Debate meets all the criteria for "engaged learning" at its best. Grapple with rich content, produce something from it, get and respond to critical feedback. It also establishes a standard, a bar of performance, with the competition. All this assumes that the topics are signficant, the research is necessary, and the feedback comes throughout the process as well as in the final product.
My daughter is a debater! I’m especially struck by the idea of using debate-centered instruction in regular classrooms. While the constraints of curriculum pacing are real, even short-term debates could help students engage deeply with a topic and practice skills they’ll carry with them. What would it take to make debate accessible to all students, especially those reading below grade level? Could it be scaffolded in ways that build confidence while introducing them to these life-changing skills?
The New Neuroscientific Reading Skills Training Method & System boosts reading scores as a result of this 3 month reading skills training. Debating is a tangential additional, but unnecessary means to boost reading skills and scores. Contact JoAnne Leff at jleff41@gmail.com for further information
I participated in Speech and Debate when I was in High School in the late 80's - it was great. Apart from honing research and critical thinking skills, it forced you to read broadly and be able to argue both sides of the proposition.
I love this information & was wondering if it should occur in the lower grades. If so, could you suggest an approximate age/grade we could begin the process?
The Boston Debate League has a middle school program, and according to the study I linked to in the post, there has also been some other research finding positive effects from middle school debate on reading and math scores and on attendance.
But generally, I think some kind of debate could be introduced at lower grade levels, even upper elementary, as long as students have the opportunity to acquire enough knowledge about the subject matter and teachers get enough training in how to guide the discussion. I don't know that you would see benefits on the order of what was found in the study because the kind of debate those students participated in was pretty intense. But even less intensive kinds of debate seem like a good way to get kids engaged in learning about a range of topics--including historical ones.
It could be linked to writing pro and con paragraphs or essays at almost any grade level--i.e., writing assignments were students have to take a pro or con position on a particular topic. There's more about how to teach that kind of writing in The Writing Revolution book, which I co-authored. I could see a debate as a great warm-up for that kind of writing.
Debate meets all the criteria for "engaged learning" at its best. Grapple with rich content, produce something from it, get and respond to critical feedback. It also establishes a standard, a bar of performance, with the competition. All this assumes that the topics are signficant, the research is necessary, and the feedback comes throughout the process as well as in the final product.
My daughter is a debater! I’m especially struck by the idea of using debate-centered instruction in regular classrooms. While the constraints of curriculum pacing are real, even short-term debates could help students engage deeply with a topic and practice skills they’ll carry with them. What would it take to make debate accessible to all students, especially those reading below grade level? Could it be scaffolded in ways that build confidence while introducing them to these life-changing skills?
The New Neuroscientific Reading Skills Training Method & System boosts reading scores as a result of this 3 month reading skills training. Debating is a tangential additional, but unnecessary means to boost reading skills and scores. Contact JoAnne Leff at jleff41@gmail.com for further information
I participated in Speech and Debate when I was in High School in the late 80's - it was great. Apart from honing research and critical thinking skills, it forced you to read broadly and be able to argue both sides of the proposition.
I love this information & was wondering if it should occur in the lower grades. If so, could you suggest an approximate age/grade we could begin the process?
The Boston Debate League has a middle school program, and according to the study I linked to in the post, there has also been some other research finding positive effects from middle school debate on reading and math scores and on attendance.
But generally, I think some kind of debate could be introduced at lower grade levels, even upper elementary, as long as students have the opportunity to acquire enough knowledge about the subject matter and teachers get enough training in how to guide the discussion. I don't know that you would see benefits on the order of what was found in the study because the kind of debate those students participated in was pretty intense. But even less intensive kinds of debate seem like a good way to get kids engaged in learning about a range of topics--including historical ones.
It could be linked to writing pro and con paragraphs or essays at almost any grade level--i.e., writing assignments were students have to take a pro or con position on a particular topic. There's more about how to teach that kind of writing in The Writing Revolution book, which I co-authored. I could see a debate as a great warm-up for that kind of writing.
You might enjoy our -- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4567346
Beyond Algorithmic Solutions: The Significance of Academic Debate for Learning Assessment and Skill Cultivation in the AI World
Humanity Amplified: The Fusion of Deep Learning and Human Insight to Shape the Future of Innovation
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4621210
This is excellent and it is clear that debating would develop the type of thinking that helps write arguments.