week 49 - class exercise

Question: This course features class exercises to each meeting to let students experience the theoretical material from lectures and literature. Develop one class exercise to replace one that you felt was not entirely suitable.

One of the class exercises that I felt not entirely suitable is the debate over Friedman's proposition. Due to the large class size, it is challenging to allow everyone in the two teams to contribute to the debate. With all the different background we have in the class, I think the debate could be organised to allow us to bring out the best from the class members. The 2 judge who commented at the end of the debate is really helpful to wrap up the whole process. In general I think the debate can be more dynamic and more people can be involved in the process.

Preparation

To give the class members more opportunities to be a part of the debate, the debate statement and the rules can be provided to the two teams a week ahead of the debate to allow preparation. The teams can distribute the work by assigning people into subgroups to do research and organize talking points, etc. This can be organised by students. Doing so not only gives the students sense of responsibility to contribute to the debate, it also allows people who are not familiar with the debate rules to look into the debate styles and discuss their strategy. Since there are only limited time to deliver the points and to ask the other team questions, some preparation to simulate the debate would be very helpful.

 

Debate style

Since there are more than 20 people on each team, more people can take part in speaking. A session with more interactions can be saved after the affirmative and negative arguments are delivered. Each team can send 3-4 people to take turns answering or giving questions to the other team to create more dynamics between two teams and allow a more immediate response from another team when a question is raised. 

Wrap up

The judges can give final comments at the end of the debate to bring attention to the main conclusion and observation. Also, in the end, both teams can provide records on paper. People in the class all come from different backgrounds and cultures, sometimes it is not the easiest to come up with ideas immediately if people are not familiar with the oral debate style or exchange. People with social science background tend to have a better idea of how to approach a problem and how to analyze some topics in this course. I come from natural science background and the discussions in the course takes some time for me to take in and put it in my own words. Therefore it would be helpful to have students to summarise the debate and comb through the debate afterwards. It is like the quote from the class on culture, "When I hear, I forget. When I see, I remember. When I do, I understand. "