By Dr. Gary L. Deel, Ph.D., J.D.
Associate Professor, Wallace E. Boston School of Business, American Public University
This is the first article in a three-part series on the utility of debate exercises in online education.
The internet has made higher education accessible to new markets and in ways that have catalyzed major shifts in learning philosophies. Colleges and universities have embraced online learning modalities as a way to reach new students in uniquely accessible ways.
But online learning can also be a real challenge for learners and educators alike. Students struggle to find ways to succeed in the digital environment, and instructors strive to bridge the gaps and help students accomplish their academic goals.
Engagement Is a Real Challenge in the Online Learning Environment
One of the areas that educators struggle with the most is engagement. How do we, as online faculty, find ways to entice participation from students to the same or similar degree as might be found in a traditional in-person classroom environment? How do we get students invested in what is happening in the online classroom? How do we get them truly present in lessons, activities and discussions?
Technology has come a long way to aid instructors with these efforts. We can now leverage multimedia technology through video clips, audio files, and gamification, as well as live-streaming lectures and meetings.
But technology can only take us so far. Try as we might, it can still be difficult to maintain the same level of student interest in what is happening in the online classroom.
In traditional classrooms, a discussion is a true dialogue between instructors and students. It’s a time to explore ideas out loud, in real time, for inquiry and understanding.
But online discussions, despite best efforts from educators, can feel painfully boring and bland. Because these environments don’t commonly allow for real-time conversation and the sharing of ideas, students look at them more as boxes that need to be ticked, rather than genuine opportunities to learn and explore vital information.
All too often, discussion prompts call for the same general response from all students. These prompts often lead to students providing a cacophony of repetitious thoughts and echoing the sentiment of “I agree with him.”
For example, suppose a discussion in an online astronomy class asks students to explain and discuss how galaxies form. Because there is a scientific consensus around this phenomenon, we would (and should) expect that student responses will all contain more or less the same main thoughts and ideas, albeit in slightly different ways.
So let’s imagine that you’re a student in such a class, and you have to first research and write your own response to the question asked by your instructor. What, then, is the benefit in reading any other student posts when they’re all virtually guaranteed to say pretty much the same thing?
We could improve things a bit if we split up the class. For example, we might ask one half of the class to discuss how galaxies form and the other half to discuss how supernovae occur. Now, we’re at least more likely to have diversity in content throughout the discussion postings, but only so much.
And again, we’re left without much of an answer to the question of why students would take the time to read other posts. It’s no secret that reading isn’t a favorite pastime for many students.
So if you’re a student who is assigned the topic of galaxy formation, what is the motivation to read any of the posts from your classmates who were required to write about supernovae? Unless reading and responding to your peers’ posts is made a mandatory component of your deliverable coursework, you’re not likely to read them at all.
Even if such replies to peer postings are mandated, we’re still resorting to the “tick the box” paradigm for student engagement. In other words, they won’t be doing it because they’re sincerely interested. They’ll be doing it because an instructor told them they have to in order to get a good grade.
If we’re serious about our roles as educators — to help students succeed but also to infuse students with the infectious passion that we as educators have for our respective disciplines — then we have to think outside the box and get more creative with how we drive genuine student engagement. This goes for all classroom environments, but it is especially true for the online higher education world. One way we can do this is by looking to psychological cues for ideas to motivate student involvement.
People Are Naturally Drawn to Debates and Conflict
Think about the media you absorb on a daily basis. Maybe it comes in the form of news articles, such as stories about wars overseas or civil rights disputes here at home. Maybe it comes in the form of sports games or matches, such as competitions between teams or individual athletes. Maybe it comes in the form of popular “bingeworthy” reality television, with shows like “The Bachelor” or “Hell’s Kitchen.” Maybe it comes in the form of big screen movies, such as action-packed thrillers or horror films.
Now think about what all of these elements of popular culture have in common. The answer, quite simply, is conflict. For reasons that are traceable to our evolutionary roots as hominids, we are captivated by conflict in all of its forms.
Think about it. Every story you’ve ever heard — be it in writing, over the radio or on the big screen — has a conflict at its center. This conflict is what defines a story and drives the plot. From “Little Red Riding Hood” right on up to “Star Wars,” conflict is at the heart of the tale.
Even in real-world, fact-based contexts, we tend to naturally gravitate toward content that is conflict-laden. Sure, major news networks like CNN and BBC have divisions that cover informational pieces on subjects like science and art, offering updates on projects or basic education on different topics.
