negotiation pedagogy

What is Negotiation Pedagogy?

The field of negotiation is constantly evolving, and as such, requires new approaches to negotiation pedagogy.

Much of today’s negotiation pedagogy materials need to be transformed or developed to accommodate both online and face-to-face instruction. Though the transformation towards online courses takes a lot of energy, its outcomes can be leveraged to make our ‘normal’ classes much more performant afterwards. It is not a one-off effort without future positive impact.

This raises a very crucial question for instructors: how do you transition a course designed to be in-person into an online format while ensuring students remain engaged and achieve the desired learning outcomes? Online learning presents many challenges for both instructors and students, but there are negotiation pedagogy opportunities as well that can be harnessed with the right strategy.

In fact, this isn’t a new issue. One of the ongoing debates within the negotiation pedagogy community regards the way we assess instructional outcomes.

To that matter, in the mutual gains model of negotiation pedagogy—where intangibles, creativity, and soft skills matter hugely—quantitative exercises and assessments can be helpful, but may not always bee especially meaningful.

James Sebenius (HBS Gordon Donaldson Professor of Business Administration and Director, Harvard Negotiation Project) considers scorable games most valuable when they provide both an intellectual and an emotional learning experience. Students can “crystallize metaphors,” both visual and analytical, using the outcomes from quantifiable simulations. Through this process, they can build a framework that will make it easier for them to continue to learn from their own future negotiation experience.

Negotiations can be challenging. But negotiation pedagogy doesn’t need to be. To find out more, get our new special report — Teaching Negotiation: Understanding The Impact Of Role-Play Simulations – for FREE. This report assembles three key articles originally published in Negotiation Briefings, the newsletter of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. Get your copy today to review the ones that matter to you.

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