Accepting Conflict and Experiencing Creativity: Teaching “Concertation” Using La Francilienne CD‐ROM

In France, a particular sort of negotiation that occurs in public decision processes for planning and environmental issues is known as a “concertation.” In concertations, the state makes the final decision, taking into account the issues brought up, as well as possible proposals suggested through a dialogue between the parties.

The core of this course is the particular “concertation” on the CD‐ROM La Francilienne. It simulates a concertation on a highway project that, in real life, lasted six years, from 1990 to 1995. In this concertation, various actors take part in the decision‐making process. The goal is to provide advice to the Ministry of Equipment concerning the layout of a highway connecting two cities northwest of Paris twenty kilometers from each other. It is neither pure negotiation nor mediation but rather a complex decision‐making process.

The course “Concertation, Decision, and Local Democracy” comprises ten class sessions lasting three hours each. The course sections have twenty‐two to thirty students. (The course is an MBA elective and is required for all candidates for the master's degree in urban management, environment, and services.) There are no teaching assistants. The students usually work in groups of two at the same computer, with each pair sharing one role, and I follow the students learning processes closely during the entire course.

The simulation has four phases. In the first three phases, students review the information provided on the CD‐ROM, meet and debrief, and record their experiences in individual journals. In the fourth phase, there is a press conference organized by the students. In each phase there are six roles. Students change roles two or three times during the simulation.

The CD‐ROM itself is used in seven class sessions, after three sessions examining the history of public‐decision processes in regional and urban planning in France since the 1960s, and includes a comparison to the Quebec concertation processes.¹ Two paper cases are used during these sessions.

During the first session, I present the pedagogical and administrative framework of the course. I introduce such key concepts as limited rationality (Simon 1974). I tell them that they will work in a context of limited rationality as in a real setting: they will not have all the information or time they would like to have to make their decisions.

I also discuss the concept of double‐loop learning as defined by Chris Argyris and Donald Schön (1978). In single‐loop learning, actors deepen their knowledge by basing their learning process on a well‐known framework of reflection (arguing, being rational, defending their position, etc.). In double‐loop learning, the complexity of the situation requires them to change their behaviors and their framework of reflection in order to solve problems by listening to others, being empathetic, and recognizing their own motivations and those of others. Developing the students’ capacity to adopt double‐loop learning is one of the pedagogical aims of the course. Students seldom understand the concept initially because it is too abstract, but they do come to understand it as the course goes on.

On the first CD‐ROM screen, there is a link to videos; to the logbook each student is expected to write in; links to text, maps, and photos; and, across the top of the screen, there are ten icons that link to archives, role, role summary, context, context summary, instructions, parties, information support for the debate, logbook, and methodological form.

Some information is confidential, some is not. Students are given a code at the beginning of each phase that provides them with access to their given role's information. At that moment, they are informed by the computer of the state's decisions concerning the last phase. These decisions depend on the success of the previous phase but not on its precise results, as we will see.

After each debriefing, students have access to corresponding methodological forms, which are summaries of theories and methods included in the CD‐ROM. Students also have access to all the information concerning a phase while working on the next one. These two features encourage the students to actively engage in reflective thinking while writing in their logbooks. They can use the concepts and methods to analyze their past experience, and they are informed of its whole context.

At all phases, the students are restricted by their given roles and by the information they receive through the CD‐ROM. More information is provided on the CD‐ROM than in paper simulations, and the students must organize and rank this information themselves. Consequently, they must take more initiative, be less restricted, and, I believe, participate more actively than they would in paper simulations.

The concertation CD does not recommend one “best way” of finishing the simulation as role plays or paper cases sometimes do. There are, indeed, good reasons to use simulations that propose a “best solution” because that solution often allows a joint agreement that satisfies all the parties. But knowing that the professor might indeed favor one particular solution according to his or her negotiation model or frameworks could prevent the students from inventing new options or from searching for new ways of understanding and resolving a complex problem. These class frameworks push them to perform and satisfy the professor, to be “good students.” But reaching a satisfying agreement in class does not mean they will be able to find one in real settings, where the context and motivations will be different and where they may not have the capacity to recognize these differences.

