Using in-class debates as a teaching tool

In-class debates can be used as an excellent teaching tool in engineering courses. They can provide students the opportunity to synthesize course information, encourage related outside research, improve critical thinking, and develop verbal communication skills. When debate topics are sufficiently scoped, students are encouraged to tie together the major concepts of the course as they prepare their debate positions. The public nature of the debate format makes students naturally want to perform well. This teaching technique has been used successfully in computer science courses in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.