Andrew Jackson Debate Reflection

After participating in the Andrew Jackson debate regarding the Indian Removal, I acquired new knowledge regarding the event itself, as well as the process of a debate.  Firstly, I reinforced my skills in being able to find relevant, supportive primary sources.  It was a bit difficult to find sources that supported the question and Jackson’s motives, rather than the results of the removal and the people it hurt or the constitutionality.  Overall, I enjoyed the in-class debate portion.  It was great having the opportunity to see classmates being passionate about the topic and defending their position with opinion as well as sources.  I think the yes side had a strong argument and I was impressed by how well they were able to support their side, even though they did not necessarily agree with it.

            In regards to the 21^st century competencies, I think the most important competencies included self-directedness and being a collaborative team member.  Also, it was necessary to be an effective communicator and an information literate researcher, prior to entering the debate.  In order to successfully support an argument, each group member needed to be prepared with primary sources and quotes or images.  Also, it was necessary that we all contributed in the small group discussion so we would all be aware of the key pieces of information we had all gathered.  In addition, I found that throughout the process of preparation, I was very self-directed.  Not having specific boundaries or guidelines set by members of the group for types of sources to find, I had to determine this myself as well as know how much of each to have and what would be useful.  Lastly, it was imperative that each group member was a collaborative team member.  During the short amount time allotted in the beginning of class and before the conclusion, we all had to quickly and effectively share our thoughts and ideas that we had gathered.  We had to work together in order to form our opening statements and decide what points would be included in the introduction, the active debate and the conclusion.  Each team member contributed his or her thoughts on what would be the strongest idea allowing us to be able to form a compromise to create a solid plan.  During the debate, we had to work as one team with one opinion in order to succeed in defending our side.