Teaching Debate

Tournament Direction and Hosting - New Resources

At long last, we're happy to announce the publication of new resources for tournament direction and hosting as part of a site-wide update of materials this school year. Many teachers, as part of the Middle School Public Debate Program, decide to get together with other schools to have tournaments through leagues. Here at at Claremont, we provide support and training to make these competitions meaningful and well-organized events for students, teachers, and parents.

If you're familiar with the competitive side of our programming, you already know that we are the only debating program in the United States to require training and certification for judges in competition. But you may not know that we are also the only program in the US to require that the people who administer tournaments be trained and certified by us.

For the last two years, the Tournament Director training program has been in a trial process. We have trained only a handful of Tournament Directors - most notably Desert Valleys Debate League (DVDL) Tournament Director Kelley Bieringer and Big Apple Debate League (BADL) Tournament Director Alberto Duarte. But this year, everything is changing - we are dramatically expanding to add and solidify new leagues, and with that will come a whole new group of willing and capable volunteers.

New online at our Tournament Administration Resources page, are a number of resources to support this effort, including the first edition of our Tournament Director's Manual, a document about how to host a tournament, and a variety of resources for tournament administration. Anyone interested in what a tournament is like, even if they aren't interested in directing tournaments themselves, should look these resources over.

We look forward to the new season and the new additions to our network of volunteers!

Distributed Learning

Education is, let's face it, a pretty buzz-word heavy place. When I started working in this field, as the program director for a non-profit in Seattle, I felt like a total outsider at meetings where it was just understood that we would all know what the various acronyms stood for. Not knowing an IEP from an LEP from a GED (okay, I knew what that last one meant) made me seem, I think, vaguely incompetent in the eyes of the district personnel I was forever meeting with and working with. That's the nature of the shibboleth, though. You've got to have something, preferably arcane, to distinguish your in-group from everyone else.

But jargon's not all bad. After all, you can just make up your own.

So, today's class is about distributed learning. You may have heard this term used in different contexts. For example, many people use it to refer to what used to be called distance learning (you can read about this use of the term here, here, and here - used by the Army, no less, the undisputed world champion of jargon). But I think there may be a more interesting understanding of the terms that we can divine from, of all places, the world of computing.

I'm sure someone will correct me about this, but as I understand it, distributed computing is a kind of parallel computing, where different parts of a program run at the same time on different bits of the same (or different) computers, breaking up a larger problem into smaller bits to solve the problem more quickly. But in distributed computing, the assumption is made that different elements will have different environments with different capabilities. Like the differentiated students in a debate class or club.

This is, depending on your perspective, either a benefit or obstacle to tournament preparation.

To recap: if you're a MSPDP coach, about a month before the upcoming tournament, you get a list of four or five topics from your league president. Students who go to the tournament will debate all of the topics. And they won't know what side they'll be on. So, really, students have to be prepared to debate 8-10 positions (4-5 topics * 2 sides). This is a lot of work for the average student, let alone the struggling or unmotivated student. One common approach that teachers use is an "every student for themselves" type scenario, or an "every team for themselves" scenario. But I want to suggest that there's another, more efficient way to organize for research- a way that incorporates peer instruction and oral communication.

It requires sharing, which is sometimes tough. The idea is that you organize students into small groups with facilitators to research and prepare "issue briefs" (more on issue briefs and what debate notes should look like next week) that they will share with other groups. If you've got a 20 of students, you could have groups of 4 working on each topic, including preparing arguments for both sides. One senior student functions as an "anchor" for each group, making sure that younger or more inexperienced students stay on task. It's important to split up teams in this process, to avoid clubbiness and to prevent tunnel vision on the part of any given team.

Students have some period of time (1-2 weeks depending on your aggregate instructional time & other factors) to produce their issue briefs. Then those are swapped with another group, which is charged with poking holes in the arguments given and offering feedback. Then the briefs go back to the authors for revision (Peer editing - it's got uses far beyond torturing students in an English 101 class!), before final presentation to the class and swapping with everyone.

If students are keeping a debate notebook - which they should, see my post about that here - you can photocopy the final briefs in time for insertion, review, and perhaps even a practice debate or two before the tournament. Much more efficient, plus it gives your senior debaters a chance to take the lead in instruction. I've seen this in action in a classroom or two, and it's neat to watch students present their arguments to their  larger squad while getting grilled by fellow teammates who want to make sure that all their bases are covered ("But what if they say ..."?).

