, right?”
Imagine that the above scenario, which is discussed in the From Debate to Dialogue in the Classroom workshop, is happening in your class. How would you guide the discussion? Recognizing that disagreements are a natural part of classroom interactions, what strategies or resources would you use to foster a respectful dialogue?
Background
As higher education instructors, many of us may experience a conflict between students, discomfort arising from a course topic, an offensive comment aimed at a person or identity group, or an incident that brings to light ideological disagreements. In these moments, we might feel unsure about how to respond. We might choose to ignore the moment and continue with our planned lesson. However, classroom conflict interrupts learning. Whether the conflict has a direct connection to your course or is unrelated to your material, leaving it unaddressed can hinder student learning (Ogunyemi et al., 2020).
In contrast, when you address classroom conflict directly and effectively, new learning opportunities may arise.
“When handled well, classroom conflict can create the dissonance essential for significant learning, permit new and different voices to be heard, clarify important differences, raise issues to a new level and place where they can be seen and addressed, and provide students with models for creative engagement and problem-solving” (Pasque et al., 2013).
Conflict and disagreement are normal components of the learning process. When navigated appropriately, such engagements become productive learning moments (Landis, 2008).
This guide is focused on classroom conflicts that can involve offensive or disrespectful statements or actions towards individuals or groups of people, and that disrupt the effectiveness and safety of the learning environment. We’ll offer practical guidance you can use to navigate these situations productively and compassionately.
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Your Role as an Instructor
As an instructor, you are responsible for fostering a safe learning environment that supports free expression and is conducive for learning.
Here are some key points to keep in mind:
Focus on Relevant Course Topics and Content: Cover topics and content as defined by the curriculum, educational goals of the course, and the course syllabus.
Support Freedom of Expression: Encourage students to engage in free discussion and inquiry while engaging in respectful dialogue.
Embrace Diversity of People and Ideas: Recognize that because the classroom community includes individuals with diverse identities, backgrounds, viewpoints, and experiences, students may experience course materials and activities differently.
Foster Respect: Establish and maintain a respectful learning community that does not cross into discrimination, harassment, or other forms of misconduct.
Provide Accommodations: Remember to provide accommodations for disability, health, and religious observances.
UX Tip
University policies and guidelines
Learn more about Ohio State policies and guidelines that address your responsibility to uphold the university’s commitment to freedom of expression while fostering a rigorous and productive learning environment:
Though it may seem challenging or uncomfortable at first, it is your responsibility as an instructor to navigate conflict in your classroom.
First, addressing conflict models responsible behavior. You are not only delivering content to your students, but also training them how to be responsible and respectful members of a community.
Second, how you address conflict can reflect your course curriculum and ideologies. Perhaps an underlying theme of a course is that students must be accountable to their communities or engage in ethical decision-making. You should behave in ways that adhere to this theme and help students practice that behavior as well.
Third, you should address offensive or hostile comments or behaviors associated with discrimination, harassment, or other forms of misconduct. The responsibility for responding to conflict should not fall on the shoulders of a targeted student or group of students.
Below, we outline several direct approaches to help you navigate classroom conflict as you teach.
Strategies for Navigating Classroom Conflict
College classrooms are playgrounds for students’ ideological reflection and experimentation. There will inevitably be incongruity and disagreement between students as they share their perspectives and experiences. Whether deliberately or not, classroom discussions may include speech or behaviors that offend and hurt others, especially when discussing current events or controversial issues that impact students' lives.
Whether you are teaching in person or online, conflict may arise during your course. If your course deals with controversial topics, it is particularly likely that some students may react strongly to statements during discussion. How can you prepare to address potential conflict?
There are five stages at which you can navigate classroom challenges: before the semester, at the start of the semester, before a class session, during a class session, and after a class session.
Before the Semester
Consider appropriate content and assessments.
When preparing to teach, consider the most effective materials and assessment methods that align with the course goals while minimizing harm. Consider appropriate assignments, activities, and materials to support student learning, especially for controversial topics.
Relevance: Ensure all content and issues you plan to introduce are directly related to course goals.
Course Materials: Present content respectfully and consider its potential impact on all students, including protected class groups.
Assessment Methods: Evaluate whether discussions are the best way to support student learning about a topic. Alternatives include reflection papers, journals, essays, projects, and polls administered via a survey or a student response system like Top Hat.
Assignment Design: Apply Universal Design for Learning principles when designing your assignments, and be prepared to provide alternatives as accommodations. Use an approach such as Transparency in Learning and Teaching(Winkelmes, et al., 2023) to clearly describe each assignment’s purpose, tasks, and criteria for success.
