When students work together in groups, groupthinking can occur, where people become absorbed in the group and strive for harmony. This desire for unity is greater than striving for the best team outcome, which makes critical assessment of the process and outcomes more difficult. Groupthinking thus gets in the way of team learning, when you want to encourage it. By appointing a devil's advocate in every team, you can reduce the likelihood of groupthinking. Because you make the role explicit, this student will have fewer problems critically assessing the process and outcomes. Moreover, critical assessment is also a learning objective in itself, which students can now practice.
- Activity goal
- Exchange knowledge | Practice skills
- When
- In class
- Where
- Offline | Online
- Duration
- < 30 minutes
- Group size
- Small | Medium
- Materials
MSTeams, Zoom
Step-by-step
Step 1
Explain the process of working with the devil's advocate to students so they know what it entails and why it is important to do so. Provide context for the assignment and the role of the devil's advocate. The devil's advocate should have a critical role on the team while working on the assignment.
Step 2
Make the groups and think about how you want to appoint the devil's advocate. Do you choose someone or do students get to choose this for themselves?
Step 3
Have students complete the task as normal. Walk around to look and observe how the devil's advocates are doing.
Step 4
Pause for a few minutes halfway through the assignment. Have some lawyers and other students reflect briefly; do they manage to be critical? Or do they need something more at this point? After this, resume the assignment.
Step 5
When the students have finished, let them reflect again on the devil's advocate's contribution to the whole group process and the outcome. Was it a good addition, or do they think they would have achieved the same outcome without it? So, in addition to the outcomes of the assignment, reflect on the use of a devil's advocate.
Step 6
On the next assignment, choose another student to play the role of the devil's advocate.
Tip 1
For randomly choosing a student, you can use a random name generator.
Step-by-step
Step 1
Explain the process of working with the devil's advocate to students so they know what it entails and why it is important to do so. Provide context for the assignment and the role of the devil's advocate. The devil's advocate should have a critical role on the team while working on the assignment.
Step 2
Make the groups and think about how you want to appoint the devil's advocate. Do you choose someone or do students get to choose this for themselves?
Step 3
Have students complete the task as normal. Walk around to look and observe how the devil's advocates are doing.
Step 4
Pause for a few minutes halfway through the assignment. Have some lawyers and other students reflect briefly; do they manage to be critical? Or do they need something more at this point? After this, resume the assignment.
Step 5
When the students have finished, let them reflect again on the devil's advocate's contribution to the whole group process and the outcome. Was it a good addition, or do they think they would have achieved the same outcome without it? So, in addition to the outcomes of the assignment, reflect on the use of a devil's advocate.
Step 6
On the next assignment, choose another student to play the role of the devil's advocate.
