Classroom Debate: Improving Critical Thinking Skills

 The Newark Debate Academy offers opportunities for students to participate in debates in their own classrooms based on their everyday course of study. Through partnerships with the Newark Public Schools, the NDA curriculum team has worked to incorporate in-class materials into a debate format that emphasizes oration, argumentation, and refutation with evidence. This platform demands reading and synthesis of curricular texts, critical thinking, and use of evidence to support claims that generate justified responses to unexpected arguments, which is a plus for active learning. Classroom Debates also offer students that are not members of the debate team to gain critical thinking and problem-solving skills of competitive debate while increasing information retention.