Organization and Sequencing:Scaffold assignments to prepare students to engage with complex issues or controversial topics.
A well-crafted syllabus helps you start the semester off on the right foot. Be sure to include your department’s required statements in your syllabus. You should also include the key elements listed below to promote transparency and clarity around various course expectations, policies, and supports for students. Read about and download Ohio State’s recommended syllabus statements and policies.
Course Goals and Content: Outline course topics, content, and assignments, explaining their relevance to educational goals and students’ lives.
Assessment Methods: Clearly explain how student performance will be assessed.
Instructional Approaches: Describe the value and purpose of instructional approaches used to support student learning.
Academic Integrity Statements: Include statements about academic integrity, artificial intelligence, and academic misconduct. Remind students about their obligations concerning the Code of Student Conduct.
Content Warning Language: Provide warning language for content that could evoke a traumatic experience for students.
Copyright: Include a statement on copyright protection of course materials.
Counseling and Consultation Services/Mental Health: Inform students of the counseling and consultation support services available to them.
Creating an Environment Free from Harassment, Discrimination, and Sexual Misconduct: State the university’s commitment to building and maintaining a harassment-free, non-discriminatory environment.
Disability and Accessibility: Invite students with disabilities to meet with you to discuss arrangements for accommodations.
Diversity: Affirm the value of diversity of people and ideas, as well as the commitment to maintaining an inclusive community.
Grievances and Solving Problems: Explain how students can resolve disputes, disagreements, or grievances.
Religious Accommodations: Describe how students should communicate with you early about any accommodation requests for religious beliefs and practices, as well as how you will provide students with reasonable alternative accommodations in keeping with the Religious Accommodations policy.
Open Communication: Encourage students to reach out to you with questions or concerns about the course. Provide office hours or other contact opportunities.
Ensure guest speakers align with your course goals, and consider the best methods for their inclusion.
Alignment with Course Goals: Ensure each guest speaker’s presence supports the educational goals of the course described in the syllabus.
Format Consideration: Evaluate whether in-person, videoconference, or pre-recorded interviews are most appropriate.
Speaker Selection: Invite speakers with diverse perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, and areas of expertise.
Speaker Preparedness: Provide guest speakers information about the course, its educational goals, and the focus of their visit. Emphasize the importance of refraining from pressuring students to take political action on a cause or candidate and avoiding speech and behavior that could be harassing, discriminatory, or threatening.
Student Engagement: Prepare students to engage with guest speakers through pre-planned activities like advance readings, discussion questions, or assignments.
Post-Visit Reflection: Use reflection assignments or surveys to help students process the visit and further address the course’s educational goals.
Anticipate difficult conversations and prep accordingly.
Prepare yourself to navigate challenging conversations or potential conflicts that might arise around your course topics.
Mid-Course Feedback: Plan how to collect, process, and respond to student feedback on their experiences in your course.
Discuss Cases: Connect with colleagues or mentors who will share examples of challenging conversations they’ve experienced, and the effective approaches they used to navigate them.
Professional Learning: Build your facilitation skills so you can ask good questions and encourage students’ freedom of expression. Prepare sample statements you could say and actions you could take if conflict arises during class. See During a Class Session below for examples of such phrases and actions.
These strategies for the start of the semester—beginning on the first day of class—will help you prepare students to respectfully handle disagreements should conflict arise.
Shape a positive learning environment.
Create a welcoming and respectful classroom community by learning about students and establishing clear guidelines.
Learn about Students and Establish Trust: Use strategies like surveys, welcome activities, and introduction videos to learn about students’ interests and goals.
Be Clear and Transparent: Explain the course background, focus, and educational goals. Provide students the syllabus and spend time explaining instructional approaches, policies, deadlines, and grading.
Create a Classroom Agreement: Shared ground rules are essential to keeping interactions productive. Discuss guidelines for respectful conversations, and engage the class in collaboratively creating a classroom agreement or set of community norms. The agreement can be a living document that students review ahead of complex discussions, add to, and adapt throughout the semester. Consider including your agreement and discussion guidelines in your CarmenCanvas course.
Equip for Dialogue: Prepare students for respectful dialogue prior to potentially challenging conversations or controversial topics by clarifying appropriate language and etiquette.
These effective facilitation strategies will help you prepare for class discussions that may address controversial topics.
Prepare for the discussion.
Align plans for discussion with your course goals and set clear expectations to foster meaningful dialogue.
Alignment with Course Goals: Ensure the focus of the discussion addresses course goals as described in your syllabus. Think ahead about how you will articulate to students the alignment between the discussion topics and specific goals or learning outcomes.
