Have been thinking about the SET of Debate since it was the topic I chose for the digital project. I have used that technique for years, before I formally "knew" it was a technique, just based on the students responses to it.
I would schedule 3 a term- early, middle and end. At first I used the split room- literally cutting the class in half and assigning a side. As the term went on the groups were made smaller i.e. 3-4/side and then at the end; 1-2 /side.
The obvious outcome was engagement but there was more than that benefit. I saw students who never said a word present a piece of their teams position. I saw students who knew they were "right" about a topic view take a 2nd look, I saw students learning to deepen their investigations from opinion to research and I saw students start connecting the dots from the issues in their city to the determinants of health that we were studying. Barkley (p. 202) offers the purpose of this technique as providing a framework for more mature thinking, exposure to difficult topics and different perspectives and gives practice opportunities to grapple with messy and complex issues in a critical way which is exactly what the students demonstrated.
If the students already had a mastery of the mechanics (research techniques, critical thinking skills, articulation) sometimes I would the pro group represent the con position and vice versa. This was not popular when announced initially, but ended up being their favourite sessions!
Barkley (p.205) made mention of the creation of a safe space and the security to speak freely and I think in recognition of that we started off the term with fairly straightforward topics.
Have others had good results using this technique?
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