Insights in Instruction: Teaching Top and Novice Lab with Marshall Thompson

Last week, Victory Briefs released as part of its Curriculum Corner series a video interview with VBI staff Devane Murphy where he told us about his teaching methods, practices, and philosophy. Today, we're continuing the series with a video interview with the VBI Director of Lincoln-Douglas Debate Marshall Thompson. Marshall is a former Walt Whitman debater, current philosophy graduate student, and all around debate nerd. He led top and novice lab at VBI last year and he'll be reprising his role as a top lab instructor again this year. Learn more about Marshall and his unique insights in teaching debate. Topics covered include: Marshall's (lack of) hobbies outside of debate, his work as a philosophy graduate student, his perspective into how debate instruction could be improved, discussing how to approach coaching different styles of debate, and his unbridled love for teaching novices.Watch the interview here!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uAf9nr6iAM

Curricular Components 7: Dine With Two Minds

Dine With Two Minds. Cause you know Two Minds are better than one.

Last year, our first Curriculum Corner post explained a lot of our new curricular elements that we used at VBI in 2017. We’re very pleased with the results of these programs, and so have elected to keep all of these developments for 2018.However, that doesn’t mean the quest to improve our debate curriculum should cease, and indeed, we believe that improvements can always be made to camp curriculum. This year, we’re happy to announce an update to our curricular programming. This new program builds off of a 2017 curricular element and is called Dine With Two Minds.Last year, we described Dine With a Mind in the original introduction post as follows:

“Dine With a Mind: There are already lots of ways for students to meet and talk with instructors at debate camp. However, much of that time is formalized in ways that are not always optimal for getting to know an instructor and really picking their brain on a tough issue for an extended period. The Dine With a Mind Program is designed to fill that lacuna. It allows students, either individually or in a group, to sign up to get a meal with an instructor. Talking over a meal provides a wonderful and less formal context for fellowship with others. I know that many of the most engaging and challenging conversations I’ve had with students about issues of debate and philosophy occurred in the context of a meal. By providing an official program, we hope to guarantee that every student who wants to receives such an opportunity can do so, at no additional cost to them.”

Dine With Two Minds builds off of the same idea. It allows students in a group to sign up to get a meal with two instructors. These two instructors will then engage in two sides of a controversy in debate over the course of the meal. They will debate over different debate strategies, theoretical issues in debate, substantive content disagreements within debate literature, and much more. The issues that will be informally debated are ultimately up to the instructors who participate, but we envision some of the topics will be issues such as whether utilitarianism or deontology is the correct ethical framework, whether conditionality is good or bad in Lincoln-Douglas debate, whether reformist or radical politics is best for liberation, and other prominent controversy areas that pertain to debate. Students are welcome to participate in such debates to a limited degree or are simply welcome to just sit there and listen to the exchange.In a follow-up post describing supplementary student-staff interaction, Marshall argued that the benefit of Dine With a Mind is that it can allow increased learning:

“Dine with a Mind allows that longer dialogue. Because you can talk with students over a meal in a more conversational context it allows for a slower and more deliberate instructional setting. I have had lots of engaging and challenging conversations with students, but many of the most challenge and engaging occurred in the context of a shared meal. Indeed, there is something deeply significant to human culture about the shared meal, though I don’t think this post is the place to delve into it.”

We think that Dine With Two Minds will also increase learning by facilitating debates in a more conversational context over a longer period of time than other activities at camp. Our hope is that by having seasoned debate experts seriously engage in disagreements within contemporary debate, it will provide an opportunity for students to think about those disagreements in a new way as well as equip students to defend their own positions more effectively. While debate camp does offer the ability to be exposed to a wide array of new ideas and varied perspectives, rarely do students get the opportunity to watch qualified instructors test the viability of these positions against others over a prolonged period of time. At best, this occurs in an informal setting like during lab when two lab leaders might disagree over an issue and organize lab debates over that issue or occasionally during Socrates Hour when two instructors might have a debate over something. However, with Dine With Two Minds, students will really get the opportunity to see both sides of an issue be debated by staff members in a way that usually students don't have the luxury of witnessing. We got this idea from watching public debates by intellectuals such as the Intelligence Squared Debates, where they organize public debates over important issues in society. Similar to how those debates produce a unique form of education over controversies in society, we hope that Dine With Two Minds will help students think more about issues in debate.

Insights in Instruction: Teaching Top Lab with Devane Murphy

Last year, Victory Briefs released as part of its Curriculum Corner series, an article entitled Insights in Instruction, where we asked several VBI instructors about how they approached teaching at camp. Today, we're continuing the series with a video interview with VBI staffer Devane Murphy. Devane is a former Rutgers-Newark debater where he won the 2017 CEDA National Championship and the 2017 NDT. He also was the top Speaker of the 2017 NDT. He led several top labs at VBI last year and he'll be reprising his role as a top lab instructor again this year. Learn more about Devane and his teaching methods, practices, and philosophy in this enlightening video interview.Watch the interview here!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkPxln76aWQ&feature=youtu.be

Packing For Debate Camp: An Interview with VBI Staffers

One of the most frequently asked questions we get is, “What should I pack for camp?” We were asked this last year on our VBI AMA on Reddit (which you can find here) and we responded with a few different answers.“As for packing, you can find our packing list here. My personal suitcase for camp contains 8 days of clothes, a computer, chargers, headphones, a bluetooth speaker, pens, paper, and spending money. One thing that is often overlooked is the benefit of having sandals or flipflops for when you’re just in your dorm. The good news is we provide linens and towels so you don’t have to worry about packing those! - Lawrence Zhou”“As for packing I would always bring a deck of cards and a few small games (this year I will probably bring bananagrams, avalon, coloretto, anomia, biblios and maybe a larger game like settlers of catan if I can fit it in). I would also recommend bringing a non-debate related book or a kindle. -Marshall Thompson”As camp approaches, it’s worth thinking a little bit more about packing for camp. The following is an edited interview with several VBI staffers and what they pack for camp. They will provide their insights on what and what not to pack to survive and thrive at camp. Hopefully you all will find something interesting in this article and take some inspiration from these seasoned camp veterans.A link to the full, unedited interview can be found at the bottom of this article.

1. Tell us about yourself.

Alex Chin: My name is Alex, and I’m a rising sophomore at Harvard and assistant coach at the Boston Latin School (and sometimes I coach for my high school, Nueva). I’m not really sure what I’m majoring in (still have a semester to decide), but it’ll probably be something along the lines of math, physics, or computer science (possibly a secondary in philosophy). I’m originally from San Francisco, California, and this will be my second year at VBI.Christian Quiroz: My name is Christian Fernando Quiroz, people usually just call me CQ. I’m going into my senior year at Rutgers University-Newark where I am a part of the debate team and the honors living learning community, and major in Philosophy and minor in Social Justice. My field of expertise is continental philosophy with a special interest in Schopenhauer, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche. I’ve been involved in debate for about 7 years and I’m excited to be returning to VBI for my 4th year teaching!Nick Smith: My name is Nick, I studied Political Science & Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, and I am the head coach at Apple Valley High School. I’ve been involved in debate since 2005 and I am super pumped for my seventh summer of working at VBI!Jami Tanner: I'm Jami! I’m currently studying at NYU, in the BA/MA track for Political Science. I’ve been involved with debate for ten years now (wow I’m old) and will be returning to VBI for my fourth year as the Director of PF!Max Wu: Hi, my name is Max Wu! I’m going into my sophomore year at the University of Chicago, where I plan on majoring in Political Science with a focus on International Security studies. I’m originally from Fremont, California, a Bay Area suburb east of San Francisco. Between coaching and competing, I’ve been involved in the Public Forum debate community for 6 years, and am looking forward to working another summer at VBI.Maya Xia: My name is Maya, and I’m an incoming freshman at Vanderbilt University majoring in Neuroscience. I competed as a Lincoln-Douglas debater for four years in high school, and I’m really excited to return to camp as a first-year LD instructor!Pacy Yan: Hi, I’m Pacy. I’m from New York City, where I attended Stuyvesant High School. I’m a current senior and I debated on the Lincoln-Douglas team for four years. I will be studying at NYU this coming fall and I’m super excited to be teaching at VBI this year!

2. When do you start packing for camp usually?

Christian: I typically try to at least get some of the things I know I’ll need for camp together about a week before. So any clothes I might want to bring or shoes or sandals I put to the side so that I know those are the things I want to bring. I don’t actually start packing until the night before.Max: Under the guise of youthful confidence, I started packing a day before I left for camp last year. This was a very poor decision. In my haste, I neglected to bring a number of important articles to camp, including a belt, toothpaste, and underpants. I also did not have enough time to check weather forecasts in Los Angeles, and packed too many pairs of pants. You can’t wear pants in LA during the summer. It’s illegal.Maya: I usually pack for camp the day before (oops), but the packing is pretty easy since I bring much of the same things that I bring on vacation (i.e. clothes, toiletries, computer) plus flow paper and my laptop stand.Pacy: I usually start about three to four days in advance, mostly because my mom bugs me about it and, even as I’ve grown up and she bugs me way less about it, I’ve just gotten into the habit of doing it. It makes the day before a lot less stressful!

3. What clothes or outfits do you consider essential for camp, and how many days of clothes do you usually bring?

Christian: Sandals sandals sandals. And a lot of socks. The fashion police are always trying to give me a ticket for wearing socks and sandals, but they’re comfy. I also like to bring sweat shorts because, again, they’re really comfy. I usually try to bring about a week and a half worth of clothing. Honestly that has just happened to be what I’ve packed before, I’ve never consciously picked out a certain number of outfits for camp.I try to not pack too much for camp, leaving a little space in my bag, because I always like to shop while I’m away in other places and I always try to account for this. It’s not always clothes, though, I also like to shop for books that would need space in my luggage.Pacy: I bring about seven to ten days worth of clothes/outfits. Beyond absolutely necessary things (socks, undergarments, pants, shirts), more specific and important things to consider is bringing a hoodie or something that is like a jacket. Although camp is during the summer, it can get quite chilly at night. Also, hoodies are super comfortable! For pants, bring something other than just shorts – like leggings or jeans or long pants. Also, dress comfortably! Camp can be tiring and busy sometimes so make sure you are comfortable in what you wear.Nick: Without fail I somehow end up packing some clothing that is too hot to reasonably wear on most summer days. Philadelphia can be super humid, and Los Angeles is almost always quite warm. If you see me drenched in sweat and wearing flannel, then please feel free to have an internal chuckle at my expense. Having like one or two warmer pieces of clothing wouldn’t be the worst idea for times like a cool night in LA. I typically plan on doing laundry once a week, which means I pack ~8 days worth of clothing to play it safe. There will always be access to laundry facilities when you’re staying in the dorms. Other than that, I make sure to pack two pairs of comfortable shoes as there will be a good deal of walking on paved surfaces.Jami: I typically bring enough outfits for 10 days, but end up rotating the same 4 outfits because I have that habit…

4. What are the essentials you can’t live without?

Alex: This is pretty obvious, but make sure to bring your laptop. My first time at debate camp, I didn’t realize I needed a laptop until the day before, and my laptop was broken so I had to make a bunch of runs to the Apple Store the day before—not a good idea. I would also bring paper, pens (if you’re looking for a debate pen, check out the coleto lumio on amazon), and a folder/binder too keep your stuff in.Max: Skincare products, vegan protein powder, noise-cancelling headphones, college apparel, existential dread.Christian: Clothes and toiletries are obvious, I try to bring the travel bags that you can keep your toiletries in so that I don’t have to keep track of my toothbrush, deodorant, etc. when I go to shower I just bring all my things with me so it’s not as hectic.I also always bring my laptop and gaming mouse. I have a razor mouse that has shortcuts on the side to optimize gaming. I also bring my laptop so I can do work and play league of legends. This year I’ll probably be playing more fortnite on my laptop.I also have a pretty decently sized library now, and as much as I’d love to bring all of my books with me, I select a few that I need for summer research/reading, enjoy to read just to read (such as novels), or if I promised to lend it to someone during camp. If you’re interested in a book I might have, let me know and I’ll bring it!Pacy: Beyond hygeine essentials (toothbrush/paste, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, etc) and clothing, some other really important things for me to bring are my headphones, stuffed animals, potentially a light and soft blanket, hair ties, and slippers. Headphones are important since I like music, also they’re useful when you just want to relax and listen to music. I really love stuffed animals and I often carry them around with me. Blankets are awesome and fluffy! You can wrap it around yourself or someone else. Hair ties are very useful, especially if the weather is warm. Slippers are good for things like communal bathrooms or even the beach (if you’re attending LA1/2)! Also, things like basic medicine (allergy meds, cold medicine, etc) and things like lotion and skincare products are also important! Also, laundry detergent pods are useful.

5. What is something that people always forget to bring to camp?

Nick: A compact umbrella (Swarthmore). Basic hygiene products like DEODORANT, toothbrush, toothpaste, shower supplies, etc. Basic debate supplies like pens, paper, a timer, a flash drive, an organization system, etc. Enough clean clothes to make it through camp or a willingness to do laundry when necessary.Jami: Hmmm… I’m not too sure what kids forget to bring, but I know one thing that they always are prepared with: snacks. Loving parents always send their kids off to camp with an absurd amount of snacks and, every summer, kids frantically are trying to figure out what to do with the 500 granola bars they haven’t finished as they’re getting ready to leave camp. (I’ve also seen a student who was sent with a 2 lb bag of apples!) I think it’s super sweet - definitely something my mom did for me when I went out of town for tournaments.Alex: Remember that you’re going to be living in dorms, so you should bring all the basic toiletries like shampoo, conditioner, soap (a surprisingly high number of people don’t bring soap), et cetera. Also, if you wear contact lenses, don’t forget to bring those easier. I’ve definitely forgotten to bring those at tournaments in the past and it’s really tough.I’d also bring a water bottle—it’ll just be more convenient that way.Pacy: People will sometimes forget chargers for things like laptops (which everyone should bring! Don’t forget your laptop!), phones, etc. That would become super inconvenient and you would either have to buy another one or borrow someone else’s for a few weeks. Also, bring money since you will potentially order food or buy things at camp (especially if you forget essentials!). Also, don’t forget to bring enough socks or clothes in general – it would be weird if you wore the same shirt every other day. Also, if you can, bring a timer! Those are super useful for debate camp.

