Activity: Practice Debate

The aim of the present activity is to prepare learners to participate in structured classroom debates. The outcomes of the activity are to support learners is receiving feedback in terms of how they can improve their participation and performance in debates.

The present activity expects learners to form pairs, an individual labelled 'A' another labelled 'B'. The self-organising pair are then assigned a number that can be used to select pairs randomly to perform their debates.

Topic

The topic of the debate is the Apple Inc Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM) solution. Learners should have already considered a video interview between a journalist and Apple representative regarding the deployment of the solution. Learners should consider the approach of the Apple Inc representative that aims to maintain audience focus on the concept of contraband, privacy protection and the difference between searching and identification.

The interview is relevant to Forensics from the perspective of legal protections and expectations when it comes to contraband, that is illicit and illegal material in a jurisdiction. As well as the nuance and concerns around the concept of searching and identification of contraband within a corpora.

Position

For this debate, speaker A and speaker B are to adopt opposing position whether they agree with those positions or not. Speakers will have FOUR minutes to present their position to the floor. The speakers should represent the following:

Speakers should gather evidence and develop points designed to convince their opponent that their position is the most optimal of those presented. If selected, both speakers will present their arguments to the class before receiving feedback from their partner, and then the wider class.

Feedback

Learners, both in their capacity as an opposing speaker and a class members, should judge and provide feedback to speakers along the following dimensions:

The feedback provided to the speaker should be framed to support them in refining their skills for subsequent debate activities. Speakers upon receiving feedback should use the plan for action sheet to act upon the feedback received.

Materials