Running a Middle School Debate League: What's it like?

 

   

So, we've been pretty busy this summer at the MSPDP. We've run several residential student programs (with more than 100 participants in conferences), gotten some grant money for an upcoming program expansion in Los Angeles, and filmed a number of videos. Here's one of them. Three league presidents in the Middle School Public Debate Program (MSPDP) discuss what it's like to manage a middle school debate league. Featuring Lee Harris, from St. Mark's School of Upland, Greg Paulk, from Desert Springs Middle School, and Katie Ward, from Pasadena Polytechnic. Moderated by me, MSPDP Director Kate Shuster.

Oh, and I've also moved the blog to Typepad. Please update your bookmark, if you've got one, to reflect my new address: http://teachingdebate.typepad.com/.

Debate - It's misunderstood

Many teachers believe that debating is something you do once, or a few times, and then it's done. Or, alternately, they never have debates in class at all - thinking that there's no time (thank you, pacing guide!), or that they don't have the necessary expertise.

I'd like to suggest that there's nothing intrinsically valuable about debate. Now, this may come as somewhat of a surprise given that I administer a debating website, direct a gigantic debating program, and have written a bunch of books about debating. When I say that there's nothing intrinsically good about debate, it's just like saying that there's nothing intrinsically good about writing a research paper.

What's good about writing a research paper is the way that the project exercises a complementary set of component skills, such as researching, summarizing, outlining, constructing a thesis statement, making subjects and verbs agree, and so forth -- it's a convenient (if difficult) way to have students work on all of those different skills at the same time - the mental equivalent of cross training.

Debate works in the same way. Done correctly, it builds research competence, media literacy, reading comprehension, argument literacy (more on that one in just a second), evidence evaluation, summarization and outlining, public speaking, conflict resolution, civil discussion skills, critical thinking, and note taking. I've even made a handy chart that details these skills in relation to our program. You can download it by clicking here.

Done poorly, debate provides a mixed bag- people yelling at each other, students reading from scripts that they didn't write, and so forth. Students need the skills associated with debate first. And if they learn those, even if you don't have time to have a series of classroom debates, you'll still have taught the basics.

I think there are three essential, basic debate skills:

1. Argumentation
2. Refutation
3. Note taking

Note that public speaking and listening don't appear in this list. That's because listening is part of refutation and note taking, so I don't list it separately. I prefer to list the way it's operationalized. As for public speaking, I've found that students master speaking more effectively if they have the tools and content for their speeches- like most of us, they're more comfortable speaking if they know what to do, and speaking ability builds over time with debating. I think teaching content first is the best way to teach speaking, especially with students who are nervous about speaking (like most normal adults) or who don't speak English as their home language.

So, a few notes about each of these skills:

1. Argumentation. The easy way to teach this is to reinforce it across all lessons by teaching the ARE method. Students learn that an argument is an assertion, reasoning, and evidence. An assertion is a statement that something is so. Reasoning is the "because" part of an argument, and evidence is the "for example" part, that supports the reasoning. It's used to validate or support the reasoning.

2. Refutation. We teach a 4-step refutation model. Step one is "They say..." That's the part where you refer to the argument you're about to answer. Step two is "But..." That's where you make your counter. You can make a counter-assertion ("They say the Backstreet Boys are a good band, but they're not.") or attack the reasoning or evidence that's been offered ("They say that the Backstreet Boys are a good band because they're popular, but just because you're popular, that doesn't mean you're good."). Step three is "Because..." This is the part where you offer reasoning (and evidence, if possible!) to support your counter-argument. Step four is "Therefore..." This is where you make your conclusion - essential summarization. Let's look at an example:
Butyou don't need to actually have debates in class to teach debating.
Because you can teach the skills associated with debate, like argumentation, in any unit.
Therefore there's plenty of time to teach debate in class.

So easy!

3. Note-taking. This bit is essential to debating as well as to success in school. But students aren't (let face it) very good at taking notes. As my colleague Anthony Gibson has noted, teachers are always saying that students need to take notes, but there are very few situations in school where students actually need to use the notes for something- even when the teacher says the notes will help on the test, they often don't. One of the many nice things about debate as a teaching strategy is that it creates an incentive system for students to take notes. The better their notes, the more they'll win. As you can see with the refutation method above, students are expected to refer specifically to the argument they're about to answer. They need to have it written down to answer it. As debates get more complex, with multiple students in the discussion, students need better skills to track arguments as they develop (or don't) in discussions and debates. So, they learn to be better note-takers.

