17.3: Class Debates

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Class debates are a good way to decompress at the end of class and require the students to put the materials they learned in a broader context. Student teams prepare pro and contra arguments for a statement of current technical or societal concern, exercising presentation and research skills. Sample topics include Robots putting humans out of work is a risk that needs to be mitigated; Robots should not have the capability to autonomously discharge weapons / drive around in cities (autonomous cars); or Robots need to be made from components other than links, joints, and gears in order to reach the agility of people.

The students are instructed to make as much use as possible of technical arguments that are grounded in the course materials and in additional literature. For example, students can use the inherent uncertainty of sensors to argue for or against enabling robots to use deadly weapons. Similarly, students relate the importance and impact of current developments in robotics to earlier inventions that led to industrialization, when considering the risk of robots putting humans out of work.

Although suspicious as first, students usually receive this format very well. While there is agreement that debates help to prepare them for the engineering profession by improving presentation skills, preparing engineers to think about questions posed by society, and reflecting up-to-date topics, the debates seem to have little effect on changing the students’ actual opinions on a topic. For example, in a questionnaire administered after class, only two students responded positively. Students are also undecided about whether the debates helped them to better understand the technical content of the class. Yet students find the debate concept important enough that they prefer it over a more in-depth treatment of the technical content of the class, and disagree that debates should be given less time in class. However, students are undecided whether debates are important enough to merit early inclusion in the curriculum or to be part of every class in engineering.

Concerning the overall format, students find that discussion time was too short when allotting 10 minutes per position and 15 minutes for discussion and rebuttal. Also, students tend to agree that debates are an opportunity to decompress (“relaxing”), which is desirable as this period of class coincides with wrapping up the course project.