Often, as you move further along in the semester, you may sense that the class has begun to feel enough at ease with your subject area that discussions become more heated and students more opinionated. At such a point, you may want to employ one of the activities that follow.
All of them are designed to challenge opinions and perceptions, to broaden and deepen your students understanding of the complexities associated with your subject.
DEBATES
Because neither one of the two polar sides of an issue ever contains the whole truth about that issue, debates of various sorts can often serve as learning-intensive class activities. They also offer a structured opportunity for developing public-speaking skills.
Forensic Debate. In traditional debating, participants must prepare themselves to defend either side of an issue. They are not told which side they have until the debate itself is about to begin.
This setup can work well for Explorations if the subject is easily researched and lends itself to developing strong positions “pro” and “con,” and if you provide enough lead time and direction for your students. The type of topic that would work well for a traditional debate might be something that is currently generating a good deal of media attention. Here are some possible topics.
- Should the United States set nuclear policy for the rest of the world?
- Has the time come in the United States to enact gun control legislation?
- Has the independent film movement been co-opted out of existence?
Oxford Style Debate. In this variant, the class is split in two, and each half is assigned a side of an issue. For the first five or ten minutes of the debate, the floor is “closed,” meaning that the class members on each team must stay on their assigned sides of the room and argue their assigned positions.
After this time, you announce that the floor is “open,” meaning that — if and when students are persuaded to take the opponent’s side — they may get up and move to a seat on the opposing team’s side. Very often the numbers on both sides will fluctuate throughout the debate. In the end, the bigger team wins.
Be prepared, however, that if all of your students end up on one side, you may have to take them on yourselves.
Forced Debate. This form of debate, so-called because you assign students to defend one side of a question whether they agree with that position or not, tends to be the most frequently used in first year seminars.
- One Explorations group studying the history of Title IX put together a very successful debate when the leaders had an all-male team argue for and an all-female team argue against the equal funding of women’s collegiate athletic programs.
- A variation of this technique is to take students who hold a particular point-of-view on a given subject and make them present an argument in support of the other side.
During the class in which the debate will occur, a good strategy is to rearrange the seating so that the two sides in the debate are sitting face-to-face.
In terms of actually conducting the debate, it is far more productive in a classroom setting if you emphasize the process of presenting arguments, rather than determining who is right or wrong.
Do this by using a structured format that allows each team, in an alternating pattern, uninterrupted segments of time to make statements, offer rebuttals, pose questions, or answer them.
After the debate is over, class discussion should focus on analyzing what each team’s strategy was and how each attempted to execute it, rather than on which team “won.”
ROLE PLAYING
Role-playing is a powerful learning strategy, guaranteed to motivate and animate most students.
Role-playing is tricky. It can seem simple, deceptively so. Therefore, you may want to start out in a relatively modest way. Here are some models.
- Two members of the class can volunteer to assume the roles of two characters from a novel, at a crucial point in their relationship, and to discuss, in character, how they feel about each other at this moment, or what they should do next.
- Two students can act out the President and an advisor debating the impact on society of a topic in the news.
Other role-plays may focus more on everyday situations in which people may find them- selves.
- Members of the class could be a group of friends suddenly discovering that one of their old friends has been sighted in the subway station sleeping and panhandling for money.
- Members of the class could play a scene in which family members find out that a daughter or son has an opioid addiction.
Issues (and the characters who embody them) that involve conflicting values, moral choices, and timeless human dilemmas usually work best, especially those relating directly to the students’ world. But role playing need not be personal and often times can be more effective with characters who are not necessarily like the people playing them.
Preparation. Give students sufficient time to prepare themselves (how much depends upon the nature of the particular role).
This might mean a week or more in order to do research, or fifteen minutes in groups to pool information, or five minutes to refresh one’s memory about a character in a novel, or a couple of minutes simply to get in touch with the feelings of a character and situation.
Defining Roles Adequately. In giving instructions, the definition of roles to be played should be concrete and clear enough for students to get a handle on whom they are playing, yet open enough for the expression of their own personality and interpretation.
If the roles are defined too tightly, students end up feeling stuck in stereotypical characters and have difficulty getting into the spirit of things. If the roles are described too loosely, without a clear context, students may not be able to make the imaginative leap and create a believable situation.
Debriefing. Finally, and most importantly, in any role-playing experience as much (if not more) time should be devoted to debriefing afterwards. This is when the substantive les- sons of the experience are discovered, explored, and confirmed. Also, those students who may have served as observers will offer their insights and analysis of what happened. Above all, debriefing serves the purpose of giving the actors an opportunity to talk about how they felt in their roles and what they learned, both about themselves and about the substantive issues involved.
A Word of Caution. Because role-playing can be traumatic for some students and because a poorly planned or poorly monitored role-play can get out of control, a few cautionary suggestions may be helpful, if not crucial. In most role-playing activities, students should have some choice about how much to participate, either by deciding whether or not to volunteer, or by being able to choose to be part of a group large enough to reduce the pressures on any one individual. You should monitor carefully the unspoken signals of students who may find their role uncomfortable and, if necessary, intervene. Generally, however, role playing is a very effective way for the shy student, who has said little or nothing in class, to come out of their shell and, eventually, to participate more readily in conventional discussions.
SIMULATIONS
Simulations are, in effect, extended instances of roleplaying. Generally speaking, they involve everyone in a group and attempt to recreate a “real-life” situation.
They usually follow a set of explicit rules provided by the designers of the simulation, or they employ widely understood conventions for behaving appropriately in the situation at hand.
The basic premise for using simulations is to gain an understanding of how other people think and work out problems. Students engage in activities which approximate real-life situations. Simulations offer a method of active involvement in a decision-making process where no one actually fails. It also enables them to analyze the consequences of their actions.
The game used should be easy to learn and easy to play yet challenging enough to be interesting. It should contain the essential elements of actual situations. In planning your simulation, clear objectives should be set.
You should decide if the major objective is to achieve a better understanding of your academic subject area, or are you trying to get people to understand more about themselves and the people around them.
- An Explorations group on disparities in healthcare could construct a simulation on how to distribute limited medical supplies in an epidemic. Roles such as a treating physician, hospital administrator, patient advocate, CDC official, local mayor, and others would need to be played.
- A media-focused group could recreate a “pitch” session at a major network. You would need students to play a number of writers, agents, producers, and execs.
GAMES
As with role playing and simulations, any kind of imaginative and structured activity that acts as a change of pace from traditional learning patterns can be an effective teaching device. Such games as Jeopardy, Trivial Pursuit, and Pictionary can all be adapted without too much difficulty to focus on issues and information relevant to your seminar. Even childhood games such as Twenty Questions and Hangman can be useful.
In addition, with a little bit of creativity, some of the “ice breakers” and values-clarification activities discussed later in this manual can be reworked to incorporate academic concerns. See the tabs under Community Building: Games & Ice Breakers for ideas.