In addition, there are many more concepts and methods offered in the CD‐ROM than can be discussed in the debriefings. So, the students can choose to learn some that have not been discussed, depending on their own experiences, and the professor can adapt herself to the students’ learning processes in choosing to highlight corresponding concepts and methods. She could also choose to privilege her preferred concepts and methods, depending on her way of teaching. I usually do both, basing the debriefing on emerging concepts and methods and, at the same time or afterwards, introducing some concepts and methods that seem especially relevant to me and helpful for the students.

Who. The first phase brings together six actors. Each represents a particular party: (1) the preselected civil works company; (2) an environmental organization; (3) an association of resident abutters; (4) the state; (5) the local elected officials; and (6) the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The six parties enter a concertation together.

What. In 1990, in the first phase, Prime Minister Michel Rocard decided to put the highway project in the northwest of Paris on the agenda once more. A civil works company was named and would receive the contract if it succeeded in convincing the parties. The company representative's aim was to convince other participants of the many merits of the project.

The meeting was the last one held by the company as part of the concertation process. The technical studies given to the parties were conducted by the company. They were of poor quality and were difficult to read. This difficulty had been translated in the CD‐ROM by presenting the studies on crumpled paper.

Preparation. Before students begin the simulation, I present its context and explain its correspondence to the real‐life concertation process. I inform the students that, in the real setting, no decision has been made. Consequently, they are free to find a solution. There is no one best way of doing the simulation.

After that, the students work on their computer and search for information in the first phase in the CD‐ROM. They receive no conceptual nor methodological help related to consultation nor to negotiation.

Process and result. Because of the important constraints imposed on the participants by their defined roles, the meetings are full of conflict, emotion, and positioning — there is little or no listening. The parties do not agree on the project.

Debriefing. Several different theories can be used in this debriefing. Some are European analytic approaches to conflicts and disputes, others are prescriptive American approaches to mediation and negotiation. They are included in the CD‐ROM, and the participants can look at them after the debriefing. They include:

• Georg Simmel's theory of conflict,² which posits that conflict in itself is not the problem, but rather offers a good basis for understanding a problematic situation. This enables the students to accept their experiences of conflict as legitimate ones, without denial or guilt, and to consider a conflict as a basis to build a constructive process, sustained by reflective work. This offers a frame compatible with double‐loop learning (no denying, reflection) and contributes to creating a safe place in the classroom. Afterwards, the students feel more at ease with their emotions, especially with their “bad” emotions (hate, anger). As Veronika Kisfalvi (1993: 17) writes, “Clearly feelings of being threatened and feelings of mistrust are related. The sense of danger is enhanced if the students do not trust that the teacher or the situation is able to contain potentially explosive (disintegrative) elements. And this would lead directly to much less of a willingness to risk, to put one's ego on the line, to a reticence to become involved.”

• Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot's theory of the “worlds of justification,”³ a model that helps students to understand their own motivations and interests, and those of other parties, naming the several “worlds” to which they and others belong. This model can be presented here or later in the course, depending on the students’ learning process.

• Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton's prescriptions (1991) for the preparation and conduct of negotiations: the seven elements (communication, interests, options, legitimacy, relationship, alternatives and BATNA, commitments) and the five principles (separate the people from the problem, focus on interests and not positions, invent options for mutual gain, insist on using objective criteria, develop your BATNA).

• The mutual gains approach developed by Lawrence Susskind and Patrick Field (1996: 37–38): “acknowledge the concerns of the other sides; encourage joint fact‐finding; offer contingent commitments to minimize impacts if they do occur; promise to compensate knowable but unintended impacts; accept responsibility, admit mistakes, and share power; act in a trustworthy fashion at all times; focus on building long‐term relationships.”