6. What are things you like to bring to camp to make life more fun?

Maya: I’m not a huge gamer, so there’s not a material possession that made camp more fun for me. I definitely recommend bringing your personality and an open mind because the people you meet at camp are pretty amazing. I met some of my closest debate friends at camp. Although we competed in different areas around the nation, I still kept in contact with them throughout the school year, and being able to hang out with a few them at tournaments made the competitive atmosphere a lot more enjoyable and less daunting since I had a group of friends there to support me.Alex: I would recommend bringing some snacks—granola bars or popcorn or whatever your snack of preference is. There aren’t really TVs or anything to plug consoles into, so don’t bother bringing them. I’ve enjoyed playing cards and Frisbees (or a football or soccer ball, etc.) at camp.Nick:  I’m VERY excited to be bringing my Nintendo Switch to camp this summer. I’m going to annihilate Lawrence in Mario Kart!! I’ll probably bring a low-key game or two that I can play in the small random periods of downtime I have at camp.My Kindle always follows me to camp, which loaded with oodles of books that are on my reading list. I suspect that I might get more reading done if I simply brought a few paperbacks instead; decision fatigue is real. Most of these books are books that I want to read for fun and not books that might somehow be useful for debate so that I can unwind easier.My general advice on this subject would be to bring the things that you can see yourself having fun using with other folks. Things like a deck of cards, some card games (shout-outs to Total Rickall, a Rick & Morty card game), coloring books, a hacky sack, snacks to share (keeping in mind common allergies), or whatever floats your boat. I always say that the people are the best part of being involved in and camp is a wonderful opportunity to meet and form lifelong friendships with some cool new folks.Jami:  A deck of cards!!! Nothing fancy. There are so many card games for multiple players, and it’s really such a good way to spend time with people you’ve just met. If you want to get really fancy, get Avalon. The best game ever, especially when you’re playing with a bunch of debaters. I played with staff and students almost every night last summer, and I even bought my own game for myself at home.

Conclusion

We hope you found this interview helpful, insightful, or interesting. There are many things to consider when packing for camp, and this hopefully gave you some inspiration and ideas for when you pack for camp!Download the full, unedited interview here: All Packing Interview Answers

The Community Equity Scholarship is Live

The Community Equity Scholarship is up and running on the Victory Briefs camp website! The application is open from now until March 29, 2018 11:59 EST. Decisions will be sent out to applicants by mid-April. Good luck!Find the scholarship here, or go to the VBI camp website, scroll to the bottom, and select scholarships.The Community Equity Scholarship is a recognition of students who have been dedicated and continue to dedicate their time and effort to promoting inclusion and diversity on their debate teams, their local circuits, and/or the national circuit. We believe it’s important to recognize the work done outside of debate rounds that is often behind the scenes.An independent panel will be choosing four recipients for this scholarship: two in Lincoln Douglas and two in Public Forum. Recipients will receive $1000 of financial aid that they can apply to any of our camp sessions. This award money can be combined with other needs-based financial aid because it is a separate amount of money being offered.

Announcing the Community Equity Scholarship

Yesterday, we culminated our Community Resolution Series. While it is only a first step, we recognize the importance of solution-oriented conversations about inequity in debate and hope that the series can be a spark for different programs, camps, students, and educators. Because we, too, want to express our commitment to the cause of creating the community we truly desire, the Victory Briefs Institute has created the Community Equity Scholarship for our upcoming camp sessions of 2018.The Community Equity Scholarship is a recognition of students who have been dedicated and continue to dedicate their time and effort to promoting inclusion and diversity on their debate teams, their local circuits, and/or the national circuit. We believe it's important to recognize the work done outside of debate rounds that is often behind the scenes.An independent panel will be choosing four recipients for this scholarship: two in Lincoln Douglas and two in Public Forum. Recipients will receive $1000 of financial aid that they can apply to any of our camp sessions. This award money can be combined with other needs-based financial aid because it is a separate amount of money being offered.The application will open February 15, 2018 and will close on April 1, 2018. Recipients of the award will be announced mid to late April.Keep your eyes out for the application and details for applying. We hope that you all are as excited for this as we are.Thank you,Victory Briefs

Introducing Victory Briefs Classroom

Welcome to our first installment of this year’s Curriculum Corner series. I realize we are already a good way into the semester, however, I’ve had a pretty busy last few months. The plan is from here on out, though is to update the Curriculum Corner approximately once per week.In this first post, I am pleased to be able to reveal a new project that the Victory Briefs Team has started working on, and which we will be working on throughout this year to finish by the start of next fall.That project is Victory Briefs Classroom.We have been planning this project since early in the summer, and we are pleased to finally be able to go public with a short demo to give an idea of what the final product should look like.

What is Classroom

Classroom is intended to be a comprehensive novice Lincoln-Douglas debate curriculum that can be used by schools to start debate teams.The Classroom Curriculum is designed to be sufficiently clear and comprehensive so that a teacher or volunteer would be able to effectively teach novice debate without any prior forensic experience. We accomplish this goal by using techniques of blended learning to enable at-home content delivery to complement in-class activities and lessons.The curriculum is split between teacher facing resources (which include lesson plans and teaching materials) and student facing resources (which include online videos, quizzes and additional resources) both ordered to integrate into comprehensive units.Click here for a fuller explanation of the curriculum structure.

Why Classroom

All of us reading an article on Vbriefly strongly believe in the value of debate. And we also all believe that it is important to make debate accessible to people who face obstacles to participation. And while there are a lot of awesome and free resources available online to help debaters learn about debate, there still seems to be a large resource lacuna.Much of the online content that debate camps put up, from recorded lectures to online strategy posts, are primarily useful as a tool to supplement an individual’s debate education. However, these resources would not be particularly helpful in starting a team nor in teaching novice debate to someone who lacks any prior forensic exposure.Thus, we wanted to try and use Victory Brief’s resources to create a team focused novice debate curriculum. Creating a debate team is, perhaps, the best way to create long-term access to debate, and the goal of Classroom is to make starting debate teams significantly easier.

Please Send Us Your Feedback

We want to make this resource as helpful as we can possibly can. To that end, we would love your feedback or advice! Please do reach out either on our online feedback form, the comments of this article, or in an email to classroom@victorybriefs.com.

Curricular Components 6: 3 Week Sessions

Over the last few years, there has been a rise in self-contained 3-week long debate camps. Now, there is nothing new about a debate camp lasting three weeks. What has changed is that several camps, including VBI, have shifted from a model where students attend a 2-week main session followed by a smaller third week, to offering an entirely self-contained three-week camp.In this post, I want to explain the motivation for this switch, as well as help students decide if a two-week or three-week session is right for them. To that end I sent some questions about the three-week program to Jake Nebel, an Executive Director of VBI, who was involved in making VBI’s decision to offer a three-week session; and to Nina Potischman, who attended VBI’s three-week session as a student and will be returning as an instructor. I will do my best to weave their answers and my own thoughts into a coherent picture of the benefits and drawbacks of a three-week camp.It strikes me that when considering this trend there are two related, but separate questions that we need to ask. First, is it worth having a three-week long debate camp? And second, is it better have the three-week option be self-contained or to have it as an optional extension of a two-week camp.

Question 1: Why Three Weeks?

When asking Jake and Nina about the first aspect several themes stood out. Nina noted that she “was worried that two weeks would not be enough time to focus on a wide variety of skills, especially since it’s difficult to move outside of your comfort zone in the course of two weeks while also preparing for the camp tournament.”  This makes sense. Indeed, this is why many top debaters end up attending multiple camps before their senior year, not just an extra week at a single camp. It is extremely difficult for a student to get the same degree of argumentative exposure over only two weeks.Only people with years of investment in debate are going to attend multiple camps. Yet, the increasing complexity of debate does not just effect top debaters. Jake pointed out that “as debate has grown more complex, it has become increasingly difficult—I'd say impossible—to adequately learn everything one needs to know in transition from, say, novice year to varsity in only two weeks.” Thus, providing a three-week program is ideal for debaters who will be transitioning to varsity debate on the national circuit but who are not positioned to invest the time and money to attend multiple camps.In addition to asking about their primary motivations for running/attending a three-week camp, I also asked each of them if there were any unexpected benefits. Surprisingly both mentioned that the three-week program helped eliminate a lot of the stress that frustrates learning at camp. Nina “found it less stressful than two-week camps, because the focus was less on the camp tournament and more on skill development, which is definitely something that carries over more into the regular season.” Nor was this isolated to just a few students, Jake found that in general “knowing that you have three weeks to master a skill makes it less stressful to do what you need to do to master it, and this makes drills and homework more effective.”Another extremely important, and unexpected, advantage to the three-week program was social. “Based on student evals and conversations with students and instructors, three-weekers tended to develop even deeper friendships than we usually see at camp. There was really strong intralab coherence, which we saw (for example) in the way more intensely competitive Omegathon spirit.” One final advantage that I think is worth mentioning is that three weeks allows debaters to explore concepts in significantly greater depth. When I asked Nina about what specific things she learnt that she doubts she would have learnt at a two-week camp she noted:

“I don’t think I would have spent as much time working on framework debate had I attended a two-week session. While I was pretty comfortable with framework after my junior year, at VBI I become comfortable with frameworks that I was unfamiliar with before camp — e.g. Augustinian virtue ethics — as well as innovating frameworks that I had run previously, and delving more deeply into the literature. For example, Marshall had me read some of Kant’s The Metaphysics of Morals, which I found really interesting and helpful, but probably would not have had the time to read had I had less time at camp.”

Question 2: Why Only Three Weeks?

The second question though is equally important. Why run a self-contained three-week program, rather than a two-week program with an option to stay on for a third week? An optional third week model would allow students greater flexibility and seems to have all the same advantages of a three-week program.However, it turns out not to have the same advantages. To see why, consider the perspective of a lab leader if they know some of their students will leave after two weeks and some will leave after three weeks. Instructors would need to finish a cohesive curriculum in those two weeks (you can’t send people home with only 2/3rds of what you intend to cover). But one the benefits of a three-week program is that it allows you to spread out instruction. That is not possible if many students will leave after two weeks. Jake argues that having some students finish after two-weeks forces a difficult choice for instructors, they can “(1) try to cram too much material into the traditional two-week format without sufficient time for students to digest that material, (2) cover many topics superficially rather than any topics in depth, and (3) ignore the mastery of core skills that make the difference between good and great debaters.” Each of these options are far from ideal. Having the third-week be an extension of the main session means students who sign up for three weeks cannot get the full benefit of spaced instruction (for a look at some of the science of spaced instruction check out this post).This spacing has a lot of direct and concrete benefits. If you have three weeks as a lab leader, you don’t need to push students to finish cases within a day or two so that you can start rounds immediately. This is great because it means you can have students take their time trying to write cases that differ from the cases they normally write.Additionally, this spacing of instruction means students having more time to rest. Having students stay up late the first few nights to aggressively research means that students are tired the rest of camp and that significantly harms information retention. Indeed, not only does a three-week program allow more rest, in some sense, it mandates (as you need to pace students for three weeks of instruction). “A sustainable three-week model requires more daily rest time than most two-week camps provide, and that additional rest time is pedagogically very good, I think. Students had a lot more time to digest material, to actually understand and come to grips with the difficult literature they were reading and the difficult questions they were discussing in lab.” Another benefit to having a cohesive three-week curriculum is instructor quality. Camps always hire a smaller group of instructors for the final week with fewer students than they do for the two ‘main weeks.’ As Nina points out, cohesive three-week camps can help ensure “the most high quality instructors and competitors.” Indeed, Nina recalls that “a significant part of my decision to attend was based on the staff at the VBI session that was three weeks long.” Having the same set of instructors for the whole period has other benefits. For example, it helps ensure instructional continuity. This is important because “discontinuity makes it really hard to design a curriculum that works for each student, given the differences in what students may have learned in the prior two weeks.”

Concluding Thoughts

The final question I asked Jake what students should think about when deciding between a two- and three-week camp. He gave the following insightful advice:

“First, what are your goals for next season? This is important because I think that, in general, you want to be surrounded by fellow students who have similar goals. The most ambitious students tend to stay for three weeks. So, if you are a very ambitious debater, you may be well served by attending a three-week camp to surround yourself with peers that are similarly ambitious, who will push you to get better. Second, what is your prior experience like? If you've only been to two-week sessions before, I'd definitely try a three-week session at least once. If you've spent the bulk of your last two summers at debate camp and haven't done anything else, you might benefit from spending more time doing other things (or, even better, just relaxing), and perhaps ending the summer with a two-week session to get your debate mind back in shape for September/October.”