But these pieces are almost never front and center. If you doubt this fact, go to the website for any major news platform right now and take a look at the main landing pages.
What stories are being spotlighted? I would bet a week’s salary that they’re probably dripping with conflict, whether it be physical, political or socio-cultural in nature.
And why is this always the case? Because news network executives understand human psychology, they know that conflict-oriented content is most likely to drive viewership and ratings.
This phenomenon can be observed in virtually every aspect of human life. If you’re driving down the road and you come upon an accident, do you slow down to see what happened? Of course you do.
We even have a term for it: “rubbernecking.” To be fair, you might also be concerned to see if everyone is OK, and that concern is commendable.
But the reality is you’re also interested to see what happened. Why? Because you know a collision took place between two or more cars, and you’re curious to know the circumstances.
Think about the last time you witnessed an argument or physical confrontation between individuals. This was probably a memorable moment for you at the time — enough so that later on that same day, you might have told one or more other people about your experience. “You’ll never believe what I saw today…”
Even television programs that are seemingly devoid of plot material are subconsciously driven by conflict that permeates the content. For example, millions of people tune in each week to watch shows like “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” and “The Real Housewives.”
These shows are, on their faces, mere documentaries of the ordinary lives of other human beings. In principle, they shouldn’t be any more compelling than a show documenting anyone else’s daily life.
But any frequent viewer of these shows can tell you that they are overflowing with conflict — interpersonal conflict over relationships, family, and many other aspects of the stars’ lives. That conflict is what drives viewer interest.
Given how compelling conflict is in terms of steering human interest, it can be an equally powerful tool for driving student engagement in the classroom if leveraged effectively. And this is where debates offer tremendous value.
Debates Promote Curiosity, Skepticism and Humility
Debates in any setting carry the spirit of three virtues articulated by the late Carl Sagan in his final book, “The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.” In his book, Sagan described how a careful balance of curiosity, skepticism, and humility are essential to critical thinking and reasoning.
Curiosity is an undying interest in learning new things and understanding new perspectives. Interestingly, this curiosity is something that we all possess as children (think of all the “Why?” questions posed by toddlers to their parents or teachers as those children explore the world).
But somewhere along the way, many — if not most — lose a lot of that curious spirit as they enter adulthood. No longer are we compelled to ask, “Why?”
Instead, perhaps we’re so inundated with life’s routines that we lack the time or patience to care about “why” anymore. Also, it could be that our concern over self-image prohibits us from asking “why” questions in any kind of public forum for fear that we might be judged as foolish or uneducated for revealing that we lack knowledge. So we persist in unnecessary and avoidable ignorance in order to maintain the facade that we’re anything but.
Skepticism is the courage to challenge assumptions and question what we think we know. This idea is at the heart of the scientific method of which Sagan was a lifelong proponent.
Science does not allow arguments from authority or the persistence of any hypotheses that cannot stand up to scrutiny. It insists that every belief we hold be tested for durability and longevity. Only after such tests are passed should we carry them forward with any confidence.
But many adult learners are conditioned over time not to question their reality, and so skepticism is, like curiosity, beaten out of them little by little. People accept statements made from “trusted” social media sources without any independent verification or fact-checking.
This blind trust could be due to a lack of time or bandwidth for the research necessary to validate ideas. It could also be due to the classic confirmation bias, which is the phenomenon through which we (humans) tend to seek out evidence that confirms our beliefs and avoid evidence that challenges them.
Finally, humility is an emphasis on the basic idea that you could always be wrong. Humility inspires us to show empathy for others and interact with kindness.
A humble person recognizes that no one is flawless. No one’s way of thinking is completely without error. So it is important that we recognize the reality that we are constantly learning, growing, and reconciling thoughts and beliefs with reality as we observe it, and going about the work of continuously improving the alignment between our perspectives and the world in which we find ourselves.
But this is perhaps the area where many adult learners suffer the most. There is an impulse to assume we are right in our discourse with others, simply because being wrong is painful and embarrassing. So we have a vested interest in our own righteousness. But if you value winning more than learning, you’ve already lost.
Debates function to bring out the best in students because they demand a demonstration of each of Sagan’s virtues in one form or another. But what does a typical debate look like? In the second part of this series, we’ll take a look at a typical model for a debate and how it can be implemented in an online classroom.
About the Author
Dr. Gary Deel is an Associate Professor with the Wallace E. Boston School of Business at American Public University. He holds a J.D. in Law and a Ph.D. in Hospitality/Business Management. Gary teaches human resources and employment law classes for American Public University, the University of Central Florida, Colorado State University and others.