Students frequently complain about information with which they were not provided. Often, in fact, they have the information but have not paid enough attention to it. Sometimes, the information is, indeed, unavailable on the CD‐ROM. I explain how this replicates the real‐life situation in which they would not have access to all of the information they would have liked.

What. There are two internal “médiations à la française” (i.e., with mediators involved in the process in another role also) to prepare for phase three. At the beginning of phase two, the students learn that the prime minister has withdrawn the project after the civil works company's attempt at concertation failed. (The state later enforced a regional concertation process led by a “préfet.”⁴) The parties will enter into a new concertation procedure that was conceived by the minister of transportation in December 1992 to improve public decision processes in the field of transportation. According to the procedure, in phase three the parties will have to discuss the different options proposed by the Regional Direction of Infrastructures.

Who. All participants change characters for two internal “mediations” between the people in favor of the highway on one side and those against it on the other. In the first, the préfet mediates between the Regional Direction of Infrastructures and the Chamber of Commerce, discussing the toll policy as well as the access roads to the highway. In the second, a local elected official mediates a debate between the local residents and the SNCF (French National Railway Company). The debate focuses on the possible replacement of the highway by the railway and, more particularly, on the ticket‐pricing policy and the frequency of trains.

Preparation. Students receive information through the CD‐ROM. This time, they are more aware of the importance of reading carefully all the information they have been given. In addition, because they do not want to experience another endless conflict as they did in phase one, participants are open to discussing preparations for the mediation with the professor.

They prepare for phase two using the seven elements and the five principles given in the methodological forms, although they usually do not use them in a systematic way.

Throughout the preparation phases, I increase the frequency of my discussions with each group and attempt to enter into their learning processes. I ask them questions to understand the way they are preparing the mediations and to help them in undertaking them (Schön 1991).

Process and Results. During the mediations, as in paper simulations, the participants can share or not share their information with the other party, which will enable them to find out whether there is a Zone of Possible Agreement or not. There is, in fact, a Zone of Possible Agreement for the préfet's mediation (highway solution) but not for the local elected official's mediation (railway solution).

Usually, participants find an agreement in the préfet's mediation but not always one of the best ones. They do or do not find an agreement in the local elected official's mediation.

Debriefing. Theories that can be used in phases two and three debriefings, in addition to those referred to earlier, include:

• The mediators’ typology (Salzer and Stimec 1995): According to this theory, mediators do not impose decisions but can be “deliverers of solutions” or advisers.

• The mediator's qualities (Six 1990): The mediator is creative, does not impose a ready moral solution, has an ethical perspective, is unique and flexible, and has three duties — courage, prudence, and accuracy.

• The mediation process (Lempereur 1998): The process is introduce, identify the problem, define the needs, explore the options, obtain a commitment, and conclude.

• The negotiator's dilemma (Lax and Sebenius 1995): The dilemma is cooperation versus competition, value creation versus value distribution, and information exchange.

• The balance between experience and expertise (de Carlo 1996): This theory looks at parties’ different legitimacies (experience or expertise) and how to deal with them.

The negotiator's dilemma, the information exchange, and the role of the mediator are always discussed in the phase two debriefing. For example, questions can include: Would it be better if the mediators were neither representatives of the state nor elected officials? In that case, would they be more “neutral?” What should the role of the state be? What is the proper role of elected officials in public‐decision processes? What is the general interest in these different cases? How does general interest, as defined by Jean‐Jacques Rousseau in the eighteenth century, evolve to a definition adapted to the disputes we are confronted with?⁵

Who. For the third phase, the students keep the same characters, except for the SNCF representative who becomes a member of the monitoring commission set up by the state to guarantee debate transparency and equal opportunity for all to express and access information.

What. The students must choose among four options for the project. Two options do not include building a new highway, but do link two roads to ensure the desired junction. Two different options each propose a different “large layout,” a three‐hundred‐meter‐wide strip of land for the highway.

