Student-Directed Questioning: Before section, ask students to prepare questions about or objections to important claims or theories from lecture or readings. You may identify specific topics or subjects to narrow students’ focus or let them draw on anything from course materials. In section, ask students to raise their prepared questions or objections, and invite students to provide (partial or complete) responses or ask for specific clarifications. Invite other students to elaborate on or ask questions of other students’ responses.
Well-suited for:
Defending or critiquing a particular claim or choice.
Defending or critiquing an ethical theory.
Defending or critiquing their own personal values, principles, virtues, or choices.
Strengths:
Tailors discussion around students’ interests. By allowing students to raise the questions and objections around which section discussion is centered, you can help ensure the class discussion addresses materials and topics that students find more interesting and more compelled to defend or object to.
Helps create interest in and value for ethical discussion. By letting students take charge of the focus of discussion, you can put students in position to appreciate ethical discussions as an exercise with real practical and intellectual value. Students can work through ethical ideas or problems that were of personal interest to themselves, while getting firsthand experience of discussion as both a collaborative, effective tool for that work, as well as a satisfying, worthwhile activity in itself.
Encourages student-student engagement. Turning over the reins of class discussion to the students gives them the chance to hear and contend with the often wide variety of ethical views, claims, and concerns of their peers, while also encouraging them to see these peers as valuable sources of insight and feedback. This encourages students to see ethical topics as a lively subject of ongoing debate, as opposed to dry subjects of primarily academic interest.
Great for discussion sections later in the term. The Student-Directed Questioning format relies on students being able to process course materials well enough to identify discussion-worthy questions and objections. Naturally, this works best when students are relatively comfortable with course materials and academic discussion (specifically on ethical discussions). Ideally, you can build this comfort up through coursework and other discussion formats before jumping into student-led discussions.
Potential Challenges and Solutions
I don’t have time in section to properly facilitate a discussion of every student’s question or objection. Section time is finite, and you may not be able to let every student take the lead. However, simply letting student contributions go unrecognized and unused is not especially conducive to an inclusive discussion.
Group similar questions or objections together. Ask students to submit questions and objections to you before section. Organize questions and objections with similar content together. Then, in section, ask students with similar questions or objections to present together.
Keep a record of unaddressed student questions or objections. Either in class (on the board, in your notes, etc.) or through an online document, maintain a list of questions and objections that don’t get properly addressed in class discussion. This not only recognizes otherwise ignored student contributions but can also be used as fodder for future sections discussion or even as inspiration students can use for writing and other assignments.
One of my students provides a defense for/objection to a view that makes other students uncomfortable. Often times, discussions of ethical issues involve, directly or indirectly, issues that students (or even you yourself) will feel strongly about. Allowing students to determine (to some extent), the topics of class discussion can, for better and for worse, focus discussion on topics that students have strong feelings on. Even if the defense/objection is worth thinking about, it seems difficult to discuss it or the issues around it without alienating some students.
Review norms of discourse.
Recognize the difficulty.
Reframe the challenging defense/objection as an object of intellectual analysis.
Ask for help. Sometimes, you may find yourself with a classroom issue that you feel totally unqualified to deal with. Perhaps you feel the challenging defense/objection is not being put forth in good faith or cannot be genuinely addressed (even as an object of intellectual analysis) without making the classroom feel unwelcoming or even unsafe for some students. Remember, you are not alone in this. Ask for help from other TFs, a head TF, or the course head. In some cases, if the problem is sufficiently severe, the problem should be escalated to faculty and administration.
Debate: From issues raised in class or in readings, select an ethically-charged decision, a response to a given ethical dilemma or hard case, or an ethical theory or claim. Assign students to argue different sides of the issue (e.g., for and against a “medicare for all plan,” defending and objecting to Rawl’s conception of justice, and so on), and use section to facilitate a debate between the relevant views.
Well-suited for:
Defending or critiquing a particular claim or choice.
Defending or critiquing an ethical theory.
Strengths:
Can help energize discussion. Debates need not be competitive per se (at the end of the day, students should be working with their classmates to grow their understanding), but investing in one side of an issue (artificially or otherwise) can get students actively involved in a discussion for which they might otherwise feel disconnected.
Can help flesh out less popular views. It can be tempting, even for trained academics, to quickly move past positions we find intuitively implausible (or even intuitively immoral). Your students are also vulnerable to this, and less popular opinions can often receive insufficient critical attention in free-flowing discussion. The debate format forces all relevant positions to be thought through (whether or not the thought-through position is any more convincing).
Great for digging deeper. Debates work best when both sides have had some time to consider the relevant issues and develop their thinking on the matter. As such, in-section debates often work best once students have already spent substantive class time with the relevant material. A debate can be a great way to re-energize discussion on a subject you have already spent some time on, but isn’t an especially great way to introduce new material.
