Thursday, March 12, 2009

Debating....Freestyle

After our debate Wednesday, I held a very impromptu and informal debate in our classroom without an audience. I knew my students had become a little nervous from speaking in front of a crowd, so I allowed them to have another chance to argue with each other. For this debate, I selected a random topic for my students (bringing ipod/mp3's to school) and allowed them to go one on one with another classmate, here are some of the highlights.







Overall my students have really enjoyed this project, and have taken it to a whole another level. Everyday in my class I have frequent debates (not to be confused with arguments) break out over everyday topics. As an instructor, I feel like this has really opened up my student's way of thinking, and has caused them to be more vocal and engaged in the classroom. Not only are they learning to look at both sides of a story, but it has also peaked their interest in classroom discussions. Its not every day that students get a voice of say in their class, and in some ways that's a shame.

Mr. McClung

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

cool debatings fun i remember last year me and my class mates did debating we sat like they d in a debating chamber and debated like they did we practicly did exactly like them but e sounded different and we made up class things to debated on and you students and mr clungkeep debating its fun.

shannon Rm10

Wm Chamberlain said...

Did anyone argue about the educational benefits of listening to MP3 players? Even though you will see me before and after school listening to my ipod, I am usually not listening to music. I use my ipod to listen to podcasts that inform me about technology and the news.

One of my students will be using an ipod as an intervention next week to see if she can improve her comprehension of her social studies. She will be listening to the text while she follows along.

There are classrooms that use ipods or Zunes to study with. Mr. Langhorst, who visited our class last year, uses them in his history class for students to listen to lecture notes.

Mr. C

BTW is it hard to debate against something you actually believe in?

jkmcclung said...

I was hoping they would go down that road. If you notice I ask Tanner in the first debate "just for entertainment purposes, right?" No one picked up on what I was getting at. Also, many of them do not know what podcast are and many don't use iTunes because they mp3's and not iPods.

I am with you though, I believe an ipod could really help with a students understand and comprehension of a subject (espically vocab). Most teachers would be totally against bringing them in because they are not comfortable with them and if they aren't comfortable with technology, they are scared of it.

Anonymous said...

Yo sixth graders,

Always beware of what you wish for....thats a version of a famous Shakespeare quote. I do that on a daily basis. Compromises come from your debates. Good job. Seeing others views is difficult, blood pressure raising, yet stimulating. Continue to think.....usually leads to clarity.