Use Video Examples to Teach Your Students to Become Better Mediators
Parties engaged in disputes are often unable to reconcile their differences alone, or fail to reach outcomes that are adequate for everyone. Mediators can add a great deal of value by helping parties to efficiently and effectively examine the issues at hand, take the interests and perspectives of all the stakeholders into account, and identify creative solutions that leave everyone better off than they would be in the absence of agreement. Mediators offer a suite of techniques to support effective problem-solving. They must remain non-partisan while helping all the parties work through issues both together and separately, away from the table.
Video-based mediation scenarios convey lessons in a different way than a lecture, discussion, or even role-play. Video scenarios help students grasp the subtle nuances mediation requires, in a realistic context. The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) offers a collection of mediation videos designed to highlight that many facets of mediation. Check out the complete list of TNRC mediation videos below:
In the Shadow of the City
In the Shadow of the City, simulates a mediation between an aid worker in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and a project funder. Bruce Patton of the Harvard Negotiation Project plays the mediator role in this simulation. He demonstrates many of the principles outlined in Getting to YES, such as active listening, trying to understand differing perceptions, and focusing on interests rather than positions. This video runs just under an hour. Download In the Shadow of the City today.
Live-Mediation Teaching Video
This unscripted video shows how one professional mediator handled a real small claims mediation. The mediator in this case is Charles Doran, Executive Director of Mediation Works, Inc. (MWI) in Massachusetts. It is available in both full and shorter edited versions, with the full version running about 90 minutes and the edited version running 25 minutes. Download the Live-Mediation Teaching Video today.
Mediating Public Disputes
The Mediating Public Disputes video runs about 90 minutes, and features a discussion of the role and functions of a court-appointed special master serving as a mediator in a case study of a scientific/technical dispute in New Jersey, featuring MIT Professor and experienced public disputes mediator Lawrence E. Susskind. Download Mediating Public Disputes today.
Mediator Responsibility and Accountability in Public Disputes
This 90 minute, educational video is for mediators or mediation students and dives into mediator responsibility when parties have unequal knowledge, skills or power. Professor Lawrence Susskind discusses how mediators should help parties speak clearly about their interests and inform the parties of the advantages of a principled mediation strategy, and the mediator responsibility to ask questions that address issues of fairness, efficiency, and stability. Download Mediator Responsibility and Accountability in Public Disputes today.
Mediators At Work: Breach of Warranty
This 1 hour video is an unscripted, realistic demonstration of the mediation of a commercial legal dispute. Mediators at Work: Breach of Warranty displays the mediation of a typical commercial legal dispute. The case involves a breach-of-warranty suit between two companies over damage that the defendant supplier allegedly caused to the plaintiff company’s fleet of trucks by selling it defective antifreeze. The dispute is complicated by the fact that the plaintiff has filed a bad-faith settlement practice claim against the defendant’s insurance carrier, as well as by the interests and emotions of the principals of the two family-owned companies. Download Mediators at Work:Breach of Warranty today.
Mediators At Work: Termination Tempest
Mediators at Work: Termination Tempest is a 90 minute unscripted, realistic demonstration of the mediation of an employment dispute. The mediation is based on the facts of the Termination Tempest role simulation, also available through the TNRC. The video features experienced mediator Margaret Shaw working with the two parties (played by actors) and their counsel (played by attorneys). Shaw uses a combination of joint session and private caucuses to help the parties settle their dispute. Download Mediators at Work: Termination Tempest today.
Politics of Discourse in Mediation
In The Politics of Discourse in Mediation, Sara Cobb uses these theoretical ideas as a foundation of her pragmatic lecture to a group of mediation scholars and practitioners. Interspersed with informational on-screen slides, this video runs just over half an hour. Cobb’s lecture provides mediators with practical tools to use in facilitating a process that includes two important aspects of mediation politics: the construction of complex stories and legitimizing disputants. Download Politics of Discourse in Mediation today.
Saving the Last Dance
Produced by the Program on Negotiation in collaboration with the Center for Mediation in Law, this 50 minute video demonstrates the “Mediation through Understanding” mediation model as applied to a highly charged business conflict. Focusing on a dispute between a dance company and its recently discharged choreographer, which raises intellectual and employment issues, the video alternates between excerpts from the mediation itself and an educational commentary. Download Saving the Last Dance today.
Take your training to the next level with the TNRC
The Teaching Negotiation Resource Center (TNRC) offers a wide range of effective teaching materials, including
- Over 250 negotiation exercises and role-play simulations
- Critical case studies
- Enlightening periodicals
- More than 30 videos
- 100-plus books
TNRC negotiation exercises and teaching materials are designed for educational purposes. They are used in college classroom settings or corporate training settings; used by mediators and facilitators seeking to introduce their clients to a process or issue; and used by individuals who want to enhance their negotiation skills and knowledge.
Negotiation exercises and role-play simulations introduce participants to new negotiation and dispute resolution tools, techniques and strategies. Our videos, books, case studies, and periodicals are also a helpful way of introducing students to key concepts while addressing the theory and practice of negotiation and conflict management.
Check out all that the TNRC has in store >>
Tks. Good and some enlightening videos.