Preparation. The participants are now aware of the importance of preparation and they often ask for more time to prepare for the meeting, which I give them. They can build alliances on their own or after a discussion with me.

During the preparation phase, the participants follow the constraints of the CD‐ROM: they will only discuss the four options indicated in the CD‐ROM, each one having a preference, according to the role. I do not advise them to create another option, and they do not create one by themselves. At this point, students use the methodological forms, those about the mediators and about the different worlds of justification, in particular.

Process and Results. The meetings are usually well‐structured, participants listen to each other. But none of the four options offered can be successfully adopted if all are fully aware of their own interests. Nevertheless, a few groups of six do end up adopting one of them. Some other groups reach no agreement. Other groups, usually between one and three in a class of four, create a completely new option or one that combines two of the options provided. This moment is particularly important because those who create a new option experience double‐loop learning. They challenge the assumption that they have to choose among the four proposed options. This behavior also challenges not only the professor's authority but the professor's advice to enter fully into their given roles, as well.

Debriefing. One of the themes discussed is the role of the two “third parties.” What does guaranteeing equal access to information and transparency mean for the monitoring commission members? (The official procedure is not explicit on those subjects.) What should the role of the préfet be?

But the main subject discussed here is value creation. The debriefing is usually as interesting as the meeting itself because some students who did not create a new option realize during the debriefing that they could have done so. They are helped by the discussion group in their challenging of the four proposed options. At that time, students are usually very impressed when they discover their own freedom, where they thought they only had constraints. Retracing their reflection process, I conceptualize it using the double‐loop learning concept. This experience helps them significantly in the understanding of the concept, and beyond, of its interest and importance in concertations and negotiations and in management in general.

What. Phase four begins with the government's decision to choose one of the large layouts proposed in phase three, as it did in the real case. Students know that there are three possible final layouts in this large layout. They receive information about each of them. They must prepare and act out a press conference that will precede the last phase of the concertation procedure, in which this final layout will be chosen. (This last phase is not included in the simulation.) This phase highlights communication.

Who. All students change roles. They prepare a speech in front of the other parties and journalists and state their choice and other considerations they think can be useful. Other parties and journalists, played by the other students and the professor, pose questions following their speeches.

Preparation. Students prepare slides; some add banners and create memorable slogans. They try to make the information understandable and clear using diagrams and figures.

Process and results. Usually, students express themselves in a clear way, using understandable information. But many students forget that the journalists have not participated in the entire process and need a historical introduction to it.

Debriefing. The debriefing revolves around positioning approaches, tension between empathy and self‐assertion, and the relevance of the concertation process history. We discuss the need to think about their listeners’“worlds” in order to be understood. The journalists need more information in order to make up their minds. This conclusion is compatible with Argyris and Schön's second model of theory‐in‐use: “Advocate your position and combine it with inquiry and self‐reflection. [ . . . ] Advocate your principles, values, and beliefs in a way that invites inquiry into them and encourages other people to do the same.” (This is in opposition to their first model theory‐in‐use: “Advocate your position in order to win. Hold your position in the face of advocacy. [ . . . ] Stick to your principles, values, and beliefs” [Argyris and Schön 1996: 120].)

The second part of the debriefing, as well as the methodological forms, review important lessons from the entire course:

• The three tensions (Mnookin 1997): They are value creation versus value distribution, empathy versus assertiveness, principals versus agents.

• From negotiation to mediation (Lempereur 1998): The mediator facilitates dealing with stakes, emotions, and process.

• From concertation to decision in planning (de Carlo 1996): Dealing with concertation processes involves considering three dimensions: political will, methods (procedures), and behaviors.

The La Francilienne CD‐ROM is primarily a source of information for the students. They learn general information about the concertation process and receive confidential instructions about playing their roles. The CD‐ROM itself does not function as a party in the concertation process and is not used to simulate communication. Neither does it offer any solution after a meeting.