The problem is that conventional ways we take notes (and even Cornell Notes) are ineffective for debating and the give and take of ideas in a dynamic discussion. That's why graphic organizers with multiple columns are essential for taking notes in a situation where ideas are being exchanged, developed, and refuted. In the MSPDP, we have students (and judges) learn to use a "flowsheet," which is a multi-column organizer. You can download an example here. Notice that speeches are given their own columns. To see some that are filled out, you'll have to download our Teachers' Guide (free but gigantic, at 11 MB) here. That link takes you to the page it's on, not the document itself, by the way.

In my next post, I'll talk about some formats for whole-class debate and apply these ideas to them. But even if you never "have a debate" in your class, you can still add some value to your classroom by taking different parts of debating and integrating them into everyday instruction.

Portfolios for the Debate Classroom

Debating multiple topics from multiple perspectives is an integral part of the Middle School Public Debate Program. It’s part of how we try to build interdisciplinary and critical thinking skills in students. But this doesn’t just happen on its own; students need to engage in reflection and analysis while preparing to debate, during debates, and after debates. And teachers need to find a way to help students meaningfully organize their work – helping students to develop methods for approaching issues as well as helping to stem the inevitable tide of wrinkled and disorganized papers that students too often pull from their backpacks (I saw this recently from a college student, and it wasn’t pretty).

      

Portfolio organization for the debate classroom or club is a useful idea for teachers. Many teachers I work with already mandate that students keep their notes in a three-ring binder. This is great for organizing at tournaments, and it’s also great for when students go to high school – if students debate 20-30 topics a year for just two years, when they go to high school they’ll have a binder with articles and notes on 40-60 issues. Very useful!

 

I tried this portfolio concept myself this summer with a small group of students, and found that it worked well to organize their thinking and note-taking. The idea is that portfolios (binders, really- let’s not kid ourselves) are a convenient way for students to organize all their debate preparation and reflection- articles they read, notes they take, flowsheets they generate in debates, critiques of peer performance they produce, and so forth. Each topic can have its own tab, and an organizing device for each tab like a “Topic Resource Checklist.”

   

I’ve uploaded a version of this here, and included it in the “Resources” section of our website as a Word document so that teachers can download it and modify it as necessary. Basically, what’s included in this document are the following handouts/organizers:

   

• The Topic Resource Checklist page, which is a kind of index page for each tab      of the binder. It’s got a place for students and teachers to sign when      completed.
• An      Issue Analysis form for students to do a “pre-think” on a topic.
• A Research      Log, for students to report on research they’ve done.
• A Prop      and Opp T-Chart, for initial organization of ideas.
• A      Reflection Paper assignment (there is a rubric for this somewhere- when I      find it, I’ll post it as well).

   

Other stuff is not included in this document, like flowsheet templates (available in the Resources section of our website) and ballots (ditto). Hopefully these forms and the general “organizing” principle will be useful to teachers.

Topic Switching, Part II

In my last posting, I briefly sketched out some of the thinking skills justifications for topic switching. In this post, I talk about some other justifications for topic switching.

The MSPDP is designed to develop students' extemporaneous and impromptu reasoning and speaking abilities. Various aspects of the program amplify this goal, such as the inclusion of "preparation time" before debates to stop students from simply reading from scripts during debate (it's debate, after all, not declamation). But topic switching also amplifies this goal. As students are asked to debate on a variety of topics, they engage in thinking, reasoning, and research that mirrors the goals of liberal arts education. Each debate deals with a different topic, ensuring that students are always speaking extemporaneously, with little formal preparation time despite substantial scaffolding and support before the tournament actually occurs.

These extemporaneous and impromptu speaking situations are actually the kind of speaking situations that are required of students in professional and classroom situations. It is exceedingly rare that professionals and college students are asked to deliver a presentation for which they have had many weeks of preparation, and for which they can use extensive notes. Most public speaking and communication situations are impromptu. In a discussion, a professor might ask a student for their opinion on a section of text. The student must respond thoughtfully, with limited preparation. In a business, an employee may be stopped in the hallway and asked to speculate about a professional decision. The employee is unlikely to be able to whip out their pre-prepared note cards or script to deal with this issue.

