Academic Controversy

Posted on by Nattasit Dancholvichit

PURPOSE

For students to gain as much knowledge as possible by comprehending various arguments from both sides of a debate. 

DESCRIPTION

Academic Controversy is defined as the management of a controversial topic that is addressed in a group in order to share ideas and learn issues from both sides. 

UNDERLYING EDUCATIONAL THEORIES

Critical Thinking, Peer Learning, Constructivist, Inquiry-based Learning 

PEDAGOGICAL BENEFITS 

  • Using academic controversy can result in improved capacity to retain facts and logic from one’s own and others’ viewpoints. 
  • Academic controversy can help develop a more skilled transfer of such efforts to other settings, including a larger generalization of concepts that can be applied to a broader range of scenarios. 
  • Uncertainty, conceptual conflict, and/or disequilibrium can motivate students to search for additional information. 
  • Students can draw a new, reconceptualized, and reorganized conclusion adapting their cognitive perspective and reasoning through understanding while also accommodating the perspective and reasoning of others. 

STRATEGIES FOR IMPLEMENTATION 

  1. Provide students with respective materials to be completed outside of class. Consider providing students with a list of potential sources while also prompting them to search out and verify additional sources. 
  2. At the start of class, assign students into pairs with positions. Prompt for pairs to discuss formulate an argument for their positions. 
  3. Allow time for students to present their positions to one another. Prompt for pairs to counter opposing positions.  
  4. Prompt students to swap positions and present again based on notes and thoughts recorded during the previous presentations.
  5. After completing the activity, bring pairs back together and prompt students to integrate arguments from opposing positions into a synthesized position representing consensus. 
  6. Consider whether the assessment will be content- or merit-based. 

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING 

  1. Jacobson, D. (2002). Getting students in a technical class involved in the classroom. In Engaging Large Classes, 214-216, Anker/Jossey-Bass.  
  2. Santicola, C. F. (2015). Academic controversy in macroeconomics: An active and collaborative method to increase student learning. American Journal of Business Education (AJBE), 8(3), 177-184.