Abstract
Rapidly eroding financial support and tuition increases that outpace inflation threaten the viability of an education that considers civic engagement as foundational. Simultaneously, institutions of higher education are increasingly perceived by the public as market-driven entities existing for the economic benefit of the individual, the upward mobility of a social class, and in turn the further sedimentation of racial and class differences. Now, more than ever, our nation is in need of deliberate attempts to fashion common understandings, ways to navigate inevitable disagreements, and reasonable paths forward. Higher education is positioned to respond to these civic needs but requires a commitment to be bold and remain dedicated to our shared civic mission in the face of alarming polarization and vacated institutional trust. One way institutions of higher education can return to their shared sense of civic mission is with the integration of debate across the curriculum through innovative partnerships and collaborative design. Debate across the curriculum utilizes intentional course redesign to offer active learning experiences that combine public speaking, evidence-based reasoning, collaborative learning, and argumentation into various advocacy simulations. The debate for civic learning model has faculty partnered across multiple institutions to design, integrate, and assess debate-based pedagogy to positively impact student civic learning. Students and faculty across disciplines have reported that debate-based pedagogy helped improve classroom engagement, critical problem solving, perspective taking, empathy, and advocacy skills. This mixed-method research provides insights not only into debate-based course design and learning improvement strategies but also into how faculty, students, and administrators can partner between institutions to demonstrate a shared commitment to the civic mission of higher education and democratic promise of our nation.
Highlights
Component LessonsEach panelist had to pick a different angle from which to address the topic to demonstrate their “expertise.” Students were graded on the basis of how explicitly the problem was stated, how much evidence was cited when the arguments were given, and how much panelists listened and responded to each other as well as to the questions from the moderator
The prospects for attaining a civically orientated education have become increasingly threatened by the rapidly eroding financial support for public higher education, tuition increases that outpace inflation, and societal polarization that has transcended its place within electoral politics into everyday public discourse, health communication, local K–12 educational decision making, and postsecondary education
In the pages that follow, we provide an overview of the origins and implementation of the Colonial Academic Alliance (CAA) Debate for Civic Learning initiative
Summary
Each panelist had to pick a different angle from which to address the topic to demonstrate their “expertise.” Students were graded on the basis of how explicitly the problem was stated, how much evidence was cited when the arguments were given, and how much panelists listened and responded to each other as well as to the questions from the moderator. In both classes students had to demonstrate the ability to listen critically and to practice restraint in waiting for their classmates to finish their thoughts before expressing their own opinion. As the two case studies suggest, debate for civic learning may look like more traditional debate formats, deliberative panels, fishbowl discussions, or other role-playing and scenario-based learning activities that integrate reasoned advocacy, evidence-based decision making, perspective-taking, and communicating clearly with intended audiences
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