We have all been there; our students are arguing over something small. From the outside, we see an easy solution. During the conflict, neither side can agree. Dig into some of these engaging compromise activities to have in your classroom.

When students know how to compromise, you begin to have a community of collaborators instead of an environment where everyone is out for themselves. We see students that are cheering on the success of others. Others’ successes are not a threat to their own. This can also be seen in a classroom that employs a growth mindset.

Compromising improves group work. It is a key to conflict resolution. Teaching compromise to students can be challenging. Try these ideas in your classroom. Download these activities to try in your room.

Engaging Compromise Activities – Games

It sounds simple. Play games that encourage students to compromise to win. Change the rules of familiar games to get students to compromise.

Go-Fish

Grab a deck of Go-Fish cards or regular playing cards. Assign students to a small group or pair. In the group, give everyone a secret goal. For example, one person wants to collect four face cards, while another needs four clubs. The group that has the most players reaching their goals wins.

Monopoly

Students should divide up all of the Deeds in Monopoly. Shuffle the stack and pass them out. Follow the rules to give each student the amount of money recommended. Assign each student a secret objective. One student should get all of the blue spaces. Another student should work towards obtaining one more property than everyone else, regardless of color. The group in your class with the most players achieving their goals will win.

After each of these games, discuss with students their compromises. Ask them what the benefits of compromising were. Ask the students if they figured out their opponents’ goals. Once they knew their opponents’ goals was it easier for them to begin working together instead of against one another?

Daily Classroom Compromise Activities

Use compromise skills with your students every day. Allow them to compromise with you. Your goal is that students leave your classroom learning the material presented. Allow them to compromise with you.

Students love to have control over what is going on. If there is an activity that they groan about doing, allow them to compromise with you. Give them a few minutes to come up with alternatives. Negotiate the outcome. If they hate doing the warmup every day, let them be creative. You need them to learn the material, and they want to learn it differently. Some examples of compromise might be that if they get an A or B on their test, they can skip one warm-up.

Students can negotiate over homework, warmups, who they sit with, or doing work in groups. You know your non-negotiables. It might surprise you the creativity they have when they are given the opportunity.

Specific Compromise Activities

There are times when we need a specific activity to teach our lesson. Give students the task of planning something in your room that they all must agree on. This might be a holiday party, free time activity, or lunch in the classroom.

Divide students into groups and then give them time to start planning. The one rule is that they all have to agree on the outcome unanimously. The outcome depends not on a vote but on every student agreeing.

Before starting the activity, explaining the purpose of compromising is important. Compromising is a way to resolve conflict that gives both parties some of what they want. Both parties walk away with something they want. This is a helpful reminder before students get started.

Once you have done your activities, follow up with discussions. Give students a chance to process what happened. Ask them what went well. Allow them to discuss things that didn’t go well. How will they improve on this in the future?

Looking for more lessons? Try the Mind Trek Program today!