coaching Resources For Teaching And Coaching Debate

[Denver_East_03 18]

Hello,

 

I am a teacher in training, and will be doing my student teaching semester next year, split between social studies and debate classes. I want to start planning my curriculum and lesson plans, and was hoping to go some advice, and maybe eventually feedback, from the community here. I didn't find any other forum threads that seemed extremely relevant, but please let me know if some of this has already been discussed.

 

I am most curious about what resources are out there for coaches, in regards to lesson examples, articles, suggested activities, forums on the subject, etc. This is what I am aware of already:

 

Cross-X's Novice center

 

NDCA's Open Evidence Project, Coaching/Teaching Resources, and Wiki

 

Planet Debate

 

Georgetown Debate Seminar 2011

 

NFL and NFL Resources

 

Debatepedia!

 

I am a former Debater, who had several coaching switches and ineffective classroom environments. As a Teacher and Coach myself, I want to create an effective, organized, and enjoyable classroom experience. The current Debate teacher is a contract employee, with a legal background, but no teaching experience/training. I find his approach too dictatorial, disorganized, and generally ineffective. I find this depressing and often frustrating, but as least I have a clear example of what I do not want to replicate. Therefore, please share any other resources you may have and I would be very grateful. If anyone wants to share examples of lesson plans, I also would be very interested in seeing these. Over the next few months as I start writing my own, I will post them here and would appreciate any feedback!

 

Thanks, and best of luck this semester to your teams.

 

Ben

[nathan_debate 745]

Its hard to overestimate the value of the debate wiki & the open evidence project--because it allows debaters to pattern their arguments and to see how arguments fit together (at least in early speeches). Its also a prime place to identify arguments to research--particularly for add-on advantages or for generics. Asking...how does this function, what does this pre-empt, is this a smart strategy, is this credible evidence can help debaters think strategically about how to argue as well as the tactics they pursue in crafting their own case.

 

The speech by scott deatheredge--its an epic speech on strategy from one of the top coaches in college debate during the last decade at the Northwestern Debate Camp where he used to coach (he passed about 2 years ago). I think its about an hour and 15 minutes long--it includes a transcript:

http://www.cross-x.c...ges-the-speech/

 

The 3NR is quite helpful. Its an amazing repository of useful insights. It mostly focuses on strategy, but also preparation. Its the most dense resource for JV and varsity debaters available:

http://www.the3nr.com/

 

Debate Vision (debate videos--both lectures and videos of debate rounds):

http://debatevision.com/

 

Camp lectures mega-thread from 2011-2012 space development topic:

http://www.cross-x.c...__1#entry841981

 

Putting the K in debate (the debate rounds and demo debates from the GDI are probably the most useful here):

http://puttingthekindebate.com/

 

Debate Central (funded by the NCPA, which I believe is a libertarian think tank). I'm not sure about the quality of the content--but the free case critique is interesting. Brian R was an excellent debater on the college circuit:

http://debate-central.ncpa.org/

 

Debate Central (Vermont):

http://debate.uvm.edu/

Learn Debate Section http://debate.uvm.edu/learndebate.html

Debate Video (Policy Section) http://debate.uvm.edu/policyvideo.html

 

Emory Debate Manual is a great intro to the activity (it includes two sets of definition of terms):

http://www.scribd.co...y-Debate-Manual

 

Michigan State has a debate wiki, which defines particular arguments (i've linked to the "A" section)--it includes reference to specific organizations which may only come up on specific international debate topics:

http://sdiencycloped...ikispaces.com/A

 

The college debate wiki can be helpful for K-type arguments and answering them. It can also be helpful for generics (like hege, prolif, softpower, democracy, etc...)

http://opencaselist.wikispaces.com/

 

American Rhetoric (a virtual textbook of sorts on rhetoric). [there are pop-up ads, but its worth it]. Mostly great for its collection of the greatest speeches of all times as well as a number of great movie speeches:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/

 

Emory Debate Camp demonstration debates:

http://endi2011.wiki...es.com/LECTURES

 

List of video lectures from the 2010 topic (includes theory & strategy type lectures too):

http://www.the3nr.co...mer-institutes/

 

The primary sites that I've left off are most specific to philosophy & political philosophy, are think tanks, or are respected publications.

