Group Facilitation - Conflict Resolution

Group Facilitation Reflection

Yesterday, Lauren Murphy, Sarah Caldwell, and I facilitated a group on conflict resolution.  I thought this group facilitation was rather painless and quite enjoyable once we were actually doing it.  The planning aspect did not take too long - my partners worked well together and we came up with a written plan within an hour.
Our introduction was unlike many other groups I had been in previously...We started off by explaining the group and expectations; however, we started off by asking them some ways they have handled conflict in unhealthy ways.  We decided to break the ice in a hard-hitting manner.  I noticed that our group members were hesitant to answer initially, but once they started speaking everyone became a lot more comfortable with each other.  Our activity went just as planned - we estimated how long each activity would take beforehand so we would not be crunched for time.  Our activity elicited insightful responses from our group as well.  They shared personal experiences with conflict resolution, which I believed help us build rapport with one another.  After the exercises were completed, we reflected on what we learned.  I thought that the group members were not going to share much of what they learned because as graduate students, I expected them to be well-versed in conflict resolution strategies.  However, all of them contributed to the conversation about that they learned and how they can apply is to real-life situations.  I believe the atmosphere we created encouraged conversation and gave each individual sufficient time to answer the questions.  We did not cut anyone off during their moment to speak and only transitioned to the next question when everyone was done speaking.  Ultimately,  I think our group did pretty well for our first group facilitation experience.  However, I do believe this would be much more difficult if our group members has some sort of disability.