Stimulating Learning and Creating Course Involvement Through the use of Debates

A perennial concern of many who have faced students on an ongoing basis is to obtain their involvement, commitment, and enthusiasm. One approach that has been used to achieve this is through the use of debates. This was accomplished in an undergraduate organizational behaviour course by establishing a series of eight debates. Eight teams were formed, requiring each team to engage in two debates each. The debate topics were developed and timed to coincide with their coverage in the course outline. The debate topics are shown in Table 1