And most people are not great in these kinds of speaking situations. Which is too bad, because employers and highly selective colleges strongly value students and employees who have exceptional communication skills.  But students need training to be able to excel in these kinds of speaking situations. Which is where the support for extemporaneous and impromptu speaking comes into the equation.

Another way to think about topic switching is that it mirrors and amplifies the demands put on citizens in a democratic society. As voters, we are constantly being asked to render our opinions on a wide variety of issues, many of which are extremely complex and difficult (if you’ve got any lingering doubts about these issues, consider the 2006 Voter Information Guide for the General Election, available here.)  But most of us don’t really know how to form opinions about these issues. We need practice. The National Council for the Social Studies recognizes this need, and has used it as a justification for social studies education. The NCSS defines social studies as "the integrated study of the social sciences and humanities to promote civic competence." This is essentially what the MSPDP does. I sometimes describe what we do as "Building a better democracy, one 11-year-old at a time." There's something to that.

When we designed the MSPDP, we were very conscious of trying to maximize both rigor and accessibility. It's hard to do -- you want to have a program that is as rigorous as possible, which serving the maximum number of students possible. The MSPDP's topic switching feature is part of what makes our program so much more rigorous than any other comparable program for students in the middle grades. The results of our family survey from last year bear this out. Last year, family members reported that students work very hard to prepare to debate. On average, students devote 10-12 hours a week during the debate season preparing to debate. This is the equivalent of attending an extra day of school every week for an entire year. It's hard to get more rigorous than that, especially when you consider that students are using that time researching and practicing with teammates to debate issues that many adults are completely unfamiliar with. Students are pushed to do all of this work through the combination of many factors, but one of those is topic switching. There is always more research to be done, and always more practice to be had. Students can't just prepare on one topic and be done.

Next week, I'll talk about the current events classroom and integrating current events discussions into the middle school classroom. This is one way that teachers who aren't debate coaches can create a "debating classroom" while still adhering to standards and other kinds of pacing and content mandates.

Student Research and the Internet

I've long been concerned about how teachers can teach students to use the Internet in a constructive way - students encounter so much information online, and often they seem to believe that it's all equally valid or credible. There are good resources for teachers who want to teach Internet literacy, but even these are hard to manage for the average teacher, who is unlikely to have access to computers for all students in a given class. Even exercises and teaching methods that claim to work in the one-computer classroom, such as the outstanding WebQuest, get mixed reviews from teachers I work with, and may not fit into the demands of pacing guides. Of course, the issue of how to constructively integrate technology into the classroom is a much bigger issue than can be addressed here.

There are a few outstanding sites that contain resources for teachers to teach Internet and information literacy. I've summarized and linked to those sites here.

We've given a lot of thought to how teachers can facilitate student research, especially as the MSPDP is an extremely research-intensive program. While there is no substitute for the kind of media literacy lessons that should be associated with learning to use the Internet, there are some work-arounds that teachers can use, especially with beginning students. For example, it is best to begin with new students by giving them articles that you've pre-selected for content and readability, having students summarize the articles and work with them to extract elements for ARE-type charts.

With most MSPDP topics, we try to do a "pre-think" and "pre-search" of the Internet to find good, readable articles to link to from our site. You can see examples of this kind of research here -- when topics are no longer current, we move them to our "Topic Research Guide" page, so links can still be used by classroom teachers and others browsing our site. People sometimes ask me how we choose what articles to link to. Basically, we look for articles that are attributable (there is a posted  author for the article), articles that seem credible (we don't link to blogs like this one), articles that have age-appropriate content(no inappropriate ads or adult-themed links, and the reading level should be accessible for a motivated middle school student), and articles that do not require registration to read (this last one is a biggie- we don't feel like it's appropriate to ask young students to reveal their email addresses, even to credible news agencies.

Most students will continue to believe, despite our best efforts, that Google is the best way to get information. And there's no disputing that Google works very well. But it must be supplemented by lessons and group work to teach students about the importance of credible and attributable information.

Over the summer, I read this article about something called "Search 2.0," and I decided to experiment with a new service called Rollyo. Rollyo allows users to create "Search Rolls" within specified sites. It's no substitute for teaching information and Internet literacy, but it is a good stopgap measure, and has a lot of uses in the classroom. I've created a sample MSPDP Search Roll for use in debate research, using some of our cross-posting guidelines. You can see it here. I'm interested in feedback on the guided search concept.

Labels: internet, research