Using Student Debates to bring the Real World to a Cooperatives Class Joan Fulton Department of Agricultural Economics Purdue University

The Course Agricultural Cooperation Senior Level 1 Credit (5 weeks) Meeting 3 times per week for 50 minutes Enrollment has ranged from 18 to 32

The Course Evaluation 3 homework assignments Exam in week 4 Debate in week 5 Topics covered: Role of Cooperatives in Agriculture Economic Theory applied to Cooperatives Emerging Issues for Cooperatives Game Theory explanation of jnt. ownership

Debate – Objectives To help students understand the complexity behind business decisions in general and for cooperatives specifically There are no Black and White Decisions Different Decisions impact Different People in Different Ways To bring Real World Problems to class Experiential Learning makes more of a take

Logistics 8 Students do “oral” debate Volunteers 2 Debates in one 50-minute class Remaining students complete written report Both sides of the debate Is one of the topics for the oral debates

Resources for Students Suggested Web sites b_debates/prepared.html b_debates/prepared.html Background sources for information on the cooperatives WWW, personal contact with managers and directors Instructor – office hours

Timing for each Debate First Affirmative Constructive Speech (3 Min.) First Negative Constructive Speech (3 Min.) Second Affirmative Constructive Speech (3 Min.) Second Negative Constructive Speech (3 Min.) Break (3 Min.) Summary/Rebuttal by First Negative (3 Min.) Summary/Rebuttal by First Affirmative (3 Min.)

Topics over last 2 years CountryMark merger with Land O’Lakes Farmland Industry potential purchase if Terra Industries Farmland Industries merger with Cenex Harvest States Merger of AgMax and Top Ag (2 locally owned cooperatives in IN)

Feedback and Grading Evaluation by peers Evaluation by other faculty/staff Instructor summarized all feedback and assigns the grade to each team of students Students who did written report got traditional feedback from instructor

Challenges 5 Weeks is short Difficult to get students enough background information in topic areas The range of quality of the student presentations if large Need to monitor the teams Have to work with students to get them to “push” the analysis

Positive Features Excellent learning tool Students get experience with alternative forms of communication Students evaluate each other Experiential and Active Learning Mgt. Problems are not Black & White Direct Real World Applications