Technology Thoughts 1: Some Free Programs

This is our first installment of a new Curriculum Corner mini-series on the use of technology at debate camp.Several podcasts I listen to, such as Leading Lines and Teaching in Higher Ed, spend a lot of time discussing educational technology (EdTech). This has helped me compile a list of EdTech resources that I think could be helpful in a camp context. In this post, I want to introduce a few programs that instructors might want to try out.Many computer programs are ubiquitous at debate camp. Instructors constantly use Email, Dropbox, Power Point, Google Drive (and Google Docs), Prezi and Verbatim to improve the learning environment at camp. These tools are all great, and I may, in future posts. mention some underappreciated ways to use those programs, but the focus of this post will be programs that many instructors may not have heard of before. (I am also limiting this post to programs with a useful free version.)

Piazza

Piazza is a wiki style question and answer platform. It provides a centralized space for student discussions as well as a convenient way for students to ask content or administrative questions.Piazza has all sorts of useful features built in. It allows wiki style collaboration (if enabled by the instructor) which allows students to collaboratively work on answering questions (posted either by the instructor or other students). And, it allows instructors to ‘endorse’ student answers. If a student asks what the homework is, and another student sees the question before I do, I can just endorse that students answer (assuming it is correct).Additionally, Piazza allows quick polls which can be useful to facilitate immediate feedback from the lab about their interest in certain topics or how well they thought the most recent class session had gone. Piazza also will allow you to post resources, be they homework assignments, lecture notes or readings in a centralized location.Overall Piazza is well set-up to function as a primary communicative hub for a lab. The problem with email is that a long chain of replies makes discussion difficult. You really don’t want students following up with a ‘reply all’ to a lab email (that can easily get out of hand). But it is not a problem if a student starts a follow-up discussion under a Piazza announcement. Additionally, because Piazza questions are public to the class (you can enable anonymous posting if you would like) it allows students to get answers to their questions faster than if they need to wait for an instructor to check their email.Piazza also has a nice phone app!Now, as with any free technology, it’s important to ask where the catch is. And the catch here is ‘Piazza Careers’ which is Piazza’s name for their program where they sell some of the student’s profile data to potential employers. Luckily Piazza can only sell data from students who opt-in to the program because otherwise, they would not be FERPA compliant. Thus, when students sign up for Piazza there will be a page that asks them if they want to opt-in to Piazza Careers. If students don’t opt-in none of their data can be sold and it becomes a truly free program (Piazza makes money because a lot of college students want potential employers to have their contact information).One other important thing about Piazza. Their Terms of Service requires users to either be at least 13 years old or have direct parental approval (so this is something to consider if you are working with younger students).

PollEverywhere

Tools that allow teachers to poll a class have become increasingly popular because of growing research that indicates that polling significantly improves student engagement. PollEverywhere is one of many polling options. However, it has the best free polling options that I know of.PollEverywhere is flexible, allowing students to submit their answers either by texting or through a website. It is also flexible in the sort of polls you can create. For example, you can ask multiple choice questions and break down each answer by percentage, or you can ask students a more open-ended question (like what do you want to work on tomorrow) and display the answers as a word cloud.There are many contexts where PollEverywhere could be useful at debate camp. I expect the context it would be most useful is during modules to help create a more active student learning environment (and helping instructors avoid the tendency to fall back into mere lecturing).

Mindmup

Mindmup is an awesome, new, open source, collaborative, argument mapping platform. There is a lot of evidence out there that argument mapping and diagramming improves critical thinking and analytical reasoning. According to Tim van Gelder, when one looks at the cognitive science it turns out “one semester of instruction based on argument mapping can yield reasoning skill gains of the same magnitude as would normally be expected to occur over an entire undergraduate education” (45).There are two things that really stand out about Mindmup. First, it's free (which is unusual for high-quality argument mapping software. Second, it is integrated with Google Docs which means you can have multiple people editing on a single argument map at the same time.

Remind

Remind is a useful tool for lab communication. While I like to give my students my cell phone number at the start of camp, I have known instructors at various camps who prefer not to give that information to students. Or perhaps you want to be able to text all the students but some would prefer their number not be shared with the lab. Remind will allow you to message students, and even set up a group chat, while keeping numbers confidential.And while I have never used the program, I hear it has some additional features. For example, you can prearrange a message to be sent at a particular time and check read receipts to make sure students got your message.

PhraseExpress

PhraseExpress is one of many ‘text-expander’ programs you can find online (and is the one I currently use). The reason I mention it is because it has a 30-day free trial (which is long enough for many instructors to use during debate camp) and will let you continue with their free version after those thirty days are up (though the free license only covers personal use, so you would be in violation if you continued to use it for teaching debate assuming you are being paid).PhraseExpress has a lot of built-in functionality, but the primary way I use it is just as standard text expansion. Thus, when I am typing and need to write the word ‘consequentialism’ I just type ‘cons’ and my computer will automatically expand it for me (which is great because I can never type that word correctly on my first try). This is most useful for longer passages. If there is a phrase I end up typing a lot then I will set up a keystroke to act as a stand-in. This helps me give feedback when editing cases (or papers while at school) much more effectively. For example, rather than having to type out the proper way to cite a card, I can just type ‘DTCITE’ (which means debate, teaching, citation) and my boilerplate explanation of everything you need to include for a full citation gets automatically inserted. Similarly, if I type ‘DTVF1’ (which means debate, theory, voters, fairness, first fairness voter) then my computer fills in ‘Fairness is a voter as it is an axiomatic principle of competitive activities and is the only thing that gives legitimacy to the win. It’s not impressive to win a short race if you get a three-minute head start.’I have only recently begun playing around with text-expanders, and so I do not yet have many prewritten phrases built in, however it has already saved me time typing out stuff I frequently write (like my address). I think text-expanders are especially useful in a debate context as they provide the ability to quickly compile common generics without having to locate them within a file (thus I encourage debaters, not just instructors, to try out PhraseExpress).Back when I was a debater I had Word set up so that it would auto-correct things like ground-fair to my standard internal link between ground and fairness. But the auto-correct feature was always extremely limited (you could not build in formatting, you could not use it outside word and it had a limited character length). Text-expanders allow you to do the same sort of thing but much more effectively.

Google Classroom

My final recommendation comes from VBI’s wonderful Director of Student Life, Kara Dreher. She mentioned to me that Google Classroom, as of this year, has been made available to any Google user (it used to be restricted to those who had a G Suite for Education account). This is great news because Google Classroom is an awesome platform within which to manage a lab.Like Piazza, Google Classroom will allow you to post announcements and have students comment on them. However, Google Classroom is setup to more effectively integrate with Google Drive. Students can submit their cases or homework through Google Classroom and it can be set up to sync to the lab’s Google Drive folder. However, by working through Google Classroom it will automatically keep track of who has finished which assignments. It also effectively integrates with Google Calendar allowing yet another way to easily communicate with students.Google Classroom is well integrated for polling, class communication and lab organization.While I don’t have any first-hand experience with Google Classroom (other than playing around with it over the last few days) I think this could be a great platform for a debate lab. Because the system is so intuitive it has a smaller learning curve than trying to get students familiar with multiple programs (like Piazza and Dropbox) and helps unify everything within Google Drive. One final warning. Don't try out a bunch of these programs for the first time all at once. Pick one program and learn to use it well (or at least this is what several different people I respect have told me is key to integrating technology in a college classroom).Do you have any ideas for computer programs that might help out at debate camp? Let us know in the comments.

Musings on Methodology 1: Curricular Selection Bias

Many of our Curriculum Corner posts have surveyed academic studies on effective teaching. These cover a small, though representative, sample of the articles we have been reading to prepare for camp. However, our choice to focus so much on academic research could be challenged. I have made the choice to prioritize data over my own experiences with debate camp in crafting our curriculum. But it is not obvious that this is the correct methodological choiceAfter all, these studies will not perfectly apply to debate camps. Most of these studies deal with a standard cross section of students, and debaters do not form a standard cross section.  Debaters, especially those attending camp, tend to be above average in academic drive, internal motivation, intelligence, and wealth. Additionally, debate camps are different from schools. It is not obvious that studies on how to improve learning in school for students generally applies to improving camp for debaters.Beyond that, our instructors are all extremely experienced with debate camp. They have attended camps numerous times, both as students and instructors. They are experienced both with teaching and being taught debate. Our instructors were successful debaters, they seem to know how to learn debate well.So, why spend so much time reading data-driven studies on education? In this post, I want to mention one reason for that methodological decision.It is important to be data driven because it helps counteract the strong selection bias that disposes camps towards maintaining the status quo. To clarify the selection bias it will be useful to compare debate camps with colleges.The primary people who shape college curriculum are professors. Now, when professors try to decide how they want to teach, what are they going to think about? One obvious answer is that they will think about how they learnt best while they were a student. What sort of lectures did they find most interesting? What sort of assignments did they find the most engaging? Professors infer that these were effective teaching techniques and so replicate those techniques in their own classrooms.However, this leads to a problem. The experience that most professors had in school was different from the experience of other students. In general, people who go on to teach in college were the people who really loved their college classes. They were the people who learnt the most and performed the best.Suppose that 99% of students hate how physics is taught and 1% love it. From which group will college professors be drawn?  They will be drawn disproportionately from the 1%. Thus, if physics professors use their own experience to decide how best to teach, they will be biased in favor of the way they were taught.When professors use their own experience to decide how teach it tends to reinforce the status quo. I think a similar problem occurs at debate camps.Who tends to want to work at debate camps, those who, as a student, enjoyed camp or those who did not?Whom do debate camps tend to hire, those who were successful or those who were not? And who tends to be successful, those who learnt a lot at debate camp or those who did not?Lots of factors compound this selection bias. For example, camps tend, somewhat, to hire students who attended their camp multiple times. Who tends to return to the same camp, those who got a lot from the experience, or those who did not?Debate camps have a general mold. And most camps repeat this mold will little change year after year. This is unsurprising, because as institutions camps will have a strong selection bias in their instructor experiences which favors the status quo. The reason innovation is so slow in debate camp curriculum (most camps looks the way they looked when I was a student), is not because debate camps have figured out the ideal structure, but because they are biased towards the status quo.This is one reason I feel it’s important that our curriculum is data-driven. Robust academic studies help counteract the selection bias present in staff experience. Academic studies look at the students who do poorly, as well as those who do well. While camps tend to be composed only of instructors who excelled.

Matt and Zubin on the importance of debate camp and LA Session 1

Zubin Aysola and Matt Salah from Nueva High School in California recently hosted a debatecast during which they discussed the benefits of attending debate camp, and especially why VBI's flagship session in LA is going to be special.

Zubin Aysola (Nueva '17) won the 2017 Berkeley Invitational. He will be on staff at VBI LA1.

Matthew Salah (Nueva '17) will be on staff at VBI LA1. He won the 2017 Tournament of Champions.

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Zubin: Hello, my name is Zubin Aysola, and I, alongside Matthew Salah, wanted to discuss why we think debate camps, and specifically VBI, are a fantastic experience. As a quick introduction, Matt and I have, between us, attended three different debate camps, competed across the country, and championed several National tournaments. This summer, we will be working together at the first VBI Session in Los Angeles (LA1). Together, we wanted to cover what we think makes VBI a great debate camp, and why you should go to debate camp in the first place.

On Camps Generally

Matt: Above all else, debate camp is incredibly fun. Both Zubin and I have had a fantastic time over the last few summers and we really want to share the joys of debate camp with others. We realize that going to a debate camp is both a large time and fiscal commitment, but we truly feel that it is worthwhile. By the end of your session, you will find yourself wishing you had more time, and VBI offers a large amount of financial assistance ($80,000 last year) for those who cannot afford the full price of camp.Zubin: A lot of you might be wondering why you should go to a debate camp, a decision I faced a few summers ago. I decided to attend the Stanford National Forensics Institute (SNFI) because I could commute from home and it only lasted a week. While my experience was great, at the end of the week I found myself wishing both that the camp was longer and that I had stayed overnight. Debate camps offer instantaneous round feedback, deep and focused research, incredible coaching, and an intensive practice regimen. I truly believe, that if you want to improve at debate, there is no alternative to a debate camp. In one camp session you can go through more rounds than people debate in an entire season, and get more coaching than you’ve ever received before. Furthermore, interacting with diverse and talented debaters and coaches from across the country can help provide new perspectives outside of what you are exposed to at your school. At camp, I saw myself grow significantly, not only as a debater, but also as a student. There is truly nothing more helpful than spending a few weeks in the summer vigorously honing your debate skills.Matt: On top of what Zubin mentioned about growing as a debater, one of my favorite aspects of camp was the strong connections I formed. At camp, you will meet dozens of debaters from across the country who share your love and passion for the activity, making it a perfect opportunity to make friends with people you are almost guaranteed to have a lot in common with. Late-night hang outs in the dorms, lab dinners, and chilling out between rounds were some of the best memories from both camps I attended. To be honest, I wish I could have spent more time at camp; it was a blast. On top of that, the friendships that began at camp lasted throughout my debate career and established an incredible community that I could meet up with at national circuit tournaments. Not only did this make tournaments more fun (who could pass up a trip to see far-away friends?), but also having a group of people I could turn to when I had questions about judges, arguments, or evidence contributed to my tournament success. Moreover, I got to know many staff members, especially my lab leaders, quite well during my time at camp. They’ve consistently been both my mentors and friends after camp, and I often reach out to my past them with questions and advice on everything from debate to fantasy football to college. These are relationships I will tend to and cherish for a long time to come. It is for this reason, I can confidently say that attending debate camp has had a lasting positive impact on my life.

