Assignment -
This is debate assignment. Topic for debate is EDUCATION KILLS CREATIVITY.
Task Description: The objective of this assignment is to build students' abilities to structure arguments based on evidence and structured reasoning, including identifying consensus methods for identifying coherent group arguments.
As a group, you can choose any one of the following debating topics. You will then need to identify what would be a good response from both sides. That is, you need to simulate what would be good arguments that the affirmative and the negative teams are likely to provide if very good debaters and had time to thoroughly research the topic. Since this will be a very challenging thing to do, each speaker only needs to speak for a minimum of 4 minutes and a maximum of 5 minutes.
Clearly, you need to do a lot of research if taking up this option to identify what are going to be winning arguments that all the speakers from both sides could put forward. This approaches most definitely tests your ability to look at a contentious issue and see both sides of the argument. Essentially, you are simulating the whole debate as a single team. You are not going up against another team. You are going up against yourselves.
The first speaker on the affirmative defines the topic and the nature of the team's arguments, providing some examples.
The first speaker on the negative reaffirms or redefines the topic and the nature of the team's arguments, providing some examples.
The second speaker on the affirmative identifies the differences between both teams' arguments, providing a conceptual overview and evidence/examples for why the affirmative team's arguments are superior.
The second speaker on the negative identifies how the affirmative is lacking, providing a conceptual overview and evidence/examples for why the negative team's arguments are superior.
The third speaker on the affirmative summarises what was said, including which arguments or sources of evidence were particularly compelling/flawed, and explains why the affirmative should win.
The third speaker on the negative summarises what was said, including which arguments or sources of evidence were particularly compelling/flawed, and explains why the negative should win.
General Overview:
The written conceptual overview of the structured arguments must include a cover page that contains the group's names, student numbers, resident campus, assessment title and lecturer. The conceptual overview should be 500 words in length. This is due one week after you present.
Each team will have 3 or 4 debaters. (NB. The number of debaters could be changed depending on the number of enrollees.)
Each speaker will have 5 minutes to argue their case. Palm cards and/or PowerPoint should be used. Students should not talk under-time - less than 4 minutes, or over-time - more than 6 minutes. A two-point deduction will be applied to presentations over or under time.
Each team must prepare a team charter, including a description of the team's objectives, communication methods, scheduled meetings/protocols, task allocations, conflict resolution and quality assurance methods.