Potential Challenges and Solutions
Students are uncomfortable defending views they disagree with. Depending on how you elect to assign positions, students may find themselves defending a position they disagree with (or critiquing a position they agree with). They might it challenging or even problematic to argue contrary to their personal beliefs, even in an artificial debate setting.
Explain the purpose of section debate. The aim of hosting a debate, at least in the context of a discussion section, is to help develop a better understanding of a relevant issue or argument (as opposed to, say, advance a specific position or even just show off rhetorical prowess). A discussion section affords a safe context to fully explore and understand positions, even if we think they are wrong. Even if we think a position is wrong, we should hope to reject it for the right reasons. Clearly articulating a defending that position in a section-debate context offers us the opportunity to make sure we are at least doing that.
Offer the option to trade sides or defend a third option. If a student is seriously uncomfortable with defending their assigned view, they can either switch positions with another student, or attempt to argue for some third option. If you do offer students the opportunity to argue for a third option, make sure to work with the student before-hand to ensure that this option is at least a coherent position.
Students become too focused on “winning” the debate. The seemingly competitive structure of a debate can encourage students to focus on rhetorically “beating” the “other side,” rather than using objections as an opportunity to develop their own views and provide their debate counterparts the same opportunity to develop their views.
Explain the purpose of section debate. Before section, make clear that the aim of hosting a debate, at least in the context of a discussion section, is to help develop a better understanding of a relevant issue or argument. It is not aimed at advancing a specific position or establishing rhetorical superiority.
Provide a end-of-debate debrief. At the end of section, run through major points of discussion and remaining questions. This will allow you to conclude the section with an emphasis on specific learning arrived at through the debate, rather than on the debate exercise itself.
Ethics Policy Simulation: Break students into small groups (2-4 students), and ask each group to take the role of a committee tasked with developing an ethics policy or statement in response to some issue relevant to the course. For example, in a course discussing issues of freedom of speech, you might ask students to craft user content moderation rules for a social media platform. Depending on the needs of the course, you can make the simulation scenarios more or less based in reality. Have each group share their policy/statement with the rest of the section, and invite other students to ask questions and raise concerns about the policy/statement.
Well-suited for:
Modifying an ethical claim or theory to respond to some problem.
Providing an original solution to (or even an original way of thinking about) a particular issue or case.
Strengths
Emphasizes the ordinariness and inescapability of ethics. By engaging in case simulation, students are forced to encounter ethical questions and challenges in a way similar to how they arise in actual day-to-day life (as opposed to more abstract puzzles considered in a classroom setting). Ethical questions and challenges are part of being a thoughtful agent acting in the world.
Encourages applied ethical reasoning. While other forms of open discussion can be useful for teasing out the structure and content of ethical claims, commitments, and theories, working through case simulations can encourage students to work towards practical conclusions in their ethical reasoning and discussion – results that can be acted upon in real world situations.
Great for discussion sections later in or at the end of the term. While simulation activities can be effectively employed in service of all types of learning goals, having students create serious, original responses to ethical theories or cases requires that students already have a significant level of familiarity with the relevant theories or cases. Insufficiently prepared students are likely to get confused about the relevance of the hypothetical simulation scenario, the connections between the scenario and ethical issues discussed in the course, and so on. However, if used once students have already become familiar with the relevant course issues, an Ethics Policy Simulation discussion can be a great opportunity for students to apply their new knowledge.
Potential Challenges and Solutions
Students struggle to make connections between particular cases and broader ethical considerations or theories. Students can struggle to identify ethical relevant features of the case, and they can get caught up responding to particular features of the given case, as opposed to using the case as a chance to apply general ethical values, principles, or views.
Hold a debrief. Save time at the end of section to review and/or discuss important ethical ideas that came up in students’ policies or statements. Use this as an opportunity to draw explicit connections to course material or broader ethical ideas in general.
Recognize the difficulty. During discussion of students’ statements or policies, intervene and explicitly note points where students are missing an important connection or failing to notice an ethically relevant consideration. This can serve both as an opportunity to make clear the complexity of careful, applied ethical reasoning while also modeling such careful reasoning for students.
Students are hesitant to ask questions or provide feedback to other student groups on their policies. Students can feel uncomfortable being critical of fellow students’ work, especially when that work can express personal views on substantive, real world ethical cases.
Model questions and feedback. After allowing time for other students to respond first, raise questions or concerns to presenting students yourself. Put forth questions and concerns that are indicative of the kind of questions/concerns that are valuable in a discussion of ethical issues (e.g., make sure any concern you raise is explicitly aimed at the content of the statement/policy, not at the authors of that statement/policy).
Run a simulation test case. Before running the main policy simulation discussion, run a shorter sample simulation where you provide a policy/statement in response to a different (but relevantly similar) case, and invite students to direct questions/concerns toward your own policy/statement. This can encourage students to feel comfortable in the general discussion format, before having to directly address their peers.