On VBI

Zubin: Matt and I both think VBI is an amazing option for anyone who is considering debate camp this summer. I personally believe that one of the greatest things VBI has to offer is its wonderful and truly unparalleled staff, which features successful debaters and coaches from across the country. Many of the debaters working here are my good friends, peers, and even mentors. The staff consist of TOC Champions and Finalists, Champions of Octa-Bid Tournaments, and incredibly talented speakers. I am lucky to call these debaters my peers, and I truly looked up to them throughout the year.I think the staff at VBI stands out for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the geographical diversity of the staff is unmatched. Many debaters will notice that the West Coast (best coast) debates differently than the East or the South. Debate camp should prepare you for all aspects of debate, and I vehemently believe that no camp strikes a more universal balance than VBI. The second way VBI stands out is the consistent commitment to providing opportunities to meet with staff. The Socrates Hour at VBI, where the entire staff congregates for students to meet with them is something I wish I had the opportunity to participate in when I went to camp. The ability to freely meet with some of the best former debaters in the nation and pick their brain is truly incomparable. While I have learned a lot from seminars, practice rounds, and coach feedback, I have always learned more by talking to debaters who I looked up to. For many, debate can seem a little confusing, and it might seem scary to talk to those who consistently appear in late outrounds at debate tournaments. That is why having the time set aside each and every day to learn from the VBI staff is incredibly important and powerful.

On LA Session 1

Matt: I agree with Zubin; I am impressed at the staff VBI assembled for this summer and am glad to call several of them my life-long friends. For me, two other things stand out about VBI. First, VBI’s top-notch Lincoln-Douglas (LD) program presents an exciting opportunity for Public Forum debaters to learn about progressive arguments. At other debate camps I’ve attended, I found that my opportunities to engage with other styles of debate were limited because the camps solely focused on Public Forum. At VBI, however, PF debaters have the ability to interact with highly-qualified LD debaters and staff. I think it is important for PF debaters to be exposed to a variety of progressive arguments (such as Kritiks and Theory) because they will eventually and inevitably pop-up in PF. Both Zubin and I have debated against theory arguments in PF rounds, and we can tell you, even a cursory understanding of how to respond can make a big difference.Second, I think LA1’s generous three-week length is truly special. Since, at every debate camp, several days are taken out by the camp tournament and even more time is spent prepping the topic, LA1 offers substantially more than a 50% increase in flexible time compared to your typical two-week session. I would have loved to have an entire extra week when I was at camp to fit in more time for practice rounds, drills, one-on-one time with instructors, and fun with friends.Zubin: There is still time to sign up for VBI this summer if you are interested. Registration is still open! You can register and choose your session on the VBI website. If you have any questions, or want to discuss debate, summer plans, or life, don’t hesitate to reach out to either of us on Facebook or via email (matsala@nuevaschool.org and zubayso@nuevaschool.org).

Curricular Components 5: Supplementary Student-Staff Interaction

Most camps’ curriculum focuses on mandatory periods student-staff interaction, ranging from group instruction (e.g. lab, modules), to one-on-one drill sessions (e.g. mentorship). These curricular elements are both required and, in general, staff driven. Most camps, then, supplement these required elements with optional student driven instruction. Some camps run office hours, others have evening work time with instructors. VBI primarily uses Socrates Hours and Dine with a Mind to fill this role.In this post, I want to briefly explain each curricular element and then explain the different, though complementary, functions I see each element serving.

What do the Programs Look Like?

Socrates Hour is a traditional part of the VBI curriculum and has been around since I was a student at VBI. The Dine with a Mind program is new this year.During Socrates Hours, the VBI instructors all assemble and students can work with any instructor they would like. Some students will follow up with an instructor who taught a module they had attended. Many students use Socrates Hours to get feedback on drills or cases they have been working on. Because the program is informal (you don’t need to sign up ahead of time) it means most students are able to work with multiple instructors throughout the hour, if they would like to. Additionally, it means students can work with the same instructor repeatedly over several days. For example, it is not unusual for students who want to learn framework debate at camp to find me and set up a regular meeting during the first 20 minutes of every Socrates Hours for a week straight.The Dine with a Mind program is a little more formalized and was adapted from a program at my undergraduate college. Students can sign up, either individually or in groups, to get a meal with a specific instructor. This provides a longer space of time to work with an instructor than is generally provided by Socrates Hours.As it stands, it’s not unusual for students to ask staff to grab lunch with them to follow up on a conversation. However, because the process was not formalized only the most confident and outgoing students ask instructors for this additional work time. By formalizing the process, we hope to expand that access and to make sure the obligation is spread fairly across instructors.

What Role do the Programs Serve?

Both programs share certain core functions. They both allow students to work with instructors they might not otherwise have much chance to work with. They both allow students to customize what they are learning. And, they both allow students to focus in on a single subject with more depth than they would otherwise be able to. However, despite the similarities in core purpose, Socrates Hours and Dine with a Mind achieve that purpose in different ways.Socrates Hours are great for shorter and more focused interactions. If you have a few questions to ask of an instructor or want to get feedback on a single drill then Socrates Hours are ideal. Additionally, in a single session, you can gather the perspective of multiple instructors on the same issue.However, Socrates Hours does not work as well for longer more meandering conversations. Often there is a short line of students waiting to talk with an instructor, and so you don’t want to monopolize too much of an instructor’s time all at once. Additionally, Socrates Hours work best with students come in with a very focused question. If a student asks me ‘how do I get better at framework debate?’ it is really hard to know how to answer that question given its broad scope. Because the question is not focused, the context of Socrates Hours makes it difficult to help the student. You, as an instructor, would require a longer dialogue to assess where the student is at and where they can best grow.Dine with a Mind allows that longer dialogue. Because you can talk with students over a meal in a more conversational context it allows for a slower and more deliberate instructional setting. I have had lots of engaging and challenging conversations with students, but many of the most challenge and engaging occurred in the context of a shared meal. Indeed, there is something deeply significant to human culture about the shared meal, though I don’t think this post is the place to delve into it.Additionally, Dine with a Mind provides a context for conversations that are less directly debate applicable. Most summers at least a few students want my advice on how to navigate the secular worlds of debate and academia as a faithful Christian. This is an extremely valuable conversation for these students, but it often does not fit well into the curricular structure at debate camp. The ability to get a meal with students to discuss a broader subject in a more free-form fashion is thus extremely valuable.

Conclusion

I hope this helps clarify what role we see both Socrates Hours and Dine with a Mind as serving at VBI. Let us know in the comments if you have any questions!

Preparing for Nationals: An Interview with 2 National Champions

With NSDA Nationals quickly approaching in June, we thought we’d sit down and ask two NSDA National Champions their thoughts about preparing for NSDA Nationals. Today, we’re interviewing the 2016 and 2014 NSDA National Champions. Bennett Eckert is currently a freshman at Northwestern University and won NSDA Nationals in 2016 debating for The Greenhill School in Texas, and Lawrence Zhou is currently a junior at the University of Oklahoma and won NSDA Nationals in 2014 debating for Bartlesville High School in Oklahoma.Both Bennett and Lawrence will be instructors at this years Victory Briefs Institute. Learn more about them and our other instructors here.

Q: Bennett, you won NSDA Nationals in 2016 and Lawrence, you won NSDA Nationals in 2014. Tell us a bit more about yourself. What was your best memory from Nationals? How was debating in finals? What did it feel like when you won?

Bennett: My best memories from Nationals are definitely the times I spent with my friends. If I had to pick one, it’d probably be staying up late and watching the NBA Finals and movies while eating leftovers from the Cheesecake Factory. Debating in finals is another story: it’s very different than finals of any other tournament. I was suited up, mic’d up, and on stage. Fortunately, the lights were set up so that I could only see the front few rows in the audience. Debating in finals was, all things considered, pretty fun—I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I thought I’d be. Winning was also a fun sort of rollercoaster. When they announced that the decision was an 8-7, I’m pretty sure you can see me mouth something I probably shouldn’t have said on stage. Immediately after I won, I said, “I feel quite swell. It feels great ending my career winning…better than the alternative,” and that’s all I have to say about that.Lawrence: Nationals was long enough ago that I no longer really remember everything about Nationals, but I definitely agree with Bennett that the best memories from Nationals are the smaller moments with friends. I remember less about the actual final round on stage than when we went to get ice cream after finals. I remember less about receiving the trophy than when I stayed up watching Hot Rod with my roommates after awards. Debating in finals was definitely a bit nerve-wracking. It’s especially tense before the round because they hold you in a back room and mic you up and you have a lot of time to just sit and stress. I’m not naturally good at public speaking and my opponent (Nicky Halterman) was much more confident and poised than I was. However, I was friends with Nicky (we lived in the same state) so that helped reduce my nerves. Once I started debating, I forgot I was on stage and just debated like I usually did. Winning for me was more of a “I hope I didn’t lose” feeling than a “I hope I win” feeling, but it still felt good. Plus, Oklahoma had 3 out of the top 4 that year in LD, so that helped.

Q: NSDA Nationals is approaching soon! For many, this is the most prestigious tournament of the year, and for some, this is the last tournament of their high school career. What can someone who has never gone to Nationals expect?

Lawrence: The Nationals schedule is a bit rough, with four rounds everyday against some of the best debaters in the nation, and the competition is tough, with debaters needing to win 8 out of 12 prelim ballots to advance, and then advancing to outrounds where debaters are eliminated if they lose two rounds. This makes Nationals a very stressful tournament for a lot of debaters. The tournament experience is unlike any other. There are just so many debaters and so many judges. You’ll just be one debater among another 250 or so debaters and that experience can be a little overwhelming for some. That being said, Nationals is usually a lot of fun! It was held in Birmingham my junior year and there is a decent amount of good food in the city and you get to meet a lot of cool people from across the nation. Coping with the stress is critical. My junior year, I was a nervous wreck by the third day of competition and I didn’t eat much and mostly just sat in the cafeteria worrying about the tournament. I would NOT recommend doing this. My senior year at Nationals was much more enjoyable because I was better at dealing with the stress of the tournament. All in all, there isn’t really any one thing you can expect from the tournament given its size and diversity. Except nerds. You can expect there to be a lot of nerds there. Bennett: Nationals is unlike any other tournament I’ve ever attended. I competed almost exclusively on the national circuit for my sophomore and junior years of high school, so Nationals was a complete change of pace. The judge pool is far more diverse than most other tournaments. For example, I was judged by everyone from national circuit judges I know and love like Bailey Rung, Martin Sigalow, and Daniel Shatzkin to people I’d never met before that primarily coach speech events. Nationals is also, for lack of better words, a spectacle. The awards ceremony is a huge deal (which wasn’t the case at most tournaments I attended), the number of competitors is massive, and everyone actually dresses up. All in all, there’s no one thing that you should expect from Nationals, but it’s definitely a very unique tournament.

Q: Nationals is a tournament like no other because of its large pool of debaters and brings in so many judges from across the nation with different perspectives. What advice do you have for those preparing for Nationals in Birmingham this summer?

Bennett: Prepping for Nationals is very different than prepping for most national circuit tournaments. There’s no need to have several affirmatives, copious amounts of cards, and a counterplan for every conceivable aff. Instead, you should just have a few core arguments on each side. For example, I read one aff and one neg (each with two contentions) throughout the entire tournament. Because you have to appeal to a very wide audience at nationals, the best arguments are the ones at the core of the literature that everybody can understand and (potentially) agree with. This will also ensure that you are very familiar with your own case: there’s no need to spread yourself too thin.   Lawrence: I have one specific piece of advice for everyone, which is don’t underestimate the importance of sounding like you’re winning. At a tournament that sees judges of all experience levels and from all around the nation, you need something that can universally appeal to judges and that something is simply sounding like you’re winning. One thing you can tell about the last generation of winners from Nationals is they all sounded like they were winning. Not every judge is going to think like you and they way to get around that is to simply sound like you are winning. To this end, I recommend watching videos. I think you should watch videos of good debaters and what they did that was successful to sound like they were in charge and winning and emulate them. I also think that you should watch videos of good speeches. Historical speeches that were memorable and universally acclaimed are good speeches to watch and learn from. See what made those speeches powerful and draw inspiration from them. While practicing debate speeches is important before Nationals, neglecting to practice how to give a persuasive speech before Nationals can mean the difference between a 2-1 in your favor in close outrounds and a 2-1 against you.

Q: Nationals is also a tournament like no other because it is a week long. For many, this can be really stressful and tiring. What advice do you have for those competing at Nationals in Birmingham this summer on how to survive Nationals?

Bennett: Nationals isn’t the sort of tournament where you need to stay up late cutting cards or giving redoes. At most, you just need to be going over key arguments and (maybe) giving a speech or two at night. Instead, take some time to enjoy Nationals. My favorite memories from Nationals aren’t debating or even winning: they’re watching the NBA Finals (it was a great series), walking around Salt Lake City to find good sushi, and hanging out with friends between debates. Winning is great, but it’s important to enjoy Nationals while you’re there. Don’t think of it as some stressful, intense last tournament (especially if you’re a senior). Think of it as a last hurrah to celebrate the end of your career or year. Lawrence: Yeah I second the advice about over-stressing. Don’t work yourself out to death. If you properly prepared before the tournament by giving plenty of practice speeches, having practice debates, and doing research, then you should be fine during the tournament. Don’t be afraid to give a redo or two during the tournament or find another piece of evidence if you need it, but you shouldn’t be doing too much of that. Instead, focus on relaxing, meeting new people, enjoying debate. So many people burn out within the first two days of competition and lose the first elimination rounds because they pushed themselves too hard. It’s much better to do the preparation before Nationals rather than during it and instead focus on the experience of Nationals. It’s the largest academic competition in the United States, take the time to meet some cool new people or hang out with the cool people you already know!

Q: Any last pieces of advice for those competing at Nationals this year?

