Dr. Hui Nui, Dr. John Nesbit, Professor Joan Sharp, Qing Liu, and Kenny Teng are all motivated by one compelling question: How do we assist students in becoming better arguers and critical thinkers? In response, Dr. Hui Nui, former PhD student in the Faculty of Education, developed the Dialectical Map (DMap) tool under the supervision of John Nesbit. The DMap is an intuitive, online argument map that aims to raise students' level of critical thinking skills. From the time of the tool鈥檚 inception, it has created a great deal of interest and recognition. Dr. Hui Nui received the Dean's convocation medal for PhD research, while practitioners in a total of eight coursesat 丁香园AV have incorporated the tool into their teaching practices. Dr. John Nesbit and Professor Joan Sharp speak about the origins of the DMap tool, the collaborative spirit behind the project, and the tool鈥檚 success across disciplines.
Project Origins
The DMap tool was developed in 2015, when Hui Nui and John Nesbit were in pursuit of effective learning tools for addressing problems students were experiencing with argumentation. When they looked into the research, argumentation maps emerged as a useful tool to support an advanced level of argumentation. However, the format of most argument maps makes them difficult to read and work with. To address this, the team collaborated with a software developer, Liam Doherty, to translate an argumentation map developed by from paper form into a visual digital tool.
As an online tool, the DMap helped students to visualize the components of argumentation and functioned to display each student鈥檚 argument structure more clearly and effectively. It was at this point that Joan Sharp first got involved in the project. Joan鈥檚 enthusiasm for the project shone through as she expressed the positive effect the tool has had on her undergraduate students, allowing them to critically engage in academic and public policy debates. 鈥淚 was very taken by the project, because I have always encouraged Biology students to engage with competing academic hypotheses and with controversial public policy issues.鈥�
During the development phase, the team received financial support from the Department of Biological Sciences, the , and the to put the DMap tool into Canvas, making it more broadly accessible to teachers and students in a variety of courses and disciplines.
The Problem with Student Argumentation
The foundation of critical thinking, Nesbit explains, is understanding the structure of well-formed arguments. From the research, Nui and Nesbit found one of the greatest challenges facing undergraduate students was they often present one-sided positions, failing to address counterarguments and providing weak reasoning for their conclusions.
In Biology classrooms, Sharp similarly observed that her students struggled to develop well-constructed dialectical arguments. One key issue was that students misunderstood an essential component of argumentation, the concept of warrants. A warrant is a simple concept but an unfamiliar term: It explains how evidence opposes or supports the argument it is linked to.
Sharp referenced an example of a question she used in her first-year biology class: Are dogs and wolves the same species? When it comes to this scientific controversy, there is literature making arguments and providing evidence for both a yes and a no answer. According to Sharp, inclusion of warrants in the structure of a Dialectical Map supports the advancement of students鈥� overall argumentative proficiency, as it helps them to recognize when they have developed suitable arguments supported or opposed by relevant evidence. The DMap trains students to construct an advanced form of argumentation, accounting for differing perspectives.