The CD‐ROM, as used here, is a tool that facilitates the playing of the simulation. It presents information in a lively way, through videos simulating news programs, including real actors’ interviews, showing real maps, and diagrams in colors.

By consulting the CD‐ROM's information, students begin to enter into a transitional space (Winnicott 1986, 2001).⁶ It is “real” because of the links between the given information and the real case and places, and because of the way information is presented. But it is simultaneously imaginary because it is a simulation played in a classroom. Students enter into their roles knowing that they themselves are external from this environment. During the first debriefings, many students describe their experiences of “becoming” their roles and how they perceived their given contexts. At the same time, and more and more throughout the course, they become able to detach themselves from their roles and to analyze their experiences. Their own personalities influence unconsciously the way they play their roles, and, as the course advances, their participation becomes more and more conscious.

Sometimes in phase three they are able to detach themselves from the constraints they are given in order to invent a new option. And, of course, some students are reluctant to enter into their roles, despite the CD‐ROM.

The course format offers the students the opportunity to be insiders and outsiders in the simulation: they become different insiders at each phase but also become progressively more autonomous, more consciously “outsiders.” That is why the use of the CD‐ROM helps students enter into a transitional thinking process, defined as a “passage from a state of union with the environment to a state in which the subject relates to it as something external and separate” (Kaës in Amado and Ambrose 2001: 64). This transitional thinking helps create the conditions for creativity (Winnicott 2001).

The actual historical context of the concertation, which further helps the students contextualize it as something external and separate (Kaës in Amado and Ambrose 2001: 64) is emphasized in the course in three different ways. First, the historical context is introduced in the content of the three first sessions. Second, the students are offered the opportunity to review historical information concerning the past phases of the simulation while they are playing. Finally, additional historical information is introduced as part of the content of the press conference and its debriefing. For Kaës, these references to history constitute “the common reference to the other reality, the one which fantasy ignores” (1997: 72). They allow the learning process to occur avoiding the fusional illusion. In defining his “progressive” model of pedagogy, John Dewey emphasized

Dewey too acknowledges the role of confrontation in the learning process. Once made aware of the historical perspectives, students will be more able to think by themselves and to form their own vision of the situations than if they are not informed. It is a way of allowing them to be more autonomous, an idea that is conceptualized by both René Kaës’ transitional thinking theory (based on Winnicott's concept of transitional space) (Kaës 1997, Amado and Ambrose 2001) and Dewey's experiential learning theory.

The students’ entire experience in this simulation can be conceptualized using experiential learning concept. Experiential learning is defined as learning “in which an experience is followed by reflection leading to altered views of subsequent experience” (Susskind and Coburn 2000: 308). For Susskind and Coburn (2000), simulations used in teaching negotiation are based on the experiential model of learning. They define it by linking the theories of three researchers, Dewey, Lewin, and Piaget: “The first, from Dewey (1938), stresses the interaction between the learner and his or her social environment. The second, from Lewin (1951), emphasizes the cyclical process of such experience (i.e., reflection allows abstract principles to form and these are tested in subsequent experiences). The third, drawn from cognitive psychology and epistemology, sees the learner ‘creating knowledge’ by resolving ‘cognitive conflicts’ which arise through challenging experiences” (Susskind and Coburn 2000: 291).

The transitional thinking approach complements this conceptualization, deepening our understanding of the students’ learning experiences. This approach recognizes unconscious internal processes and defensive behaviors, which are critical to understanding how negotiation is learned. It highlights how difficult internal change can be and underscores the importance of both the student‐professor relationship and the framework of the learning experience in enabling students to begin the process of internal change.

The La Francilienne CD‐ROM does not pretend to offer a complete training experience in concertation, negotiation, and mediation. It reflects pedagogical choices made that highlight specific aspects of teaching concertation. In particular, the CD‐ROM itself and the way I use it emphasize creativity (or value creation as it is frequently defined in negotiation theory), which I think is one of the most important stakes in concertation, especially in complex decision processes such as the ones I teach.