Bennett: This advice is for seniors. After your last round, don’t be upset about the decision or worry about every little thing you could’ve done differently if you lost. I can’t speak to Nationals specifically in this case, but I did lose my last ever national circuit debate. It’s never fun to lose, but there’s no point in going out of debate with regrets about what you could have done differently or complaining about judges. As Dr. Daniel Faraday said in LOST, “whatever happened, happened.” Debate is pretty great and Nationals should be a fun end to your career regardless of the tournament’s results.Lawrence: Don’t stress too much, it’s more fun when you take yourself seriously, but not too seriously. And make sure to stop by the Victory Briefs table, we’d love to chat with you! Good luck to all those competing this summer!

Academic Articles 3: Laptop Use

Laptops are incredibly useful in debate. From the organizational and card cutting resources of verbatim, to the research opportunities enabled by easy internet access, to the ability to share content with one another by email, to small time-savers like text expanding, laptops save time, increase the quantity and quality of a debater’s output, and are all around awesome.However, pervasive laptop use also raises some challenges at debate camp. Most of these center around student distraction. I was curious how robust the evidence of laptop caused distraction was and so did some research. In this article, I will talk about the two most interesting studies I found.

Distractions

Fried, Carrie B. "In-Class Laptop Use and Its Effects on Student Learning." Computers & Education 50.3 (2008): 906-914.Sana, Faria, Tina Weston, and Nicholas J. Cepeda. "Laptop Multitasking Hinders Classroom Learning for Both Users and Nearby Peers." Computers & Education 62 (2013): 24-31.

1.1: Brief Literature Review

No one reading this post will be surprised to find that students on laptops tend to multitask.  When I was a student at debate camp I spent far too much time playing Dolphin Olympics 2, and Run 1 and 2. Further, I am sure many of the cards I cut while at camp were cut while I was supposed to be listening to lectures.Now, I’ve been told by my friend pursuing a PhD in psychology that multitasking is, functionally, impossible. When we think we are multitasking we are actually just switching our attention between two different tasks, with the net result of poorer performance on everything. However, it is not obvious that multitasking seriously impedes student performance. Perhaps, student switch over to Facebook only when hearing content with which they are already familiar. Similarly, perhaps laptop don’t increase time spent distracted, they just change what students do while distracted (so they check Facebook rather than count ceiling tiles).It turns out laptops definitely increase distraction, and not just for the student multitasking. I want to first discuss some of the interesting components of the Fried article.First, the study tracked how often students used a laptop to take notes during class (at the beginning of the course students were told they could use a laptop in class but that a laptop was never required in class) and found used that data to find

the level of laptop use was significantly and negatively related to student learning . . .. The more students used their laptops in class, the lower their class performance. Several other analyses were conducted to assess the impact of laptop use on student learning. The level of inclass laptop use was negatively correlated with how much attention students reported paying to lectures . . .. There were also negative correlations between level of laptop use and how clear students found the lectures, . . . and how well they felt they understood the course material . . .. (910)

Now, you might worry that the students who would choose to use laptops just tend to be a poorer student, resorting to laptops because of limited past success with standard notetaking. So, Fried looked at both the past ACT scores and the high-school ranks of participants and found that “[a]fter controlling for these variables, laptop use was still negatively related to academic success” (911).A second interesting result from the Fried study is that Fried also asked students to self-report what they found to be the most distracting element in the class. Somewhat disturbingly, Fried found “that laptop use by fellow students was the single most reported distracter (n = 229), accounting for 64% of all responses. This was significantly greater than all other responses combined” (911).In other words, laptop use was reported to be more distracting for one’s neighbors than for the student using the laptop.Now, there are limits to this sort of self-reporting because it fails to quantify how much an impact that distraction makes. So we need to look at the second study which dedicated an experiment to assessing the difference in information retention between those who could see the laptop screen of multitasking students and those who could not. The results of the study were that “[t]he main effect of condition was significant, F(1,36) = 21.5, p < .001, ω² = .36. Participants in view of multitasking peers scored significantly lower on the test (M = 0.56, SD = 0.12, n = 19) than participants not in view of multitasking peers (M = 0.73, SD = 0.12, n = 19)” (29). This was determined by a test that followed a college lecture.The results seem clear. Laptop use by students causes student distraction, not only for the students on the laptop but for other students nearby who may be trying to focus. This is worrisome. We don’t want students to lose out on learning opportunities due to the actions of others.

1.2: Implications for Debate Camp

Now, banning laptops from any instruction period is the wrong response. I am dyslexic, the result is that I am unable to take effective notes if I do not have access to a laptop. If I were unable to use a laptop while at debate camp to take notes, I would have gotten a lot less out of camp.  Additionally, the ability to look up sources and fill in background information can be a valuable tool to improve student learning.That said, there are contexts where it seems appropriate to require students to put away laptops and phones. When I ran a seminar on political philosophy last summer I printed out all the readings for students and offered my own typed notes for anyone who wanted them. Then I had students put away all phones and laptops (I left my phone out in case there was an emergency and the office needed to contact anyone in our seminar). This seemed to significantly improve student engagement with the seminar, and I plan to continue this policy in the future. This policy seemed especially important in a discussion driven seminar, as it avoids disrespect caused by some students multitasking while other students speak. Similarly, there are lots of contexts in lab and modules where it makes sense to have students put away laptops to encourage distraction free engagement with the material.Another useful technique is to allow laptop use, but find ways to hold students accountable. My favorite suggestion is to split lab leaders between different sides of the room. This can be very effective in helping students stay on task.  Even if you cannot see every screen, you can always see students angling their laptops away from instructors which clues you into student distraction. Indeed, there is something nice about seeing when students are getting distracted. I often use that as a diagnostic to tell me when we need to take a break or switch up our activity. Tracking distractions can sometimes be more helpful than eliminating them.Finally, there are some contexts where it is impractical to try and discourage multitasking. Take certain optional evening activities with large groups. These are optional, and often fun discussions, and so it seems like students should be allowed to multitask (the alternative is often that they just leave and go do their work elsewhere). In those contexts, it would seem appropriate, however, to ask that students who expect to multitask sit behind the other students, to avoid distracting others.  

Academic Articles 2: Interleaved Practice

So, it turns out that a lot of debate instructors, myself included, have been running drills the wrong way. I came to this startling and bothersome realization while reading two books, both of which I highly recommend. The first book is Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter Brown, Henry Roediger III, and Mark McDaniel; Brown is a novelist and the other two are accomplished cognitive scientists. The second book is Small Teaching: Everyday lessons from the Science of Learning by James Lang; Lang is the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College.Both books dedicate their third chapters to the idea of ‘interleaving.’ Interleaving, as explained by Lang has two key aspects “(a) spacing out learning sessions over time; and (b) mixing up your practice of skills you are seeking to develop” (65). For both aspects, I will briefly review some of the literature that supports them and then mention some takeaways for debate camp. I will then end this piece by mentioning two important qualifications for when interleaving may not be the best strategy.

Spacing

Bloom, Kristine C., and Thomas J. Shuell. "Effects of Massed and Distributed Practice on the Learning and Retention of Second-Language Vocabulary." The Journal of Educational Research 74.4 (1981): 245-248.Moulton, Carol-Anne E., et al. "Teaching Surgical Skills: What Kind of Practice Makes Perfect?: a Randomized, Controlled Trial." Annals of Surgery 244.3 (2006): 400-409.Cepeda, Nicholas J., et al. "Distributed Practice in Verbal Recall Tasks: A review and Quantitative Synthesis." Psychological Bulletin 132.3 (2006): 354.

1.1: Brief Literature Review

The consensus of educational experts is that spacing out learning, especially in a way that allows sleep in between lessons, significantly improves long-term retention of information. The first two articles listed above are individual studies. One looks at memorizing French vocabulary in high school and the second looks at mastering surgical procedures in medical school. Both studies found that, in the short-term, students who space out practice do no better than those who study in one long session; and in fact, they sometimes do worse. However, when you assess the students later, those who spaced out their practice significantly outperform those who did not.For example, in the first study student were given, either 30 minutes on one day or 10 minutes on three consecutive days to study 20 French vocabulary words. At initial testing (at the end of study period) performance “was virtually equivalent for the two groups” (246). However, when retested four days later the students who had distributed practice did about 35% better.The third article is a meta-analysis of 839 discreet assessments which concludes that “distributing learning across different days (instead of grouping learning episodes within a single day) greatly improves the amount of material retained for sizable periods of time; the literature clearly suggests that distributing practice in this way is likely to markedly improve students’ retention of course material” (371).When students focus on material within a single day they end up, primarily, calling up information from their short-term memory. However, if they break up instruction, and especially if they sleep in-between instructional periods, then they call up information from long-term memory. When you use your long-term memory you solidify neural retrieval of that information in a way that will be helpful in the long run.Brown et al. note that:

Psychologists have uncovered a curious inverse relationship between the ease of retrieval practice and the power of that practice to entrench learning: the easier knowledge of a skill is for you to retrieve, the less your retrieval practice will benefit your retention of it. Conversely, the more effort you have to expend to retrieve knowledge or skill, the more the practice of retrieval will entrench it. . . .Effortful recall of learning, as happens in spaced practice, requires that you “reload” or reconstruct the components of the skill or material anew from long-term memory rather than mindlessly repeating them from short-term memory. During this focused, effortful recall, the learning is made pliable again: the most salient aspects of it become clearer, and the consequent reconsolidation helps to reinforce meaning, strengthen connection to prior knowledge, bolster the cues and retrieval routes for recalling it later, and weaken competing routes.  Spaced practice, which allows some forgetting to occur between sessions, strengthens both the learning and the cues and routes for fast retrieval when that learning is needed again . . .. (79-82)

1.2: Implications for Debate Camp

There are lots of ways that instructors can adopt these insights at camp. For example, it is not uncommon for labs to dedicate whole days to specific instruction. They might spend one day where they focus on Ks, then one day where they focus on theory, then one day where they focus on policy style arguments. However, if spacing improves retention, then it would be better to spend half of the day on theory and half the day on Ks and then repeat that the next day. While that spacing will cause students to feel like they have not developed as deep an understanding (because some review inevitably will need to happen on the second day) students will experience superior retention in the long-run.Similarly, when I am running drills I often will do the same drill with a student for an extended period. I might spend an hour one night working with a student on generating answers to confusing frameworks. By the end of the night, they will be a lot better at generating answers. However, it turns out that five days later a lot of that skill development will be lost. It would make more sense for me to instead spend 20 minutes each night, for three nights running that drill. Rather than practicing with three different frameworks in one night, instead, I should practice with one framework per night for three nights.A second distinct application deals with modules. VBI does not just have one off modules. We also offer seminars and tracks which build on the same content over multiple days. These build the benefits of spacing into the curriculum. And these studies seem to indicate that VBI should be placing a bigger emphasis on module tracks than we have in the past.

Interleaving

Kerr, Robert, and Bernard Booth. "Specific and Varied Practice of Motor Skill." Perceptual and Motor Skills 46.2 (1978): 395-401.Rohrer, Doug, and Kelli Taylor. "The Shuffling of Mathematics Problems Improves Learning." Instructional Science 35.6 (2007): 481-498.Goode, Michael K., Lisa Geraci, and Henry L. Roediger. "Superiority of Variable to Repeated Practice in Transfer on Anagram Solution." Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 15.3 (2008): 662-666.

2.1: Brief Literature Review

Not only is it helpful to break up instruction, it is also useful to intertwine different things being learnt within each spaced out session. This principle can be a little hard to explain, so I will just jump into describing the studies.In the first study, children, aged 8 and 12, were divided into two groups who practiced throwing beanbags into a target that were obscured from sight, though they can see the target before and after the throwing. One group had to practice tossing a beanbag into a target 3 feet away, the second group had to rotate between throwing a beanbag into a target 2 and 4 feet away.At the end of the 12-week program, all the children were tested to see how well they could throw a beanbag at a target 3 feet away. The children who practiced at 2 and 4 feet significantly outperformed the children who practice only at 3 feet. Interleaving two different tasks meant the students performed significantly better at a new task then the students who had exclusively practiced that one task.In the second study, students had to practice (at multiple spaced sessions) solving math problems that involve calculating the area of four different types of solids. Half the students were taught how to solve one type of problem, and then would practice it before moving on to the next type of solid. The other half were taught how to solve all four types of problems at the beginning and then practiced solving the same problems in a random order.On the practice problems the first group, averaging an 89%, significantly outperformed the second group, averaging a 60%. However, when the two groups were retested a week later the first group had dropped to a 20% average while the second group improved to 63% average. Originally the first group did 150% better, but on the second test, the second group did over 300% better!The idea of interleaving says that by mixing in multiple different skills at once into your practice regiment you significantly improve your long-term performance on all of them.

2.2: Implications for Debate Camp

The fact that students learn better from interleaved practice should not be surprising to debate instructors. Most instructors would agree that practice rounds are one of the most effective ways to learn, and part of what distinguishes practice rounds from lots of drills is that they interleave lots of different skills (C.X., case refutation, strategy, crystallization, weighing etc.).However, there are other ways that instructors can incorporate interleaving, besides just running practice rounds.  First, interleaving shows why it is so valuable to have debaters practice different types of debate skills. If a debater must practice phil debate, then K debate, then theory debate interleaved, that will likely help them get better at policy debate than just practicing policy debate would have (and the same is true for any type of debate skill). Interleaving different skills will improve particular debate performance.This is one of the reasons why our ‘focused labs’ are not like old focus weeks, where you just learn a certain type of debate. The idea of a K-focused lab is not to spend the whole time just learning K debate, but to learn all types of debate (just like a normal lab) but with a slight focus.Another way to apply this insight is to keep rotating drills. Many instructors love to run the same drill repeatedly until the debater can perform it perfectly. Students and instructors love this kind of drill because it gives debaters the illusion that they are mastering a skill. However, it is illusory. Those benefits will be a lot less lasting than if they had switched between drills, coming back to that speech only after allowing the skills to lag.

