Teaching Critical Thinking and Writing through Debates: An Experimental Evaluation

Faced with the desire to maintain high standards of scholarship in a context of large introductory level classes and limited resources, the authors experimented with several active learning techniques designed to develop critical thinking and writing skills. The tentative conclusions drawn are that the debateformat in the context of large classes is an effective way to modify students' opinions on social issues and to teach critical thinking and writing skills. Also discussed are several ethical issues involved in teaching critical thinking.