I feel very pleased with the learning that occurred during my debate topic of “Should Nursing Faculty Participate in Relevant Clinical Practice.”  The class engagement was evident as participation was frequent and lively.  Many key journal articles and websites were added to reference and support both sides of the argument from myself and my classmates.
     My partner and I were able to work well with each other and shared information easily.  We agreed upon a definition that limited our topic for ease and clarity of debating.  Work was mutual with neither of us feeling that the other was shirking their duties.  We continuously shared our presentations and offered new drafts quickly so that each partner could form their argument.  
     I offered and posted the introduction for our debate based on the introduction draft I had created initially from our team discussions.  My opposing argument provided a history of our topic using our course text and journal articles as references.  My argument was well researched and used articles, texts and internet sources as support.  My rebuttal received tremendous feedback from the class.  Feedback included students converting to my viewpoint and comments that the rebuttal was well researched.  I was able to refine my rebuttal into three main points for ease of discussion.  In my conclusion, I included salient points that classmates had made that had enhanced my position in the debate. I also offered new reference material from the Canadian Nurses Association and suggested the concept of global nursing practice opportunities as food for further thought.
     I used humour in the form of cartoons and video to accent the points that I was defending.  Humour was also used to lighten the heavy topic and inject some fun into our learning.  The cartoon that I posted early in the discussion received excellent feedback and provided a focal point that we could all relate to.  This connected the class and gave focus to future discussion.  The cartoon was able to take a potentially dry topic and make it entertaining and interesting.  
     I responded to each student’s comments in my postings and accessed the debate each day.  I often responded to several students at once by pulling themes from their responses and offering feedback.  In this way, I was able to offer generalized themes and structure the discussion.  This was more effective than responding to each student comment thereby becoming repetitive and losing the class’ attention.  All postings were professional and respectful from all members of the class.  Concepts were clear and resulted in great discussion.
     I felt that our discussion at times did not match our definition provided in the introduction.  I felt that my partner’s argument focused primarily on faculty in the clinical setting where our definition was aimed at teachers in the classroom as well.  I addressed this during the week’s discussion and was able to refocus the class.  However, I don’t believe that my debate partner fully discussed the classroom teacher in her argument.  In spite of this, I continued my debate based on our definition which allowed me to offer excellent arguments, rebuttals, and a robust final conclusion.