 

I also think watching the presidential debates....if they are available on Youtube **could** be helpful. Sometimes the level of warrant in those debates is about what passes for warrants in theory debates and our actual politics debates.

 

PBS has sponsored a number of political debates which might be helpful for just thinking about and analyzing arguments. Also there are at least a dozen "public policy debate" social network type sites which feature both sides of a particular topic. Ideally these can serve as scaffolding for organized impromptu debates in class.

 

Drills/Activities:

1. Essay on a philosophical topic (3 pages)

2. Cross-examination drill in a circle (each progressive person asks a question)

3. Mini-debates (I wish I had example times)

4. Rebuttal redoes of one specific speech. (The value of this is really supported by the work on deliberative practice)

5. Flowing drills

6. Cutting a debate article activity--preferably with 8 or more cards. (Each person gets a copy of the original article--reading and bracketing for 10 to 12 minutes silently....and then talking as a class to reflect on how you cut the various arguments).

 

A number of debate camps offer camps specific for coaches:

1. Michigan

2. Iowa

3. I'm sure others

[Denver_East_03 18]

Thanks, that is a lot of great info. I am familiar with 3nr and DebateVision, but will definitely look into the rest! I seem to remember somewhere that coaches could apply for a scholarship for debate camp, if anyone remembers more about who was offering this, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Thanks again Nathan!

[nathan_debate 745]

The NFL aggregates a bunch:

http://www.nflonline.org/CoachingResources/CoachWorkshops

 

Of those DDI & UNT (Mean Green) are the best for policy. Everything else falls by the wayside. Whitman and Capital Classic represents the next level.

 

And I know the Michigan camp is quite good.....assuming they still have the coaching offering.....it might be as well (I seem to remember it being about $500)

 

Also, I believe some of the programs offer college credit--which might help if your teaching position requires ongoing professional development or you want to pursue an MA.

[robllawrence 972]

I keep a small list of links that are relevant for me...it's mostly a place for me to keep stuff so I don't have to search again.

 

http://debatelinks.com click on the web links.

[nathan_debate 745]

I imagine the debates on video (or audio) are quite helpful:

http://debatelinks.com/?q=weblinks

 

Two text summaries of "The Speech" by Scott Deatheredge:

http://compassioninpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/scott-eatherage-the-speech-at-northwestern-debate-camp/

[Nature Boy 56]

My current project: http://debateos.org please think about donating to the kickstarter campaign. I've respun Ubuntu 11.04 for debate. We will also release the debateOS template and macros which are compatible with any flavor of Open Office (Open Office, Neo office, Star Office, Libre Office, etc) and any operating system (Windows, OS X, and Linux). They work and look exactly the same on all 3 operating systems, maximizing team compatibility and choice of OS/laptop.

 

I also think that the owncloud project is coming along great. Tech departments at schools and universities ought to be able to deploy a personally controlled, fully featured cloud (like dropbox), with more features, and as much space as you want (you physically control the system). In a few days 3.0 is supposed to come out and rumor is that OpenOffice document collaboration/editing will be included.

 

http://owncloud.org

[nathan_debate 745]

The Emory Manual is pretty helpful (this is an edited version for Urban Debate Leagues):

http://www.bostondebate.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Policy-Debate-Manual.pdf

 

Master List of Debate Camp Videos for the Transportation Topic:

http://www.cross-x.com/topic/53377-debate-camp-lectures-demo-rounds-on-the-transportation-topic/

 

Any updates to the list from other people?

