Susan Herbst, chief academic officer for the University System of Georgia, recently wrote an Inside Higher Ed piece and made a strong argument for incorporating the principles of policy debate into a curriculum dedicated to improving the critical thinking skills of students. 

While there are other approaches that have incorporated argumentation into the curriculum, those efforts can be further improved by teaching the principles of debate to students.  Students who are exposed to debate, learn to identify components of a rational argument, methods of assessing evidence credibility, the importance of identifying both sides of a contested issue, and the capacity to listen critically to claims made on both sides of an issue.