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TEDx Debate Seminar
Seminar Bachelor BWL
Starting point
In today’s day and age, having an idea or opinion about certain subjects and crafting and communicating convincing arguments in favour of that opinion is becoming ever more important. The seminar “TEDx Debate” helps students develop the necessary skills to structure clear arguments for a given topic and improve public speaking skills to positively influence the opinion of the audience on their selected topics. TEDx Talks are a particularly good format to effectively communicate an idea, as the TEDx Talks strive to convey the key message in a short period of time, which decreases the chance that the audience’s attention wanes. This seminar additionally adopts a debate structure, where students are challenged to formulate both pro and contra opinions on chosen topics and defend them robustly. It is crucial for students to learn not only how to prepare a persuasive presentation but also how to adeptly respond when their views are challenged. This dual focus prepares students to handle real-world scenarios where both presentation and interactive debate skills are necessary.
Seminar objectives
Students are given a topic and a position from which they should argue. They need to analyze the complexities of the topic and structure arguments for their stance. They will convey these arguments successfully in the form of short, debate-style presentations.
The seminar will commence with a kick-off session that introduces various techniques to help students deliver confident and convincing presentations. During this session, students will select their topics and viewpoints. They will then analyze and prepare their debate outlines, which will be refined in a mandatory progress session with the tutor. Subsequent sessions will allow students to further develop their arguments and presentation scripts. The course culminates in a final presentation, where pairs of two to three students will present contrasting views on the same topic and defend their arguments, simulating a dynamic debate environment.
Course assessment and grading
The grading of this course is based on a presentation and script.