In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes in: Has anyone coached an Ethics Bowl team before? I just found out I will be next year, and I have no idea how to do it well.
I began coaching Ethics Bowl teams in my first job (a VAP at UBC), and have coached a team each of the past nine years at my current institution (a few of which have done quite well!). Let me begin by saying that it really has been one of the more rewarding parts of my job. The students tend to be really into it, it leads to good philosophical discussions that students learn from and challenge you to learn from as well–and when your team does well, it can be really gratifying to see your students shine (especially if, as is often the case, you've seen your students grow over several years). Finally, even in cases where your team doesn't do well, it can be a positive experience–provided you and your team members approach it as a learning opportunity.
Anyway, I don't want to give all of my team's "secrets" away (as my teams have worked hard experimenting with a lot of different things, some of which may not have worked for us but might work for other teams). So let me instead just outline how we prepare in general.
I've heard that different teams prepare in different ways. On the one hand, I've heard a few schools have formal 1-credit classes (or whatever) dedicated to Ethics Bowl prep. We don't have that here. What we do instead is usually meet one time each week in the fall (usually on Fridays) for about 2 hours. Because there's usually something like 12 cases to prepare for, and about 8 weeks to prepare (once the cases come out), we usually spend the first six weeks preparing two cases per 2-hour session (so, roughly one hour per case). However, I usually try to organize a first 'informational' team meeting before the cases come out so the students can get to know each other, and during which I give a very quick "crash course" on moral reasoning (with just a wee bit of moral theory)–which I think is important, as there are usually more than a few students who have never taken a philosophy class before, let alone an ethics. Fortunately, they typically get the hang of things pretty quickly.
In terms of prep meetings, we usually prepare for each cases following the official scoring rubric, which has judges grade teams on (if I remember correctly):
- Clarity of answer to the case question (viz. a statement our preferred position).
- Listing morally relevant dimensions of the case (e.g. autonomy, etc.)
- Quality/persuasiveness main argument
- Potential concerns the other team may raise
- Our replies
Usually, given time constraints, we'll focus on parts 1-3 and then briefly toss off answers to 4 and 5 off the top of our heads. We usually begin by reading the case out loud. I then ask the students what the main moral dimensions are. I'll write them on a white board. Then I'll ask which position they'd like to defend on the case and why. Since you aren't given the case question in advance (it's a surprise at the actual competition), you basically have to prepare for what you take the most likely question to be–and then your team needs to adapt on the fly if the question is different. Anyway, in most cases the students hone in pretty quickly on which position they want to defend. If there are any obvious philosophical problems with what they want to defend, I'll raise them–and occasionally, if I think an argument the team wants to give will fare poorly, I'll note that. Still, for the most part, I let the team decide what to argue (as I think it's important not to have a faculty coach dictate what the team argues, and for the team to "learn from its mistakes", as it were). Then, as the argument comes together, I'll diagram it on the white board–along with whatever the team comes up with to 4 and 5 above. Then I'll take a picture of the white board and type up them up as notes for the team to access in a Googledoc.
We also usually assign particular cases to particular team members to do some additional outside research. Finally, we usually spend the last week or two prior to the competition doing mock debates. One issue here is selecting a "main speaker." With some teams, we've had a single student who is a really gifted public speaker–and in those cases the team basically elected to have that student always present our main argument (with other team members helping to formulate the argument in the 2-minute prep period and then chiming in with respect to parts 4 and 5). Other times, though, we've assigned particular cases to particular team members (viz. Team Member A is main speaker for Cases 1&2, Team Member B speaker for Cases 3&4, and so on). When it comes to these decisions, I again like to defer to the team's judgment–though it is important to me to prevent any student from feeling like the group's decisions are unfair. So, in some cases, if I suspect there are strange group dynamics going on, I may reserve those decisions for myself.
Again, I've heard other teams prepare very differently. Some teams I've heard do "mock debates" on cases from Day 1. My team tried that one year and it didn't work for us (it seemed to detract from the quality of our arguments, as we devoted less time to discussing the cases slowly and carefully)–but I've heard other teams say it works for them, so maybe it's worth giving a try. But that, I guess, is my closing piece of advice: to experiment with things, with different approaches to case-prep, to see what works best for you and your students. Use your judgment as a philosopher in consultation with your team, see how well your team fares, and then make adjustments the next season! Sometimes this kind of experimenting will lead your team to "take a step back", but oftentimes, my experience is that your team will learn something it can use more effectively the next time around. And that, again, is in my experience one of the real joys of doing these things: seeing students come back to the team year after year, develop ideas for what they can do better than last year, and so on. It's all a learning experience, and in my experience a good and fun one and that!
But these are just some of my tips. If you have coached an ethics bowl team before, what's your experience? And do you have any good tips?
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