[TejaVepa 260]

This isn't related to teaching/coaching, but to enter tournaments you'll want these links:

 

 

http://www.joyoftournaments.com (the Cadillac of tournament websites--all NFL related tournaments are hosted here as well as several invitationals)

 

http://www.tabroom.com (Formerly debateresults.com, some important tournaments and many college tournaments get posted here)

 

http://www.forensicstournament.net (the poor man's tournament website--It's extremely cheap to host a tournament on it as compared to the other sites and you'll find a lot of small local tournaments here)

 

 

 

 

 

The other posters did a very complete job of posting debate learning links-- someone should sticky this

[nathan_debate 745]

Three related questions

• Any resources on logic/fallacies (articles, texts, e-books, websites, etc.....)?
  
• How about debate more broadly?
  
• Also what are the best online resources for Lincoln-Douglas....and Lincoln-Douglas type debates?
  

[TejaVepa 260]

Three related questions

• Any resources on logic/fallacies (articles, texts, e-books, websites, etc.....)?
  
• How about debate more broadly?
  
• Also what are the best online resources for Lincoln-Douglas....and Lincoln-Douglas type debates?
  

 

 

General Debate resources in various formats can be found from the International Debate Education Assocation (IDEA) They maintain a resource called the Debatabase, which is pretty cool.

http://idebate.org/

 

A popular set of LD websites are http://www.nsdupdate.com and http://www.limitlessdebate.org

 

 

AND

 

The University of Vermont's Debate Central has a lot of (albiet old) debate resources that give an insight into the recent history of the activity:

http://debate.uvm.edu/

[nathan_debate 745]

In terms of the LD recommendations provided by Teja....

 

Great recommendations....I primarily only found use for the NSDUPDATE site in relation to

• http://nsdupdate.com...gory/resources/

 

Where you can also find videos:

http://nsdvideos.wee...video-list.html

 

vimeo.com/lddebate

 

Sorry...the third link you will have to cut & paste into a browser...(oh....so difficult.....)

 

Also, I forgot this thread on LD Videos, which should include the above links as well:

http://www.cross-x.com/topic/49181-where-can-i-find-videos-of-ld-debate/

[nathan_debate 745]

There are two additional threads on this topic--one about teaching novices....one about team meetings for novice--they effectively overlap in content:

 

http://www.cross-x.c...es-efficiently/

 

http://www.cross-x.c...ovice-practice/

 

I hope both of these help in your efforts.

[nathan_debate 745]

Here is a new-ish site around speech & debate.

 

It requires you to sign up: http://speechvideos.co/

 

From the outside it appears to be free.

[DeCoach 958]

Excellent thread; many thanks to those who posted here.

[robllawrence 972]

I agree.  Pinned.

[nathan_debate 745]

This is an LD-based thread on online debate videos:

http://www.limitlessdebate.org/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=6

 

I assume that most of the answers on LD-oriented.

 

I do remember someone pointing to for instance the Berkeley videos on Vimeo. (which suggests the possibility of some policy-based answers mixed in)

[nathan_debate 745]

List of debate textbooks--I believe all free & available in PDF form online:

http://www.nycudl.org/teachers/nycudl_debate_textbooks.html

 

Feel free to post which of these you find to be the most helpful in your role as a coach.  

[nathan_debate 745]

I'm going to add the top post in this thread regarding useful research cites.  I'm sure there are others in the thread:

http://www.cross-x.com/topic/55265-compilation-of-good-sources-for-evidence/

[nathan_debate 745]

Here are some coaching resources that might be decent:

http://www.debatemilwaukee.org/coaching-materials

 

I've never seen the Kernoff lecture on strategy.

[TheDifferend 11]

NFLStudent50Percent

 

I found this 50% discount code for the SpeechVideos.co site. 

 

It looks like they update the site yearly...but have policy, ext, oratory, & puff materials already up.

[nathan_debate 745]

This isn't super helpful for teachers starting out necessarily, but this has links to video from several college debates:

http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?topic=2631.0

[coach_hanes 66]

You can have my policy debate textbook for free.

 

For LD, I'd recommend Marko Djuranovic's book, which is free. His value and criterion discussion is really clear; it helped my debaters a lot.

[coach_hanes 66]

Also, here's a set of rubrics if you are doing intro to public speaking.

[LincolnPrepTigerDb8 30]

Jackie Massey's Critical Debate Handbook is incredibly helpful as well.