Abstract
The benefits of debate as an effective pedagogical tool in higher education are well-published. It fosters students’ development of critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills. This paper describes a conceptual model of debate categories: in-class debate, co-curricular debate, and tournament debate. It proposes six levels of debate for faculty to employ to create engaged active learning experiences. It is a case study written from the perspective of faculty who served as debate coaches over a four-year period. It shares lessons learned and best practices for recruiting and preparing undergraduate students for a co-curricular debate competition, a subject that is missing in the literature.
Highlights
Collegiate debate is favored because it promotes student learning and simultaneously builds essential skills
Experts suggests that educators combine technical and specialized skills with more strategic communication skills to create the kind of workers needed in the 21st century (National Consortium for Public Health Workforce Development and the deBeaumont Foundation, n.d.)
We describe a conceptual model for categorizing collegiate debate
Summary
Collegiate debate is a widely implemented teaching method in higher education across several disciplines including: accounting (Camp and Schnader, 2010) argumentative writing (Dickson, 2004), economics (Vo and Morris, 2006), marketing (Roy and Macchiette, 2005), mathematics and statistics (Stewart and Stewart, 2014), nursing (Doody and Condon, 2012; Hanna, 2014) political science (Omelicheva, 2005), psychology (Elliott, 1993; Budesheim and Lundquist, 1999), public health (Nelson-Hurwitz and Buchthal, 2019), and technology (Scott, 2008). Teams of two or three collaborate to present their arguments This (pro) and negative (con) assignments, the rubric/grading points debate can occur between students who are enrolled in different or scoring, and use the regularly scheduled class time to host the classes. Co-curricular debate (Pairs Level 5 debates may not be related to course content but instead Determine the style of debate, the debate format, affirmative or triad teams) reflect current news or events for this interdisciplinary event This is (pro) and negative (con) assignments, the rubric/scoring, and the an intramural event with debaters from departments at the same date, time, and location of the debate. These debates occur at a host university and involve a high level of coordination to manage various competitive speech events for teams representing universities around the country and/or world. We share our lessons learned and highlight best practices from four years of collegiate debate competitions
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
