Using Scenario Analysis, Reflective and Social Communication Approaches for Teaching Debating Skills to Improve Students’ Critical Thinking

Project Title

Using Scenario Analysis, Reflective and Social Communication Approaches for Teaching Debating Skills to Improve Students’ Critical Thinking

Project Leader

Prof Chi Ming Chan

School / Dept

IPO

Project Duration

Jul 2011 - Sep 2012

Project Description

The project aimed at helping students to:

• Understand and recognize the fundamental theory, strategies, techniques and skills in debate.
• Know how to apply theoretical argumentation and debating skills to actual environments.
• Learn by using scenarios to combine action and learning to speed up the learning process.
• Adopt reflection practices by scenario analysis and professional debating activities.
• Develop critical thinking capabilities.

Project Outcome

A debate course was developed using the scenarios, reflective and social approaches to teach students the debate theories, concepts, strategies, techniques and methodologies. The learning and teaching activities in the debate course include workshops, student-led seminars, a set of debate scenario clips and exercises and a debate competition. From the pre- and post- tests on critical thinking, it was found that the students had significant improvement in critical thinking after they finished the whole course, especially after the scenario exercise. Also, the students have shown improvements in their debating skills by comparing their performance across the debate tests. Thus, the new teaching methodologies of scenario analysis have significantly improved students' debating skills and critical thinking and can be employed in other courses.

Status

Completed

Project Documents
(Only accessible by HKUST users)

• Project Plan
• Final Report
• Project-end Review by Project Leader

Adaptation

Full Project