No matter which of the teaching methods outlined in Background and Basics seem most appropriate for your needs and goals, an important issue for any teaching strategy is evaluation. The instructor's manual provided with each individual Taking Sides volume will be of help to you in choosing testing and evaluation techniques, as will the following evaluative systems. These systems can simplify the evaluation process and protect both you and your students against involuntary bias in dealing with some very subjective areas.

EMPHASIZE PROCESS OVER CONTENT

Performance appraisal of debates and discussions can be done subjectively or objectively, with large or small classes, much as with other teaching approaches. Subjective assessment need not be very dissimilar from term paper or essay grading, while objective evaluation may be conducted by such usual means, as multiple-choice, true/false, and short-answer questions.
In order to promote constructive student dialogue, do not emphasize assessing the amount of the course materials retained by each student, but rather how the student uses the course materials. Thus, your interest will be not so much the factual content of the discussion or debate, but the process of the discussion and students' thinking. The students, too, will be encouraged by the challenge of emphasizing process over content.
In a panel discussion, for example, upgrade students who provide empirical evidence for their arguments, anticipate the opposition's points and are ready with counterpoints, evaluate the reasoning and support of the opposition, and the like. Upgrading is merited because the content of the arguments or points are the students', not necessarily the text's, the article's, or the instructor's, although all of these sources provide necessary guidance.
In this case, since the students are relatively free of content evaluation (in favor of process--that is, the "how" rather than the "what"), they will be more willing to focus and apply their own thinking, relate the issues to their own lives, and question the supposed facts more openly.
Grading for all projects and activities may be based on the following possible evaluation criteria:

  • Use of supporting materials outside of the Taking Sides readings.
  • Grasp of the issue and important related points.
  • Proper use of supporting empirical evidence.
  • Identification of points of agreement and points of disagreement.
  • The ability to anticipate and counter opposing viewpoints.
  • Use of supporting points not suggested by Taking Sides introductions.
  • The ability to see and challenge flaws in the opposition's arguments and research, as well as in one's own.
  • Use of constructive criticism and rationales.
  • The ability to make the topic relevant to the audience and/or opposition (if there is one).
  • The ability to anticipate questions.
  • The ability to ask appropriate questions.

GRADING

One method is to quantify the components of a good debate with a rating scale in order to confer a composite grade. You may use these items as they apply to a group team (and thus assign all members of the group the same grade) or you may apply these criteria to individual participants.

  • Did the student or group prepare well, recognizing the primary issues and gathering and assessing the appropriate supporting materials?
  • Was the presentation well organized and effective?
  • How interesting was the project, discussion, debate, or presentation? A lackluster job may indicate a poor understanding of the issue or little preparation and effort.
  • Was the issue presented and defended empirically?
  • Did the student or group go beyond the issue as presented in the Taking Sides volume? Students who can relate their topic to the bigger issue should get credit for their vision.
  • Was the student or group perceptive to the weak points on the opposite side?
  • How well did the group work together to achieve the goals of the activity?
Professor Dan Gallagher, Department of Psychology, Salisbury State University, Salisbury, Maryland, developed a formal debate evaluation/grading system. It involves averaging class evaluation scales with instructor evaluation scales to determine final grades for individual debate participants. It can be used for a formal team approach to a debate or a less formal, individual approach. To implement this system, have the students who are not directly involved in the debate rate each side of the debate using the Class Evaluation Scale. While this is being done, fill out your own Instructor Evaluation Scale for each member of the debate. After the debate, average the responses for each class survey, then average your survey of each student with the class rating for each side of the debate. An individual final student grade would then be determined in part by your own assigned grade and in part by the class assessment of the debate as a whole. You may also choose to average the class evaluation scales by themselves to assess a peer rating for the debate.
Another option, which allows the instructor to evaluate the students who are not debating and to make use of students' responses to the debaters, was developed by Professor James M. Kilbride, Department of Psychology, Miami-Dade Community College South. His Issue Evaluation Form handout, which he titles "I'll Take My Stand," may be used in conjunction with any of the previously described Taking Sides discussion/debate techniques that involve student presentations. This handout should be distributed to nondebating students at the time the debate issue is assigned. The students may then fill in the appropriate information at the appropriate times. Hence, line 1 would be filled in before the selections are read, and lines 2 and 3.a through 3.c after both readings have been completed. Questions for Presenters, Notes during the debate, and the conclusion and Evaluation lines should be filled in directly after the debate or presentation. The instructor may then collect the completed forms and determine how well the student internalized the readings and how much attention the student accorded the debate. Then the instructor may apply the student evaluations toward the debaters' scores.
Most students recognize the purpose of peer grading of group activities. It forces students to work together in groups and to prepare outside of class. Partial responsibility for the grades of others also motivates students to perform well.

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