NOVA : Education through debate on ELBO

NOVA is ELBO's education sub-universe, designed for CEGEP, university and language-centre teachers who want to integrate structured debate into their teaching. NOVA gives teachers tools to create argumentative exercises with evaluation grids, timer, recording, and grading, and gives students a verifiable ECHO profile that builds up their skills throughout their courses.

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NOVA's teaching tools

NOVA includes seven tools: structured FOR/AGAINST debate with timing and a 5-criterion observation grid (French grid today; an English grid is in development), live interactive quiz with multiple choice, a countdown and points, two-stage class poll where the teacher marks each question before or after the debate and both sets of results sit side by side, collective brainstorm with sticky notes, categories and voting, a student presentation queue the teacher opens and closes, spoken Socratic discussion, and a preparation space where the student structures arguments before speaking.

Organizational structure

NOVA uses an Organisation, Class, Activity hierarchy. Institution access opens on request: a teacher fills in the form, and the organisation is created by hand after verification. Teachers then create their classes, set the capacity of each, and run assessable argumentation activities. Students join their class with a six-character invitation code.

Skills developed and assessed

NOVA allows you to assess and certify critical thinking, argumentative rigor, quality of oral expression, active listening ability, and empathy. These skills are measured using customizable grids and accumulate in the student's ECHO profile, a verifiable argumentative CV that follows them beyond the course.