So, in the simulation, phase three is central. It gives the students the opportunity to create a new option for the highway project. But this successful creation of value depends on the students’ learning process throughout the entire course and not only on their experiences at this specific phase. From the beginning of the course, the relationships between the professor and the students, as well as the structure of the CD‐ROM and the way it is used, encourage students to be autonomous and creative. Their creativity is a result of their growing self‐confidence and, simultaneously, their frustration, which grows during the simulation because they do not have all the data they would like to have, they do not succeed in reaching an agreement each time, etc. Depending on his level of self‐confidence, each student can take the risk of being creative in order to reduce his frustration.

Amado and Amato define a learning process of transitional change in opposition to regressive change and as differentiated from transitive change:

The way this course is conceived seems to allow the students to make a transitional change but it also involves transitive elements.

Manipulation is not absent from the course, even if efforts are made to reduce it. Can a manipulative experience be considered a transitional one? These two approaches seem to be contradictory at the abstract level. Amado and Amato (2001) distinguish two types of transitive change: the open transitive mode and the manipulative transitive one. In the former, the initiator of change is clear about her own influence (in explaining the process, in the methods used, and in her aims). In the latter, however, participants are unaware of the initiator's influence. For the authors, “the teaching–learning situation is the best illustration of . . . a positive use of a transitive manipulative mode” (2001: 112). Students do not know from the beginning what knowledge they will acquire. Thus, the teaching–learning situation can be considered as inherently manipulative. This transitive manipulative mode can be positive if the teacher at times expresses his “manipulations.” If not, students will not change at a deep level and will not be aware of their changing processes. In addition, in this case, their capacity to committ successfully to another change process afterwards becomes questionable. In this case, the course's pedagogical aims are defined during the first session, and the students are informed that creativity has a large role. Therefore, my approach can be considered a mixture of transitional and transitive manipulative approaches.

Based as it is on the actual public decision process for planning in France, this simulation is realistic. In reality, conflicts are omnipresent before and during concertations, and they are sometimes useful. Mediators can be neutral or not and can be assigned randomly. The results of concertations are taken into account by the public authorities in their decisions to varying degrees. Counter‐expertise is difficult to develop. The interests of inhabitants are considered a priori as personal and defensive ones by planners. French people want to be involved in concertations, sharing power, and, at the same time, they want the public authorities to assert their visions and decisions, recognizing their specific power and legitimacy. I think this paradox allows French decision processes to recognize the parties’ interests as well as the general interest (the coherence of policies around the country).

To ensure the realism of the simulation, we (the two professor‐designers) attended meetings, read almost all the information available on the decision process, and interviewed the parties. (These interviews and much of the information we gathered are available on the CD‐ROM.)

For pedagogical reasons, however, there are some important differences between the real concertation and the one on the CD‐ROM. These include:

• In the first phase, the SNCF (present until the second phase) and the environmentalists have been added as parties.

• In the second phase, internal “mediations” have been added.

• In the third phase, participants sometimes find a common proposed layout, which was not part of the real concertation.

• In the fourth phase, there was not one single large press conference, although at various times the parties did present their positions to the press.

These differences and their justifications are discussed in the debriefings.

The simulation's many similarities to the real concertation are valuable for several reasons. First, they diminish the artificial dimension that is often an aspect of short involved simulations and role plays designed specifically to learn a concept or method. Here, discussions about the links to the real setting can take place at every moment in the course. Second, it enables the students to consider the historical dimensions of such concertations, which is critical to the success of real concertations and which is important for the students to know. Third, the similarities to the real case create dynamics in the classroom that favor a long learning process, through role playing in particular. Finally, this particular concertation offers the students the opportunity to experience several roles in the same process, in order to enrich their capacities of understanding and empathy.

Susskind and Coburn (2000) recommend, when using simulations, to begin with simple exercises. For them, these are more efficient for teaching key negotiation concepts because they emphasize behavioral matters. The choice made in the design of this CD‐ROM to begin with a complex, conflict‐filled concertation would seem to contradict this view. The first phase involves six parties with different and strong positions, and some educators might consider it to be too difficult for a first lesson in concertation.