Important Qualifications

Kornell, Nate, and Robert A. Bjork. "Learning Concepts and Categories: Is Spacing the “Enemy of Induction”?." Psychological Science 19.6 (2008): 585-592.Carpenter, Shana K., and Frank E. Mueller. "The Effects of Interleaving Versus Blocking on Foreign Language Pronunciation Learning." Memory & Cognition 41.5 (2013): 671-682.

3.1: The Need for Buy-In

I mentioned that instructors and students often prefer to repeat one drill over and over again till they feel like they have perfected it. It turns out this is a general problem.In this first study, students would learn about artists’ styles. Sometimes they would study a single artist’s work in a batch and sometimes they would interleave different artist’s work.  As you should expect, interleaving proved the much more effective strategy for being able to identify a painter by looking at a painting.The troubling thing is “the participants’ metacognitive judgments were strikingly at odds with their actual prior performance. Of the 72 participants who did not say that learning in the massed condition and learning in the spaced condition were ‘about the same,’ 64 thought massing had been more effective than spacing” (590). Even having taken the tests which demonstrated they learnt better by interleaving the participants still felt like they learnt more from the massed instruction.As Lang puts it:

Learning through interleaving can seem frustrating to learners, at least initially. In experiments in which learners have the opportunity to learn through blocked or interleaved practice, they overwhelmingly choose blocked practice because it gives them a feeling of mastery over the material. Pausing before you have fully mastered something can feel frustrating, as can be the demand to recall material or practice skills you thought you had mastered but then realize you don’t know as well as you had imagined.  (82)

Thus, students are not going to like it when you switch over to interleaved instruction. However, it is better for the students. It is important that you explain to your students why you are teaching as you are, and get them to buy into the procedure. Lang says, “make sure that you speak to your students about the benefits of interleaving, about the nature of your assessments, and about the differences between short- and long-term learning” (82-3). If you don’t get buy-in your students will just be frustrated with that they perceive to be slow development.

3.2: Some Exceptions

One final point, it turns out that there are a few exceptions where massed instruction is preferable. This is the conclusion of the second study, which found that when learning French pronunciation, extended blocks of time was preferable. In general, massed practice turns out to work better when you are first introducing a subject. Thus, if you are teaching novice lab and are going over cases, you don’t want to interleave between research, contention arguments and V.C. arguments. Doing so will just be confusing. Until you have a certain minimal grasp, interleaving can be counter-productive.  Lang acknowledges that “blocked study or practice, it seems to me, is an appropriate first step for any learning activity” (73).

Conclusion

I hope you find this research helpful, both as students who are planning what drills to work on and as instructors who are planning out activities for students. Obviously, there is a lot more to be said on this subject, so feel free to ask any questions you have in the comments and I will do my best to answer them (or more likely direct you to places in the literature which answer them). Also, let us know if there is a topic you would like us to look into for future posts in this miniseries!

Curricular Components 4: Student Clubs

In this post, I will introduce and explain the ‘Student Clubs’ program that we will be running at VBI this summer. This is a brand new curricular element at VBI, and indeed I don’t know of any camps that run a program of this sort.[1] Thus, I want to start this post by explaining the broad pedagogical role that student clubs will play at VBI. In doing so I will also mention some of the literature that has been influential in shaping our thinking about this element. Then I will explain the program in some detail.

What Role do Student Clubs Play?

Some of you may be familiar with the idea of 20% Time. This is a program that Google uses where their employees get 20% of their work time (so about one day a week) to work on whatever projects they are interested in. Lots of companies have developed similar programs, sometimes referred to as ‘Genius Hour.’ And these programs result in a large portion of the innovation that happens in industry.  Close to 50% of Google’s products come out of their 20% Time, including many of Google most successful products, such as Gmail.The success of these programs in industry has led to a growing experimentation with 20% Time in classroom contexts.  And it seems clear that the programs are a huge success. For a brief introduction to the role of 20% Time, I recommend listening to this podcast from the “Cult of Pedagogy” and poking around this livebinder.Empowering students to pursue whatever projects interest them, within reasonable limits, results in students who innovate, learn how to learn, develop autonomy and discover new passions. 20% Time also brings with it all the considerable educational advantages of Project-Based Learning (I may in a future post survey some of the academic literature that has studied the benefits of Project-Based Learning).Student Clubs are VBI’s 20% Time. We have taken the core idea from 20% Time models in the literature (I highly recommend A.J. Juliani’s book Inquiry and Innovation in the Classroom: Using 20% Time, Genius Hour, and PBL to Drive Student Success for general models and advice on setting up these programs) and adjusted the program to make it fit within a debate camp setting.

What Would our Student Clubs Look Like?

For the first several days of scheduled student club work-time will be set aside for students to meet, discuss and form dedicated clubs. We will create a forum where students can find other students interested in similar subjects (still working on exactly how to do that, maybe a google doc) and form into teams or clubs.The clubs need to be camp appropriate (no studying bomb-making) and at least loosely related to debate. In the past, I have listed some potential clubs such as a 'philosophy club,' a 'K innovation league,' a 'frontlining util frameworks faction’ and  a 'novice casing company.' However, there are lots of other options. Students might want to form a club that studies what snacks best keep you alert during a debate tournament (a Gastronomy Group). Or they might form a club that studies ways they can use their debate skills to make changes in their home communities (an Advocacy Alliance).Before these clubs can become official they will have to ‘pitch’ their club to an instructor, and get them to agree to come on as a faculty advisor. The purpose of the ‘pitch’ is less to weed out certain clubs, and more to make sure that students have a real and developed idea that they have thought through how to implement within the camp setting. This instructor will then be closely involved in overseeing the club, providing guidance and advice where they can and acting as a liaison to the camp should the club need anything.Once initial clubs are formed they will be listed, with a short manifesto, and students who have not found a club will be able to enroll in a club that looks interesting (an important feature is that these clubs all have open membership, while they can be targeted at certain levels they are not able to impose those requirements on people who want to join).At this point, it’s up to each club what they want to do. They might bring in additional instructors to run drills or give lectures. They might split up into reading groups. They might work on collective research.  The one requirement is that the groups need to produce something tangible by the close of the club. It could be a new card file, it could be a new K, it could be the ideal tournament trail mix recipe, it could be an action plan; there is a lot of flexibility in what they want to end up producing. They just need to produce something.Now, clearly, not all clubs will have the same amount of work. A club studying the history of philosophy may last two weeks, while a club producing a new framework might just last a few days. And that is ok, students can rotate in and out of clubs (we don’t want a student stuck in a club they do not enjoy) and as clubs finish up new ones can be formed.That’s the model in a nutshell. To expand somewhat on the picture I want to show how this element fits within the 20% Time models. A.J. Juliani, in his book, says there are five key things to do to create a successful 20% Time program. I want to now briefly go through those criteria and explain how we have designed our program to meet them:

1. Structure Unstructured Time

One thought you might have is just let this be truly extra-curricular. Students while not in scheduled time can obviously form their own groups and work on whatever they want. However, research indicates this does not create the same benefits, no more than you can replace 20% Time in a classroom by claiming students can pursue their own interests at home if they want to.Structured assignments inevitably crowd out personal projects and extrinsically motivated work tends to trump intrinsically motivated work. Intentionally setting apart this time both gives institutional legitimacy to the students’ own passions and ensures that all members of a club can be on the same page. Student clubs need not be required (indeed they may not be) but they do need to be institutionally sanctioned and scheduled.We are not yet sure exactly where Student Clubs will fit into the schedule, there is discussion amongst the curriculum directors on that question (perhaps we replace a quarter of the modules, perhaps we fit it into the rotating evening activities). But wherever we decide to put them, they will be scheduled in.

2. Don’t Grade the Final Project

This one is straightforward as debate camps don’t have grades. However, it does get at something important. Creativity flourishes in contexts where students are intrinsically motivated, rather than being forced to study certain topics. There are ways to design the program to encourage intrinsic motivation (such as granting wide latitude for what counts as debate related) and making club participation optional (one of the real benefits to making it a rotating evening activity).

3. Peer Accountability

Peer accountability is just the positive flipside to peer pressure. And it can be important to encouraging student engagement and success.  Thus, Juliani maintains that it is important to create a collaborative learning space where students can explain projects to others. Sometimes this is done through in-class presentations or students updating their own blogs, but neither of those ideas seem super practical in our context. So, we chose to make the program explicitly collaborative by structuring the program into clubs of multiple students (you cannot form a one-person club, though clubs can designate individual work-time).

4. Reflection

It is important that students engage in metacognitive assessment of how their own clubs are going. While in a classroom setting, this is often accomplished through student journals, we are instead doing this through the club/advisor relationship. As the club discusses with their instructor advisor how the club is going they will be forced to engage in this process of metacognitive assessment.

5. Presentation (Sharing)

This is where Juliani discusses the importance of having some ‘product’ at the end of the session that you can show others. By requiring clubs to create some sort of ‘product’ it provides an important outlet for meaningful peer and instructor validation. Students will be able to show what they have produced, putting it to practical effect in the camp tournament or during the year!

Conclusion

Of all the new curriculum elements we are rolling out this year, this is the one I am most excited about. There is a huge amount of literature on the value of project-based learning, and I think this will encourage students to develop skills that will allow them to keep developing on their own throughout during the debate season.[1]Though if there are any I would love to know about it and get in touch with instructors to swap ideas with. Please do comment or email me if you know any camps that have run a program like this.

Words of Wisdom 3: The Methods on Motivation

We are now over a week out from the end of the TOC. One thing this means, besides a bunch of high schoolers realizing they don’t know what to do with free time, is that for the last week my Facebook thread has been filled with sentimental and moving posts in which debaters attempt to capture what debate has meant to them.Many common themes permeate these posts, and the same themes show up year after year. In this post, I want to dwell on one of those themes, namely, the idea that the real value that comes from debate does not come from winning debate rounds.Debaters, when they reflect on debate’s value, emphasize the friends they have made, the skills they have honed, the lessons they have learnt and the passions that they have discovered. Those are the things that seem to make debate worth doing.And it’s a good thing that debate is about more than winning rounds. After all, winning is fundamentally zero sum. If you win that means someone else loses; it would be a shame if the central value of debate was zero sum in that way.But this leaves us with a puzzle. If the real value of debate does not come from winning, then why do we focus so much on trying to win? If debate is about the friends you make, then why do debate camps give lectures on building strategies and no lectures on building friendships? If debate is about portable skills, then why do we spend so much time learning to case and no time learning to canvas? Debaters put in an incredible amount of time and energy into winning rounds; doing things, like spreading, preflowing, combing the wiki, and many of these things serve almost no function beyond competitive success.This is an important puzzle for, not only for individual debaters but for coaches and debate camps to think on. Why do we focus on helping our students win rounds if winning, in the grand scheme of things, does not matter much?I don’t think there is a single solution to this puzzle, but I want to mention one part of a solution. We care about winning because sometimes we can only get what we really care about indirectly, and by primarily pursuing something else.  This elegant solution is applied to the value of ‘winning’  by my favorite British utilitarian, Henry Sidgwick. In his greatest work, The Methods of Ethics:

It is almost a commonplace to say that such pleasures, which we may call generally the pleasures of Pursuit, are more important than the pleasures of Attainment: and in many cases it is the prospect of the former rather than of the latter that induces us to engage in a pursuit. In such cases it is peculiarly easy to distinguish the desire to attain the object pursued, from a desire of the pleasure of attainment: since the attainment only becomes pleasant in prospect because the pursuit itself stimulates a desire for what is pursued. Take, for example, the case of any game which involves---as most games do---a contest for victory. No ordinary player before entering on such a contest, has any desire for victory in it: indeed he often finds it difficult to imagine himself deriving gratification from such victory, before he has actually engaged in the competition. What he deliberately, before the game begins, desires is not victory, but the pleasant excitement of the struggle for it; only for the full development of this pleasure a transient desire to win the game is generally indispensable. This desire, which does not exist at first, is stimulated to considerable intensity by the competition itself: and in proportion as it is thus stimulated both the mere contest becomes more pleasurable, and the victory, which was originally indifferent, comes to afford a keen enjoyment. (46-7)

I’ve always found Sidgwick’s example of a game quite helpful. I love playing board games, and find it enjoyable even when I lose. However, I can’t stand playing board games with people who are not trying to win (especially in Risk where one player who does not care very much randomly attacks me even though it's not really in their interest, undoing the entire game balance).But this is odd. The game is enjoyable even if we do not win. However, if I do not try to win then even that enjoyment (which exists even when I lose) disappears. Even though winning does not matter, I need to care about winning or I won’t get the enjoyment (which is what does matter).  The lesson, while paradoxical, is an important one to learn. Sometimes you can only get what you care about, by first caring about something that does not matter!And this seems to explain why, even if it does not really matter if we win or lose, it’s reasonable to spend so much time and energy trying to win. Just as you get more enjoyment when you are really trying to win a game, so you learn and develop more when you are really trying to win a tournament.The picture this leaves us with is straightforward and elegant. We try to win rounds, because in really trying to win we get more out of debate.But life is rarely so simple and elegant. Just as we can often more effectively get the goods of debate by pursuing them indirectly by aiming at winning, so too we can often get the good of winning by pursuing it indirectly by aiming at something else!Consider this second passage of Sidgwick’s:

A man who maintains throughout an epicurean mood, keeping his main conscious aim perpetually fixed on his own pleasure, does not catch the full spirit of the chase; his eagerness never gets just the sharpness of edge which imparts to the pleasure its highest zest. Here comes into view what we may call the fundamental paradox of Hedonism, that the impulse towards pleasure, if too predominant, defeats its own aim. This effect is not visible, or at any rate is scarcely visible, in the case of passive sensual pleasures. But of our active enjoyments generally, whether the activities on which they attend are classed as ‘bodily’ or as ‘intellectual’ (as well as of many emotional pleasures), it may certainly be said that we cannot attain them, at least in their highest degree, so long as we keep our main conscious aim concentrated upon them. It is not only that the exercise of our faculties is insufficiently stimulated by the mere desire of the pleasure attending it, and requires the presence of other more objective, ‘extra-regarding,’ impulses, in order to be fully developed: we may go further and say that these other impulses must be temporarily predominant and absorbing, if the exercise and its attendant gratification are to attain their full scope. Many middle-aged Englishmen would maintain the view that business is more agreeable than amusement; but they would hardly find it so if they transacted the business with a perpetual conscious aim at the attendant pleasure. Similarly, the pleasures of thought and study can only be enjoyed in the highest degree by those who have an ardour of curiosity which carries the mind temporarily away from self and its sensations. In all kinds of Art, again, the exercise of the creative faculty is attended by intense and exquisite pleasures: but it would seem that in order to get them, one must forget them: the genuine artist at work seems to have a predominant and temporarily absorbing desire for the realisation of his ideal of beauty. (48-9)

One of Sidgwick’s examples concerns study and research. Ultimately there is a lot of good things we can get out of studying (such as winning debate rounds). However, we are able to get those benefits, to the fullest extent, when we are motivated by a disinterested love of truth. If you are thinking through an issue from the lens of ‘what will help me win’ it will undermine your ability to think deeply and clearly. Bertrand Russell makes this point powerfully:

All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is best attained when it is not directly sought. It is obtained when the desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects. This enlargement of Self is not obtained when, taking the Self as it is, we try to show that the world is so similar to this Self that knowledge of it is possible without any admission of what seems alien. The desire to prove this is a form of self-assertion and, like all self-assertion, it is an obstacle to the growth of Self which it desires, and of which the Self knows that it is capable. Self-assertion, in philosophic speculation as elsewhere, views the world as a means to its own ends; thus it makes the world of less account than Self, and the Self sets bounds to the greatness of its goods. In contemplation, on the contrary, we start from the not-Self, and through its greatness the boundaries of Self are enlarged; through the infinity of the universe the mind which contemplates it achieves some share in infinity. (Chapter XV of The Problems of Philosophy)

I think this is one of the most important things for debaters to learn.My specialty is in philosophy debate. And I can attest that deepening your understanding of philosophy will help you win debate rounds. But, if you only pursue philosophy instrumentally, rather than because you are really fascinated by it, your understanding will never get very deep. The best framework debaters are always those whose passion to read philosophy leads them to read philosophy even when it does not apply to debate rounds.And this generalizes beyond philosophy debate. In any subject, if you are constantly thinking about the debate application you are not really thinking about the subject matter. To really understand any literature base, you must become invested in that literature on its terms, not on your terms. Sometimes it is only by putting aside your desire to win that you can take up a desire to learn.And so, we return to where we started, and we have vindicated the lesson of my Facebook stream. Debate, in the end, is about more than winning (even if winning is all you care about); and it’s important for debaters to internalize that fact.

Insights In Instruction

This next installment of the Curriculum Corner is to get to know some of our instructors better and see their insights into teaching at debate camp this summer. Today, we’re talking with three VBI staff members about their thoughts in how to teach at debate camp, each sharing their unique perspective on camp.Fred Ditzian debated for three years at Fort Lauderdale High School in Florida. This will be his third year as an instructor at VBI.Sienna Nordquist debated for four years at Barrington High School in Illinois. This will be her second year as an instructor at VBI.John Staunton debated for four years at the Bronx High School of Science in New York. This will be his second year as an instructor at VBI.For more information about our amazing staff, including the ones featured in this post, visit here.

Q: You all have attended and taught at debate camp before. What is your favorite debate camp memory either as an instructor or student?

Sienna: I’m not trying to be that annoying debater who’s evasive in CX, but to be honest, I don’t have one singular favorite memory! VBI does a great job of creating a learning environment that not only heightens your capacity to grow as a debater, but also fosters a community that’s like a family and loves to have fun. Omegathon pops into my mind as a part of each day at camp where you can just have fun and bond with your lab mates. Also, the only thing better than Omegathon is having your lab WIN Omegathon with Jake Nebel breaking the tie in an epic hula hooping contest! All Omegathon bragging besides, some of my favorite memories from camp are random recollections of funny moments or jokes that spontaneously happened while doing drills with my lab friends or while working on assignments together late at night. If there is only one thing I can stress about VBI that makes it different from other camps, it would be community. While debate is naturally competitive, the VBI staff are genuinely committed to making VBI a place where everyone feels accepted and a part of the VBI family.Fred: Tough to say because there are so many happy experiences I have had over the years at VBI. But if I had to pick one it would have to be last year when two of my mentees broke at the camp tournament. Both had worked for hours doing research and drills with some excellent wins against incredibly tough opponents throughout prelims which made the whole experience more gratifying. The mentee system at VBI always gave me a strong sense of investment with every student that I work with so it’s fair to say I was pumped to see their hard work payoff. The other thing that made the experience great was that all of my mentees were succeeding with strategies and case positions they just picked up while working with me. Knowing that my mentees were actually learning because of the work we did together is one of the reasons I keep going back to VBI and the competitive success was icing on the cake.John: Prior to my junior year, I went to camp and spent most of my time with a couple of really close friends. On free day, we went out to different stores and it was nice getting food with them and visiting some interesting stores. We passed by a store that was a mixture of a record store and a barbershop, which I found pretty cool, among other interesting places, such as an arts store. In particular, I would say my favorite memory was taking a picture of the group. It’s quite the metaphor.

Q: There are many different drills used by many different instructors across the years. What is your favorite debate drill and why?

John: The stop and go rebuttal redo is probably my favorite drill as an instructor. To be clear, I absolutely hated it as a student – for obvious reasons. However, as an instructor, I feel like I can pinpoint many specific inefficiencies debaters have and I’m able to make a mental checklist of what the debater I am working with needs to improve on. In addition, I get to listen more closely to the content of the arguments they are making and make specific comments on them. This is better than just hearing a rebuttal redo because instructors then tend to make more general comments that are not as helpful as specific comments on arguments and inefficiencies. Stop and go rebuttals lend themselves easily to these specific comments and debaters tend to improve more quickly and have a better understanding of what they need to work out.Sienna: My favorite debate drill is to have students respond to a case on a topic they’ve never previously debated or researched with very limited prep time (maybe five minutes) to construct responses. This requires students to engage in critical thinking at the highest level, since they likely only have limited background knowledge on the subject. There are many different drills that instructors will utilize to strengthen a debater’s critical thinking skills, but I find that this simple drill is the best way to train debaters to have a succinct, articulate, and astute approach and thought process for a new topic. I’ve also observed that with the preponderance of disclosure (the practice where most schools and students post their cases online) in the debate community, many students have this false sense of security that they will never really face an argument they have not previously heard or seen disclosed online. With or without the practice of disclosure, each round has unique argument interaction and strategic distinctions; however, this drill simulates your “worst case scenario” that you have no tangible evidence or sizable background knowledge on the subject, and are forced to engage the arguments with your most powerful, and most often forgotten, tool—your creative and critical thinking skills.Fred: Without a doubt 1AR from Hell drills where you put together a devastating prep out against a student’s aff and then make them craft the perfect defense against it has always been fun for me. Personally, I love when you send them the doc and they respond “WTH Fred why would you do this to me?” and make them spend hours getting the 1AR right. All jokes about torturing students aside, I think it is both fun and instructive to go over every 1AR strategy and what if scenario in depth like a rhetorical game of chess. Of course, my favorite moment is when they get the speech right and realize that they can handle it because of all the new-found confidence they get from knowing that they can be thrown into debate hell and come out of it better off.

Q: There are many different types of debate, ranging from framework, critical, policy, and more. What is your favorite type of debate to teach, and what do you think is different about getting good about that type of debate versus other types of debate?

Fred: That’s tough to say in part because I have always thought the division between different styles of debate was somewhat arbitrary considering that the logic involved in one style often spills over into another. However, gun to my head, I would have to say I have always enjoyed a good framework debate. To clarify, I use this term to broadly apply to debate about questions like what impacts matter most, what it means for something to be true and other deep questions of that nature. First reason why I have always been a fan of this “style” of debate is that I think whoever is best at explaining what matters most in the round are often great at making the debate clear to me. Personally, I think that many rounds that I have watched over the years were harder to interpret than they needed to be because neither debater did a great job explaining what mattered the most. This problem is generally resolved by practicing framework debate even when you are just comparing what util scenario should be prioritized it often seems like the bigger questions around these debates are philosophic in nature. Second, I have always enjoyed talking about philosophy because I have noticed that a lot of what I read applied both to the topic and to my life in general. I honestly have no idea if any of the students I am teaching noticed this cross-over but I always enjoyed reading something for a topic and realized that it helped me make decisions in my own life.John: My favorite type of debate to teach is critical. I would tend to talk about the literature with kids I’m working with and the literature is very interesting. This is different than other styles of debate, specifically other ones I also enjoy teaching, because it is really focused on being well read and truly understanding arguments. In critical debate, more than almost any other type of debate, being well read is important to running your arguments and comparing your advocacies to alternatives. However, I would like to note that I almost equally enjoy teacher technical skills on theory debate. Theory debate is fun to teach in a different way. There, you have to view the debate really strategically – more so than almost any other type of debate. You have to really understand which arguments are the right to make, how quickly to make them, and weighing is insanely important, and it’s rather easy to do once you get the hang of it. Therefore, it’s pretty fun getting debaters to understand it and implement it. There, you can see them getting a better understanding of what it means to win on the flow, even in other debates that are not theory debates. You can be good at a lot of things and win in debate rounds – being smart, being technically proficient, being persuasive, etc., but being well read in critical debates and being very technically proficient in theory debates tend to make them more fun to teach.Sienna: Framework is my favorite type of debate to teach! I think that framework debate is one of the hardest forms of debate to become proficient in, because it requires not only expansive knowledge of philosophy and literature, but the aptitude to understand and recognize how frameworks can interact with each other. At the heart of understanding all philosophies and ideologies is your ability to question. Philosophy, and by extension your framework, is the product of a line of questioning. If you can understand which questions your author(s) was most concerned in answering, then you can also understand how to best construct your framework and approach criticizing/engaging with other frameworks.In terms of honing your skills and capabilities, I think debaters should employ similar methods for improving at all types of debate. No matter which form of debate you want to “specialize” in, you need to develop a foundational understanding of how you formulate and organize that type of a case or argument, perfect your ability to efficiently invoke this process in a debate round, become comfortable utilizing more challenging literature or arguments in your cases, and then master the ability to apply this comprehension and dexterity to multiple layers of the flow. I’m a big fan of the belief that, in any area of life, there is a point in learning and gaining an education where you realize that every subject and discipline is interconnected. Correspondingly, strengthening your understanding and proficiency in one area of debate should always help you in another. Thus, the main way to become even better at one form of debate is to strengthen your discernment on all types of debate, and then recognize the nuances that make one type of debate more adept to help you excel in a debate round, or better yet, create your own nuances!From my experience and observations, policy and theory debates, and even critical debate to some extent, have become more formulaic. This implies that to become good or great at framework debate, as compared to other types of debate, you likely need to spend more time reading framework literature, but also talking with and learning from other debaters about how the moral questions posed by frameworks can best organize your case offense and rebuttal strategies.

Q: Teaching debate is certainly difficult. What do you think are the hallmarks of a great, as opposed to good, debate instructor?

John: Simply put, an instructor that truly cares about the success of their kids separates a good instructor from the great instructor. A good instructor can relay information. A great instructor can relay information and make sure they care enough to keep working with the kids until they truly get it. As for final thoughts, I guess I hope I can demonstrate that I care about the kids I work with and that they can come to me for anything (debate-related or not). That also means that caring about kids should probably include caring about their mental health. I hope I’d be able to do that job well.Sienna: A great debate instructor is able to look beyond their own debate experiences and style to focus on the individual needs of their students. A great debate instructor does not just teach their students, but challenges them to think for themselves and question their own opinions/arguments. Also, since we’re teaching debate, we are doing something wrong if we are not also being challenged and questioned by our students. Part of this active discourse between the instructor and students, as well as between the students themselves, requires that my students will never truly know my own personal beliefs. I will defend the belief or argument that is the opposite of their own, not to frustrate them, but to help them coalesce their arguments down to the warrant at the root of their opinions. And, of course, the best and greatest instructors go above and beyond the mandatory lecture/lab/Socrates Hours instruction to be available to students as much as possible, while simultaneously advancing a camp environment that is fun and encourages a supportive atmosphere for students at all times.Fred: I think the most important aspect of good debate instruction is having a well thought out plan of what and how you are going to teach before-hand. I have had plenty of great experiences teaching but I am not ashamed to admit I have had some failures as an instructor as well. What made the difference was whether I had a well thought out plan beforehand. It’s difficult to think about what every student needs and how to meet those needs on the fly in the same way but if you take the time the pay-off is difficult to deny.

Q: Any final thoughts to share with us about your methods of teaching debate?

