Using Modified Role-Playing Debate to Encourage Critical Thinking

Abstract

In an effort to help students engage more actively and directly with each other and the class material, I recently began to use a modified form of role-playing debate in one of my upper-level classes. Over the past three semesters, in collaboration with my students, I have worked to modify the format to ensure that the debates are a positive learning experience for debaters and audience members. I will continue to tweak the assignment, but I feel ready to share what I have learned so far and I hope to generate more interest in debate as an interactive classroom exercise and an effective way to engage students in critical thinking. Role-playing debates, when combined with written preparation for the debaters, incorporate elements of traditional writing assignments and class presentations. In addition, they explicitly require perspective taking, a skill that is an important component of critical thinking and effective social interaction. Debates tend to generate more enthusiastic audience participation than presentations, and this effect can be enhanced by requiring audience members to evaluate the debatersââ¬â¢ performance.
In this interactive presentation, I will discuss what I have learned about many options for modifying traditional debates, including what has worked well and what has not. I will share my studentsââ¬â¢ concerns about trying something new, as well as their overall evaluations of the debate experience. Finally, I hope to have a brainstorming session about other strategies for using debate in the classroom and ways to incorporate debate across a variety of disciplines and class formats.