In the Speaking for Argument class, students held debates based on the World Universities Debating Championship rules. They had to formulate arguments and respond to comments and questions. They also had to state their rebuttals or questions in 15 seconds or less. There were many laughs as students struggled to fit their points into such a short time.

Critical Thinking and Preparing for Potential Problems

“Thank you for always encouraging us to be more critical, so that it pushes me to study harder.” A student sent this message to the SEEDS worker that teaches her ‘Speaking for Argument’ class. As a future English teacher, it is great that she appreciates being pushed to think more critically about what she sees and hears.

Some of the recently proposed laws in Indonesia are controversial and the students in the Argument class chose sides and presented arguments in group discussions. This was an opportunity to wrestle with relevant issues that affect their own country. To help them think more logically, they also studied logical fallacies and how to recognize and avoid them; inductive, deductive, and abductive reasoning; and cause and effect relationships.

Particularly in a country that is almost two thirds ocean, oil spills and other environmental problems are inevitable. In the Coastal Zone Management class, graduate students studied about how to prepare for potential oil spills, methods that have been used to clean the water and the coastline, and then prepared contingency plans in groups.