Debate Assignment

Assignment Overview:

Students will have the opportunity to participate in an online debate on a contemporary ethical issue on the dates indicated in the weekly flow chart. Students will be assigned a topic and stance. Each student will be responsible for contributing 1 argument, 1 rebuttal and 1 rebuttal response for this assignment. Students must include APA in-text citations and references accessed to support their discussion. Further direction on the structure of debates and practice examples will be given/reviewed in class prior to assignment. Students will use Kialo software to upload their completed assignments.

Learning Outcomes

1. Identify sound and unsound arguments, including common fallacies;
2. Explain the strengths and limitations of various ethical perspectives;
3. Analyze contemporary issues using critical thinking strategies and ethical perspectives;
4. Discuss and debate controversial issues in a rational and informed manner

Instructions:

1. Students will be assigned a group for their debate in the week indicated on the weekly flow chart, group as well as topic assignment will be posted online in your course shell on the week indicated. PLEASE NOTE THAT WHILE YOU ARE BEING PUT IN GROUPS, THIS IS SIMPLY TO ORGANIZE THE DEBATE STRUCTURE AND ENSURE EQUAL PARTICIPANTS. YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY COLLABORATING WITH YOUR GROUP MEMBERS, YOU WILL BE MARKED INDIVIDUALLY.
2. Once topics have been assigned, students will be provided with an invite link to their Kialo debate web page. Kialo is the digital platform that students will use to participate in their online debates. A full video overview of how to use Kialo for your debates will be posted to the week 6 folder of weekly learning and assignment expectations will be posted under the assignments tab on Blackboard, a link will also be provided in the applicable weekly learning folder PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU VIEW THIS VIDEO AS IT WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH EXPLICIT INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO USE THE TOOLS NEEDED TO BE SUCCESSFUL FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT – EXAMPLES OF CONTENT WILL ALSO BE PROVIDED
3. Each student will be responsible for completing the following:

• 1 Argument in support of their assigned point of view (should be between 300-400 words
• Respond to 1 of the opposing group’s arguments (each student must respond to a different argument) offering a counter argument or a rebuttal which acknowledges the limitations, fallacies or shortcomings of the argument i.e. why you disagree (should be between 150 – 250 words)
• You must then go back to your original argument and respond to the rebuttal that was written in response to your argument (150 words) Note: You may not simply restate your original argument, you must offer something new – new insights or comments

4. Each student must include peer-reviewed references to support their points of view. Students must include: 2 references for their argument and 1 for their rebuttal for a total of 3 references peer student. These references must be included as both an in-text citation as well as a full reference entry below their posts. Slides on how to format according to APA guidelines have been uploaded to your Blackboard shell under the additional resources Please ensure that you are not using traditional websites, blogs or newspaper articles for your sources as these are often not peer-reviewed and will not be counted.
5. Please Note: In addition to uploading to your group Kialo boards, each student must also upload their argument to the appropriate Blackboard drop boxes located under the assignments

Evaluation:

• Argument is logically presented, carefully considered, appropriate and /9                are appropriately supported.
• Group include appropriate number of academic sources (3 peer-reviewed)    /9     Sources were cited correctly according to APA format. This means 6 marks                   for 2 sources in argument and 3 marks for 1 source in rebuttal. Sources were  appropriate
• Rebuttal and response demonstrate appropriate level of respect and /3 professionalism, arguments were criticized, not individuals
• Response demonstrates thorough understanding of ethical issue at hand as /10         well as understanding of relationship between consequences and ethical           judgement
• Rebuttals are appropriate, acknowledge limitations of original arguments /9          and demonstrate an understanding of common fallacies in ethical thought.

/40

 

Rebuttal Statements

Note: Please only respond to one of these rebuttal statements if one your peers has not offered a rebuttal to your original argument. These are to be used as a last resort. Please ensure that you select the statement below which corresponds with your topic and argues against your assigned stance.

Social Media Rebuttal Statements

How would you respond to the claim that social media, despite providing ample opportunities for professional and educational development has been explicitly linked to poor mental health in teens and children. While professional and educational success are important, it is impossible to enjoy this success or to excel when suffering from poor mental health.

How would you respond to the claim that social media has become an integral component of many professional careers, from marketing to customer relations and even medicine and assessment. Failing to provide our students with exposure to and learning opportunities surrounding social media means that we are sending them off to University at a deficit compared to their peers when it comes to their overall understanding of how to use and apply these tools.

Outsourcing Rebuttal Statements

How would you respond to the claim that by not outsourcing and communicating/building relationships with other countries, Canadian companies will remain stagnant, they will not be able to adapt to a changing market place and attract and effectively cater to a diverse clientele. Thereby increasing the risk that the company will fail in the long term despite ensure jobs nationally in the short term.

How would you respond to the claim that outsourcing can cause a company to lose control of its business. When company owners and higher ups are not actively involved in sectors of their business this opens up the doors for there to be a decrease in product quality, for individuals representing the company to do so poorly as well as for the company to maintain control over the ethical treatment of their workers. These companies still have all of the accountability but none of the transparency.

Free Post Secondary Education Rebuttal Statements

How would you respond to the claim that making post secondary education free would devalue the whole institution of higher education because there would be limited incentive for educators to provide the same level of education that they would have previously. Additionally, post secondary education might become viewed as a path for “unmotivated” or “directionless” individuals to spend their time on the government’s dollar rather than contributing to the economy.

How would you respond to the claim that making post secondary education free would increase the value of the education being provided to students by increasing their exposure to a diverse group of cultural, economic, gendered and aged views.

Animal Testing Rebuttal Statements

How would you respond to the claim that animal testing is by far the most consistently accurate and long standing form of testing that we have for most biomedical procedures and that it would be unethical to test biomedical procedures on humans or okay their trial without first testing on animals as current innovations in cellular technologies are too new to ensure full efficacy.

How would you respond to the claim that despite some genetic merit in terms of similarity to humans. The results of many animal tests are not valid due to other factors such as the environment that the animal is kept in (often a caged, windowless and high stress environment) as well as human interaction and influence. Both of these factors have the ability to impact the overall health of the animal thereby making the results of most animal testing ambiguous or questionable at best.

Poverty vs. Climate Change Rebuttal Statements

How would you respond to the claim that it would be unethical to support poverty initiatives over climate change because it is taking money away from taxpayers and only benefitting a specific group whereas using taxpayer money to support climate change initiatives benefits everyone involved on multiple levels including health, safety, economically etc.

How would you respond to the claim that it would be more ethical for the government to support initiatives related to poverty and homeless because it is a more severe and acute issue that people are dealing with today. While climate change is important it will take an international effort and great deal of time for any change to be made whereas helping poverty and homelessness nationally will take less resources and can potentially have an immediate effect.

 

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