Devil’s Advocate

Contributed by:

Musostudy

Intended Learning Outcome:

To encourage confidence in critical-thinking skills

Tool:

To help students gain confidence in critical thinking the teacher states a view and encourages students to challenge it. This forms a kind of debate with the teacher playing Devil’s advocate to the students’ arguments.

Activity:

Choose a subject relevant to your module learning. This could be a contentious issue where there is no clear, correct answer.

The teacher makes a statement and asks students to form a critical argument against it.

The teacher encourages the discussion with additional questions, challenging and leading the students deeper into analysis and evaluation of the subject.

How:

You may wish to use the READ Backwards TLA first to set up what is expected in Critical Thinking.

Examples:

After looking at sales figures in the recording industry you may wish students to discuss a topic such as “why vinyl is dead”.

Large Group Teaching:

You could write your argument down and have small groups discussing it. Each group could have a different subject to critique.

Online Teaching:

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Success:

Students are confident in thinking around a subject and forming a critique of it.

Next Steps:

You may wish to look at more complex/nuanced debates as students become more confident.

Devil’s Advocate

Contributed by:

Intended Learning Outcome:

Tool:

Activity:

How:

Examples:

Large Group Teaching:

Online Teaching:

Success:

Next Steps:

Links to other activities:

Further reading:

Acknowledgements:

Resources:

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