IF YOU WANT TO:
Encouraging heated debates.
Faculty members in several disciplines find it useful to make leading remarks to stimulate or revitalize class discussion. The goal of one engineering professor, for example, is "to get the students into such a heated debate that I can slip away to the back of the room unnoticed and the discussion continues. I do this by judiciously playing the devil's advocate, saying something provocative, and stressing the different points of view among the students. Once the discussion is underway, I try to restrain myself from commenting after a student has spoken. In this way the students come to rely more on themselves to `lead' the discussion."
A political science professor uses the same strategy. "I begin by trying to get students to disagree with one another in order to generate ideas. With this method there is some sacrifice of the organization and clarity provided by lectures, but there is no better substitute for engaging students' minds and getting them to wrestle with the implications of various public policy techniques."
Both instructors stress that the lively exchanges can be generated by asking such questions as, "Who doesn't agree with what's being said? Will someone try to put into words an opposite point of view or a counter position?"
Limitations on Use of Suggestion
Copyright 1983 by the Regents of the University of California