Conducting a Mini-Debate in Google Docs

March 12, 2009 at 4:07 pm · Filed under Collaboration, Constructivist, Lesson Ideas and tagged: debate, google docs

As a social studies teacher, I have found the debate format to be a highly successful way of introducing social and ethical issues to my students. Most of the other methods have met with mixed success; class discussions often tend to skim issues due to a few dominant speakers, and position papers leave students with a one-sided exposure. The debate, on the other hand, encourages students to dig a bit deeper, do a bit more research, and both listen to and consider other sides of the argument.

The problem with debates is one of time and logistics. To engage an entire class at once it is usually necessary to have team debates as no class wants to hear the same debate five times over. Groups need time to organize, research, and compile. With so much time required, its not feasible to run a debate very often, and so it becomes something teachers use to introduce debate protocol rather than to engage students in learning concepts. In addition, group work often becomes an individual product rather than a collaborative effort, and thus loses its effectiveness. But what if you could have all of your students simultaneously debating with each other, reduce the cycle to one class period, and be left with a record for assessment and further instruction? That would be a constructivist coup would it not? With a tool like Google Docs you can achieve this.

The way it works is that you set up a document in Google Docs with a prompt and some instructions at the top and a table below for affirmative and negative arguments. You then make several copies of the document and name them 1 – n. You then share the document with 2-6 students (1-3 on a side) and ask them to divide equally among affirmative or negative. Then, they begin writing all at once in the document with arguments that they research or come up with on their own. It works quite well. In a 1:1 environment, each student can add their own points and are not subject to the edits of one dominant group member. They can also have real human conversation while they are doing it.

As the teacher, you can watch the drama unfold by looking at each document from your computer. They are updated real-time so you can see what students have the document open and are adding points. You can even intervene and add comments to the pages to steer students in the right direction. The technology isn’t idiot or vandal proof, however, so it will require a classroom atmosphere of trust and safety for it to work.

That’s not the end of it either. Once the debates have ended, you can then share them with the rest of the class in any number of ways and have students use the data collected to produce some sort of essay or reflective piece that incorporates both sides of the argument. In this way the debate acts as a shared introductory experience necessary for a more critical look at an issue. It’s a lot more fun for the students than an ethics lecture, and they will have more than just a page of notes at the end of it.

To see a sample mini-debate in Google Docs simply click on the snapshot to the right.

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