For some students, the first phase does, in fact, present some difficulties. I usually notice, during the second phase, that some students have understood all the concepts discussed in the first debriefing, while others have understood only some of them. Consequently, I reintroduce these concepts in discussion with the students individually or in small groups and in the second and subsequent debriefings. The learning process here seems to be less linear than when simple exercises are used to begin a course, and this nonlinear learning process is pursued during the entire simulation.

A contrasting point of view, however, would argue that the choice of a complex conflict‐filled concertation to begin the course serves to emphasize a key negotiation concept: conflict, which is a frequent characteristic of the planning process in France. For French students, it is enlightening to realize that they can legitimately enter into a conflict and that it is possible to use conflict to first understand and to then solve the problem at hand. Moreover, the recognition of conflicts as part of social interactions facilitates the recognition of internal conflicts, which creates an opening for the students to change internally and to consider their own internal change processes.

There are, I believe, several preconditions for the successful development of this kind of multimedia teaching tool. They are:

• The instructor must have the desire to play the game and to develop scenarios with multimedia specialists.

• The instructor must be well‐organized and comfortable with the project‐management tasks involved in developing the tool. Indeed, to undertake this, he will need to work with computer science engineers, sofware developers, video specialists, and other instructors. Our team comprised as many as ten people, who worked on this project over the course of two years. We found it was worthwhile to hire a student to be project coordinator.

• The instructor must be supported by her institution. ESSEC created its media laboratory in 1996, encouraged professors to develop multimedia tools, and made the development of such tools an institutional goal. In addition, the school offered each faculty member additional funds to hire assistants to support this process.

• Finally, instructors who wish to create extensive multimedia teaching tools need additional financial resources. In 1997, we calculated the total cost of the project to be 1,115,000 francs (170,000 euros or $210,000) including the salaries of the professors and the media lab members. We received seventeen percent of this sum from the PREDIT, a French Interministry Research Program on Transport; and the rest was funded by our institution.

Finding an exciting case is essential. La Francilienne case sounded exciting for several reasons:

• It has been an intractable conflict for many years.

• It has raised many stakes, not only in terms of concertation and negotiation, but also in terms of planning and environment. (The CD‐ROM can be used by nonspecialists as well as by specialists in planning and environment.)

• It has involved many parties, some of whom are well‐known in France.

• It had been studied by few scholars.

• It is current and local, which makes it more interesting to students and means that the real people involved in the real concertation can participate (in interviews, by providing written information, etc.). In fact, all parties agreed to participate because we recognized the legitimacy and interests of each one. This point is not negligible as the CD‐ROM is very close to the real concertation process. We taught representatives from different ministries and planning engineering professors once the project was finished, and the local residents’ association put a presentation of the CD‐ROM on its website.

• It remains unresolved. Because the highway has still not been built to this date, there is still no model of a final decision for the students to follow.

These criteria appeared important in the French context, perhaps others would have significance in other contexts.

The way of teaching concertation based on La Francilienne CD‐ROM that I have described here acknowledges two different visions of teaching. One is a strategic vision of a way to provide knowledge of useful concepts and methods of negotiation and mediation. The other is a different way of teaching, of “pulling something out of the students,” of offering them an opportunity to make an internal change. These two visions are balanced, linked, and reconciled as much as possible to provide a constructive learning experience for the students that can help them in real settings. In particular, the students are supported in a process of accepting conflicts and being creative. This process helps them to integrate the concepts and methods learned. The CD‐ROM supports this way of teaching by creating a playing environment that encourages internal changes and also offers the opportunities and resources for learning useful concepts and methods. This multimedia learning tool, however, does not replace the important relationship between the professor and his students. Rather, it helps the professor offer a richer learning environment in which she can achieve ambitious pedagogical goals.