Be Well-Informed: Educate yourself on the topic to frame and process students’ discussion contributions, address misconceptions, and connect to research, historical contexts, or broader societal issues.
Set Clear Expectations: Consider providing students a framework or rubric for discussion participation. Encourage them to support their contributions with course materials, data, or real-world experiences.
Create a lesson plan for an open and engaging discussion that aligns with course goals and maintains an inclusive learning environment.
Connect to Course Goals: Prepare to remind students of the purpose of discussion as an instructional approach. Explain how the discussion topic is clearly linked to course goals.
Class Structure: Plan how you will structure class time to engage students productively. You might use reflective writing exercises to help them organize their thoughts, or balance their participation by using active learning strategies like think-pair-share, small groups, or gallery walks. Consider how you will track time and redirect your approach as needed.
Flexibility: Be prepared to offer alternatives for students who may be disproportionately affected by the discussion.
These strategies will help you and your students respond to offensive statements, redirect negative language, and de-escalate conflict.
Support students.
Be attentive to students’ discomfort and provide opportunities for follow-up and feedback.
Notice Discomfort: Observe whether students seem uncomfortable or distressed.
Offer Follow-Up Opportunities: Encourage students to meet with you during office hours or after class, write ungraded reflections to express their thoughts on the discussion, or provide anonymous feedback on their classroom experiences.
Practice "calling in."
You may be familiar with the concept of “calling out” problematic comments, which usually includes publicly pointing out that a person has committed an offensive or hurtful action. “Calling in,” on the other hand, is a consciously compassionate practice of pulling back those who have strayed from the community and re-establishing common ground. Calling in allows space for individuals to make mistakes with positive intentions, meaning there is plenty of room for everyone involved to learn, evolve their thinking, and improve their behavior.
In this guide, “calling in” can be understood as a strategy of resolving conflict in which grace is extended to those who have acted or spoken in a way that creates division between themselves and others in their community. When calling in, positive intent is assumed from the offending person, and opportunities are offered for them to correct and learn.
These strategies will help you and your students respond to offensive statements, redirect negative language, and de-escalate conflict.
Pull the positive intentions out of what might be well-meaning but awkwardly worded comments. Help students rephrase their statements more respectfully.
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me more about that.”
“I think this might be what you’re saying. Correct me if I’m wrong…”
“I would encourage you to use other words…”
Avoid engaging in direct conflict with an individual who makes an offensive comment. Instead, turn the focus back to the group and community accountability. Remind students of the classroom agreement they have authored or agreed to, emphasize the importance of being respectful, or consider facilitating group feedback, when appropriate.
“Let’s be thoughtful about the terms we use.”
“Can we try to be more careful with our words around this topic?”
“Let’s remember that we don’t know what experiences people are bringing with them to class.”
“What are our thoughts on that statement?”
Be honest and communicate hurt and offense as a community matter. Explain why a given statement is inappropriate or inconsiderate. Use “I” statements, rather than statements such as “you said/did this” or “you think this/that way.” Statements that begin with “you” can feel accusatory or commanding, which risks escalating an already tense situation.
“I’d like us to consider how our words impact our classmates.”
“Speaking like this breaks our classroom guidelines.”
Be clear with the class that disagreement is not wrong or prohibited. However, making comments that may approach discrimination, harassment, or threats must be avoided.
“It's important to share different perspectives with one another. Let’s ensure the discussion remains respectful."
"It's alright to disagree, but discriminatory, harassing, or threatening comments are unacceptable.”
Take a breather if conflict or tension escalates.
Rearrange seats if possible. For example, have students move their desks from rows facing the front of the classroom into a circular formation.
Pause the conversation and agree to come back to it.
“We’re not prepared to talk about this today. Let’s return to this topic after some reflection and preparation.”
These strategies will help you and your students reflect upon conflicts and take steps to improve future interactions.
Reflect and revise.
After a conflict, it is helpful to reflect with your students, as well as on your own.
Debrief with Students: Debrief not only with the individual(s) who made a hurtful comment, but with the entire class. Reflect upon the experience rather than ignoring it.
Add to a Reflective Teaching Document: Create a reflective teaching journal to note successes, challenges, and ideas to inform future teaching (Germano and Nicholls, 2020), as well as to have personal notes about the incident and how you navigated conflict.
Revisit Your Classroom Agreement: Consider adapting your classroom agreement or community norms based upon the experience and students’ reflections.
Respond to Student Feedback: Acknowledge if you should have addressed a moment of conflict or tension in class but did not. Remain open to being “called in” yourself as an opportunity to set an example for students.