Fred: Aside from thoughtful planning I think that taking an in-depth and personal approach to teaching is important. I think people might be tempted to teach every student with some generic format that would help any other student or do what teach what would they would have wanted as a student when the reality is that each student has different needs and strengths that can only be addressed by treating them as an individual. Students can tell when you are just going through the motions and might just think “if they can get here without putting the work in then why should I?” and frankly I think that is such a loss for everyone involved. It’s also rewarding for the instructors too because you learn from trying to meet their educational needs. I can personally attest to the fact that most of what I learned from debate was from this process because I ended up having to learn so many different things just to make sure that my students had the best debate experience possible. Making that extra effort to prepare drills or readings that are just for them makes a huge difference not only because it responds to their specific needs but also because they are more likely put in extra effort themselves because they see all the work you are doing for them and will be inspired to do the same.

Curricular Components 3: All Things Elective

This third installment of our ‘Curricular Components’ miniseries will be dedicated to the ‘elective’ features of VBI curriculum. I will first give a brief overview to the ‘elective’ elements of our curriculum, second discuss the values of electivity, and third present some problems the curriculum staff has considered with electives as well as what solutions we have developed.

What Are the Elective Elements?

The two elements of our curriculum that we categorize as ‘elective’ are modules and seminars. These are not the only features of our curriculum where students can decide for themselves what to study (c.f. student clubs, Socrates hour, mentorships, dine with a mind), but they do play a major role in allowing students to decide what they learn at debate camp.The module system is a traditional aspect of VBI’s curriculum. Modules are focused lessons of about 50 minutes. Students sign up for these modules at the beginning of the week, often choosing from around 8 options. Modules could take the form of a lecture, a drill session, a discussion, or something entirely different (though its normally some combination of those first three). Module topics are wide ranging (from flowing techniques, to debating statistics, to Kantian political philosophy).The seminar system was first introduced last summer (though we have made some important changes to it this year, as I will mention below). A seminar involves a small group of students carefully working through a nightly reading assignment for several successive days (the system is modeled off upper-level college seminar courses). The instructor will help facilitate discussion and understanding of the readings, however, the direction that the discussion takes will frequently be up to the students.

Why Electivity?

Electivity is a valuable aspect of a debate camps curriculum for three primary reasons.First, students have individualized learning needs. One student may need to learn all about K literature while another student might be able to learn a lot of that from their coach during the year. Some students may have found the theory instruction during lab confusing and want to supplement that instruction in other contexts, while other students may have found theory intuitive. Electives allow students to customize their instruction, filling their particular gaps in debate knowledge.Second, electives allow students to pursue their own interests and specializations. One of the great things about debate is the plurality of approaches one can take to it. Not everyone will be interested in all the same things and debate allows that. Electives allow students to pursue issues that interest them, helping them have a more rewarding and enjoyable time at debate camp. This is likely why electives are always one of our top-rated programs in end of year evaluations.Third, electives expose students to new ideas. By providing a focused period where you can learn about something you are not already familiar with it provides students a foundation to build a new interest or investigate a new argument or technique.

How Can Electives be Better?

There are several potential problems that pop up when running electives.

Information Retention

The first worry with the module program is that students will not retain information well. It is well-documented that passively listening to a single lecture results in poor retention of information. Learning requires building on previous knowledge, thus it can often be difficult to recall what you learnt in a one-off lecture.Part of the solution to this problem is allowing students to sign up for both seminars and module tracks (where you attend a set of modules several days in a row). Because students build on what they previously learnt it significantly improves retention.A second part of the solution involves encouraging instructors to do more than lecture during modules. By using drills, discussions and other activities instructors significantly improve student retention.Finally, it’s important to use time outside modules to build in-module retention. Often labs will discuss morning modules in their early afternoon session. Having the students explain content forces them to organize the ideas internally which can significantly improve retention.  Indeed, there is evidence that if students just expect they will have to explain the content they will better retain the information, even if they don’t end up explaining it.

Seminar Interest

One issue with last year’s seminars was that some students were not very interested in the program. This was a real problem, if students fail to do the readings ahead of time they won’t be able to get much out of seminars. Also, if you have a good-sized group of students, many of whom are disengaged, it compromises the learning environment for everyone involved.Our solution this year is to further integrate modules and seminars (rather than placing them in separate time blocks). Students will not be required to attend seminars this year and can sign-up exclusively for modules. This means only those really interested in the seminar will sign-up. This a) is more consistent with electivity, b) should help improve student interest, and c) will help to lower the number of students in seminars improving the class size.

Elective Balance

A final worry with electives is that staff like to teach what they are interested in. Now this, all else being equal, is great because it results in better and more impassioned lessons. However, often instructors are less interested in teaching the traditional parts of a debate curriculum, like flowing and research, and so it can be difficult to keep electives properly balanced.There are several solutions to this problem. One thing we are doing new this year is that prior to soliciting electives from staff we are constructing a list and schedule of core module and seminar offerings.  This way we can ask staff which of these electives they are able to teach helping ensure that the core elective offerings are filled first.We also require staff to propose seminar offerings for students of different experience levels, this further helps balance our offerings so that we don’t have most of our modules targeted at the most experienced students.

Academic Articles 1: Student Teaching

Seneca, in his Moral Letters to Lucilius gives the following advice: “Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach.”This is one of many passages where Seneca displays his stoic sense. And science has backed Seneca up. People really do learn by teaching others. For over a hundred years now researchers have been rigorously studying teaching as a way to learn and the results are compelling.Looking at some of the recent(ish) research on the educational value of teaching seems like an appropriate task for our first post in the Academic Articles miniseries (a series where we look at academic literature which has an important bearing on debate camp). In this post I will look at three different developments in the literature on student teaching. For each of the three developments I will briefly review the literature (though I encourage you to read the studies and articles yourself) and then mention what I take to be important take-aways for debate camps.

Part One: The Lessons from the Peer Instruction Program

Crouch, Catherine H., and Eric Mazur. "Peer instruction: Ten Years of Experience and Results." American Journal of Physics 69.9 (2001): 970-977.Lasry, Nathaniel, Eric Mazur, and Jessica Watkins. "Peer instruction: From Harvard to the Two-Year College." American Journal of Physics 76.11 (2008): 1066-1069.Mazur, Eric. "Peer Instruction: Getting Students to Think in Class." AIP Conference Proceedings. Vol. 399. No. 1. AIP, 1997.

1.1: Brief Literature Review

The Peer Instruction program is a model of teaching introductory physics that was first developed at Harvard University, but which has since been adopted by many other schools. It has a lot of similarities to the TEAL method, later developed at MIT, which has also since been adopted by a lot of schools around the world.The PI program emphasizes reciprocal peer instruction and discussion rather than passive notetaking. The general model looks like this:“A class taught with PI is divided into a series of short presentations, each focused on a central point and followed by a related conceptual question, called a ConcepTest, which probes students’ understanding of the ideas just presented. Students are given one or two minutes to formulate individual answers and report their answers to the instructor. Students then discuss their answers with others sitting around them; the instructor urges students to try to convince each other of the correctness of their own answer by explaining the underlying reasoning. . . .  To free up class time for ConcepTests, and to prepare students better to apply the material during class, students are required to complete the reading on the topics to be covered before class.”The result of implementing the PI program was a huge improvement in student performance. Not only did it improve conceptual mastery and quantitative problem solving, it also decreased student attrition and in some cases as much as halved the number of failing students.Likely there are other benefits as well. For example, PI probably helps students refine their ability to learn by reading, a critical skill given how much of advanced learning occurs on one’s own.

1.2: Implications for Debate Camp

The remarkable success of the PI program shows something important about how students learn. Often it is more valuable for a student to try and master material on their own, and then refine that understanding by attempting to explain and justify their ideas to others than it is to simply listen to an instructor explain and justify answers by lecture.This has some clear applications to debate camp instruction. For example, VBI is revamping its seminar program (as an option for students instead of modules) for precisely these sorts of reasons. Seminars allow students to read carefully ahead of time, and then answer questions and explain their ideas to their peers under instructor supervision. This should help develop a far deeper understanding than students will be able to acquire through even extremely well done lectures.Another way to use these insights is to refine lab instruction. Often labs split up for drills but stay in large groups for discussions. However, as these articles note, that provides less time for each student to articulate their own thoughts. Thus, it is often helpful when labs are having a discussion, say about strategy, to split the lab up into smaller groups of ~4 people and have discussion take place in that smaller context. This gives each student more time to explain their ideas to others increasing individual peer instruction time.

Part Two: Student Tutoring and What it Tells Us

Cohen, Peter A., James A. Kulik, and Chen-Lin C. Kulik. "Educational Outcomes of Tutoring: A Meta-Analysis of Findings." American educational research journal 19.2 (1982): 237-248.Roscoe, Rod D., and Michelene TH Chi. "Tutor Learning: The Role of Explaining and Responding to Questions." Instructional Science 36.4 (2008): 321-350.

2.1: Article Take-Aways

There is not a lot in the Cohen piece that we need to dwell on. I included it, however, because it provides a nice meta-study which helps document the amount of evidence there is that student tutoring does not just improve the performance of those who receive tutoring but also improves the academic performance of those who provide tutoring. The act of teaching other students to learn a subject improves one’s own understanding.The Roscoe article is the far more interesting read. The article opens with an excellent survey of the literature discussing why people learn by tutoring.  Several mechanisms are worth mentioning. First, tutoring requires you to explain ideas and, inevitably, explanations that are clear to you are opaque to others. Thus, tutors must to reach for alternative explanations, be it new analogies, new framings, new examples or what not. Generating these alternative explanations encourages conceptual mapping which deepens understanding. Second, tutoring helps students identify and fill gaps in their own understanding. “Tutors may need to utilize metacognitive processes such as comprehension-monitoring and metamemory, which involve evaluation of the quality of one’s own knowledge and understanding.” This encourages students to further develop and refine their own understanding and helps students get over the problem of ‘not knowing what they don’t know.’Following this discussion, the article presents its own study on what sort of tutoring had the largest effect on the tutors understanding (an unfortunately neglected subject). There are a lot of results worth considering, and I highly recommend reading through the article. But one of the main lessons is that tutors learn more effectively when their role goes beyond ‘summarizing’ or ‘reexplaining.’ The more that the tutor’s role involves their own synthesis the more the teaching provides opportunities for metacognitive reflection. The danger is that students may prefer to “deliver rather than develop their knowledge.” Effective tutoring which developed “[r]eflective knowledge-building activities involved self-monitoring, knowledge integration, and generation of inferences.”

2.2: Implications for Debate Camp

It is studies of these sorts which lead me to think that giving students the opportunity to develop and teach their own lessons is incredibly valuable. The most effective thing student teaching can provide is the chance to develop reflective metacognitive awareness of one’s own understanding. The chance to develop and teach a lesson, under supervision, is basically unparalleled in encouraging just such reflective metacognition.A second application is to find ways to encourage tutoring between students of different levels of experience. When there is a difference in experience it forces students to come up with different types of explanations. One thing I’ve tried before, though never at VBI, is to team up with a ‘sibling’ lab. Each student in my lab would be paired up with a student in the other lab and the older student would be encouraged to be a ‘tutor’ to the younger student (meeting every day, or every other day, and teaching a concept either that the older student had just learnt or that the younger student wanted to learn). This can be easily arranged by lab leaders and often resulted in some extremely positive learning opportunities (note, the program was not wholly successful, I think there were several pairings who just never met up for tutoring).Beyond advising student tutoring, however, these studies also tell us something important about ‘explanation’ as a learning tool. I have, since I started coaching, insisted that there is one drill more valuable than any other for getting good at framework debate. I’m also suspicious that no debater has ever listened to me. The drill is to find someone who knows nothing about either philosophy or debate (I would normally pick my youngest sister or sometimes a parent) and sit down and explain your framework to them until they can explain it back (answering any questions they may have). This was a long and laborious process; however, it was extraordinarily helpful in making sure I understood my own positions. Having to explain ideas without using any of the ‘shortcuts’ that exist in debate really pushes one to identify the gaps in one’s own understanding.

Part Three: How we Learn from Expectation Alone

Nestojko, John F., et al. "Expecting to Teach Enhances Learning and Organization of Knowledge in Free Recall of Text Passages." Memory & cognition 42.7 (2014): 1038-1048.

3.1: Article Take-Aways

There are a couple of really interesting aspects of this article that I want to mention. First, the authors did not assess the educational impact of teaching, but instead assessed the impact of an expectation that one would teach. As the authors put it, they wanted to know if “having an expectancy to teach, without actually teaching, enhance learning, as compared with having an expectancy to be tested?”To answer that question, they had students read through a 1,541-word passage. Some of the students were told they would have to teach the material afterwards and some were told they would have to take a test on the material. Then all the students were given a test. Interestingly the students who were reading the material to prepare to teach did better on the test than those preparing to be tested.Just expecting that they would have to teach material resulted in students better able to recall and organize the main points of the passage.The second interesting thing about this article is that the authors performed a second study to try and understand why students who were expecting to teach learn more effectively. What they found is that an expectation to teach is at least partially explained by improving the student’s organization of free recall information. This provides compelling evidence for the explanation that “participants expecting to teach put themselves into the mindset of a teacher, leading them to adopt certain effective strategies used by teachers when preparing to teach—such as organizing and weighing the importance of different concepts in the to-be-taught material, focusing on main points, and thinking about how information fits together.”

3.2: Implications for Debate Camp

What this shows is that some, though by no means all, of the benefits of student teaching can be gained just by instilling in students an expectation that they may have to teach the material (even if they end up not teaching it). This is very practical information. One possible application, which was used by some of the PF labs last year, is to tell students that one of them will be selected during each lab session to briefly teach the main ideas of the modules they attended. If you can guarantee that each student will have to teach numerous times throughout camp (and if they never know which day they will need to teach) it helps instill an expectation in students which will significantly improve student learning during modules.