Ethics Bowl as a Pedagogical Tool PLATO Conference June 24, 2017 Kyle Robertson Breeann MacDonald Assistant Director, Center for Public Philosophy High Tech High International, San Diego Lecturer in Philosophy UC Santa Cruz
Agenda: Why the Ethics Bowl? ● Ethics Bowl in the community - the Invitational ● model. Ethics Bowl in the classroom. ●
Why Ethics Bowl? Practical Benefits : Great materials generated every year by the wonderful folks at the NHSEB! - A format that is well-established and effective at facilitating respectful ethical dialogue. - An archive of hundreds of applied ethics cases. (and check out the college cases too!) - A national community of schools and teachers (and universities!) that do Ethics Bowl every year.
Why Ethics Bowl? Theoretical Benefits? : Traditional high school debate formats (Lincoln-Douglas, Policy, Parli) teach some of the same oral advocacy skills, but they emphasize styles of reasoning and argument that are problematic. We think that the Ethics Bowl format encourages better norms of reasoning and dialogue, and better cognitive habits, than traditional debate.
Why Ethics Bowl? One way to make this argument is to focus on the phenomena of motivated reasoning or motivated cognition : “The unconscious tendency of individuals to fit their processing of information to conclusions that fit some end or goal.” - Dan Kahan We suspect that traditional debate formats exacerbate these tendencies, whereas Ethics Bowl has a number of qualities that (we hope!) combat or undermine these tendencies.
Why Ethics Bowl? My favorite example - Dan Kahan - Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-Government , Behavioral Public Policy 1, 54-86 (2013).
Why Ethics Bowl? Some quick examples: Other debate formats Ethics Bowl Conclusion assigned randomly. Conclusion developed by students. Forced binary positions ‘pro’ and ‘con’. No pre-set positions defined. Opposing arguments to be attacked, Opposing arguments and points of view to be undermined. understood and treated with respect. Changing one’s mind a sign of failure. Changing one’s mind (can be) a sign of serious thought and engagement.
Why Ethics Bowl? - NHSEB rules, p. 12.
Why Ethics Bowl? “In other debate formats, the goal is to convince the judge that you’re right. In ethics bowl the goal is to convince a panel of judges that you’ve thought well about the cases.” - me
Why Ethics Bowl? Theoretical Benefits? : If you’re interested in these issues, here are a few more papers to check out: Ziva Kunda - The Case for Motivated Reasoning , Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 108, No. 3, 480-498 (1990). Hilary Kornblith - Distrusting Reason , Midwest Studies in Philosophy 23 (1): 181-196 (1999).
A community-building Ethics Bowl event. Focus on new schools and teams outside the NHSEB regionals circuit ● (could be exclusive to them). Focus on underserved populations, particularly those without any other ● debate/speech opportunities. Emphasize college-preparedness and belonging. ● Emphasize entry into regular regional competition schedule for NHSEB. ●
Our latest Invitational (last month!) hosted teams from 9 schools designated “LCFF+” by the state of CA. This designation means that more than 75% of the student body ● at these schools were foster youth, came from low income homes (qualified for reduced price lunches), or were english language learners. Working with this population opened substantial fundraising ● doors for us: we secured an internal $30k grant from the UC Office of the President for this year’s event.
How is this event different from a regional bowl? Extensive coaching support - all schools get coach visits from an experienced HSEB coach/judge at least once a week for six+ weeks leading up to the event. De-emphasize results - scoring sheets are made available, but we don’t announce round winners and we don’t rank teams or cut to a semi-final. Emphasize constructive feedback - 10 minutes added to each round for open discussion between judges and teams about the round. Welcoming/Informational aspects - we do everything we can to acclimate and welcome these students to a university environment. As examples, this year we had: Catered, longer lunch at the Provost’s house with all judges and moderators. ● Q&A session with undergraduate coaches and advisors about Ethics Bowl/College. ● Post-competition debrief meetings with their undergraduate coaches. ● Summer summit for school administrators and coaches to discuss event. (next week!) ●
College Preparedness and Sense of Belonging Undergraduate coaches:
College Preparedness and Sense of Belonging Faculty interactions: EB asks students to do what college ● professors want undergraduates to do. Professors who serve as judges see this immediately, and are impressed. The students get glowing feedback from ● university faculty, in real time, about their arguments and work. Evidence of success : our post-event survey measured sense of belonging, among other things. Every student checked “more” or “much more” on questions about a sense of belonging at UCSC and college in general.
Ethics Bowl in the Classroom Based on work done by Breeann MacDonald at High Tech High, San Diego, CA. She used the Ethics Bowl format to design and implement a three week module on ethical theory and reasoning as part of a tenth grade humanities course.
Ethics Bowl in the Classroom Breeann has let me post some sample materials for you to use: 10 Day Classroom Plan ● Sample Slides - How to Build a Case ● Sample Handout - Ethical Theories ● (All of these links and materials available at: publicphilosophy.ucsc.edu/plato-talk)
Further Resources Center for Public Philosophy Ethics Bowl Resources Invitational Documentary National High School Ethics Bowl Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl These links, these slides, and all the materials I discussed today, are available at publicphilosophy.ucsc.edu/plato-talk.
Thank you!
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