Continue learning and try again.
Here’s how you can continue to expand your skills for navigating classroom conflict.
Learn About and Practice New Strategies: Expand your teaching skills through readings and learning communities. Participate in upcoming learning opportunities, such as the From Debate to Dialogue in the Classroom workshop presented by Inclusive Excellence and the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning.
Seek Peer Support: Connect with colleagues and mentors who are willing to discuss strategies for navigating classroom conflict.
Request a Consultation: Request a consultation with the Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning to discuss questions, challenges, ideas, and scholarly approaches to evidence-informed teaching. You may also explore the policies, resources, and offices listed below to find guidance on specific issues or concerns.
When Recommended Strategies Don't Work
Though we encourage students to learn and grow during classroom discourse, not all students will take us up on the offer. It’s important to remember that we invite students to participate respectfully in class, but we cannot make them do so, and if it continues, this behavior may disrupt the classroom. If you must, ask a disruptive student to leave.
If a Situation Escalates
Above all, we should value the safety of our students and ourselves in class. If strategies to manage conflict are not working and you worry the conflict will escalate, choose the safest option possible to resolve it before resuming the class session.
If a student(s) refuses to leave class when asked, consider dismissing the entire class to de-escalate tension.
If you think a conflict between two or more students will pose a risk during class, consider the coordination and communications necessary tocancel the session. No concept or course content is more important than the safety of you and your students.
If you feel unsafe interacting with a particular student(s), do not meet with them individually. Inform at least one supervisor of your concerns and make sure you are accompanied if you do choose to meet with them.
Documenting Incidents
Document all hostile interactions or conflicts you have with students and share them with at least one supervisor. This includes incidents that take place before, during, and after class.
If a student violates class discussion guidelines, makes a threatening action that impacts the safety of another person, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct that unreasonably interferes with university activities, or may have violated university rules or federal, state, or local laws in their speech or behavior, report a complaint/incident as soon as possible in accordance with the Code of Student Conduct.
If you are concerned about a student’s well-being, contact Counseling and Consultation Service to consult with a clinician or discuss how to make a referral.
If you are aware of immediate risk of harm to a student or anyone else, call 911 or seek urgent assistance.
Consult your department chair or supervisor and the following Ohio State resources for more guidance:
An instructor shares specific strategies for "calling in" classroom conflict in the moment.
Summary
Navigating classroom conflict—and teaching students to do so as well—is crucial to ensuring your classroom is an inclusive and welcoming space for all learners. It can help you transform difficult moments of discord into new learning opportunities. Disagreements during discussions are unavoidable, but the strategies outlined above will help you foster respect, reflection, and a space in which students are supported to grow and learn from their mistakes.
By engaging in evidence-informed teaching practices before, during, and after class, you set a positive example for students to follow in your classroom and in their communities beyond it.
Before the semester: Consider appropriate content and assessments, craft syllabus statements, plan thoughtfully if you’re inviting guest speakers, and anticipate difficult conversations.
At the start of the semester: Shape a positive learning environment by establishing trust, being transparent about your course goals and expectations, and creating a classroom agreement to guide respectful dialogue.
Before a class session: Prepare for discussion by considering alignment to course goals, educating yourself on the topic, setting clear expectations for participation, and developing a discussion lesson plan.
During a class session: Notice when students are uncomfortable or distressed and offer opportunities for further conversation through office hours, written reflections, or anonymous feedback. Practice “calling in” (rather than “calling out”) problematic comments made during class.
After a class session: Reflect on conflicts that occurred and how they were managed—with students and on your own—and consider the changes you could make to inform your future teaching. Engage in professional learning to keep developing your approach to managing classroom conflict.
Lovett, M., M. W. Bridges, M. Dipietro, S. Ambrose, & M. K. Norman. (2023). How Learning Works: 8 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. Jossey-Bass. https://library.ohio-state.edu/record=b10815745~S7
Ogunyemi, D., Clare, C., Astudillo, Y. M., Marseille, M., Manu, E., & Kim, S. (2020). Microaggressions in the learning environment: A systematic review. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 13(2), 97.
Pasque, P. A., Chesler, M. A., Charbeneau, J., & Carlson, C. (2013). Pedagogical approaches to student racial conflict in the classroom. Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 6(1), 1.
Winkelmes, M. A., Boye, A., & Tapp, S. (2023). Transparent design in higher education teaching and leadership: A guide to implementing the transparency framework institution-wide to improve learning and retention. Taylor & Francis. https://library.ohio-state.edu/record=b10802403~S7
