Revisiting Tech Battles Using Science Fiction: Methodological Implications and First Impressions

The development of non-technical skills, such as critical thinking and public speaking, is increasingly recognized in computing curricula as essential for computing professionals in the job market. Universities are adopting active learning methods to cultivate these skills, among which are debate-based teaching methods. Previous literature showed that debating is used in many knowledge domains, and can help develop skills of information synthesis, critical thinking, and effective verbal communication. In spite of these benefits, however, debating in computing education is still rare. This work explores a partial redesign of a debates-based teaching method, called Tech Battles, implemented in a 6-ECTS non-technical course at the University of Trento targeted to first-year Master's students in Computer Science with a minor in innovation and entrepreneurship. Battles have been part of the course since 2013, and over the years the teaching team upgraded the methodology, which now foresees a preparatory activity where students read a science fiction short story assigned by the teachers. In this paper, we discuss how this latest modification changes the course and its impacts: how the workflow of each debate evolved, our criteria for selecting short stories, preliminary observations gathered from the field, and the research methods that will be used to more thoroughly validate the updated method.