General Sessions
General Sessions will address everything Stoa, including the new Stoa Marketing initiative.
General Session #1 - Stoa - Purpose, Mission, Culture
General Session #2 - Developing the Stoa Brand
Outline of our future strategy of what we plan on doing with the Stoa Branding. This will include Website, Marketing Collateral and ideas for local clubs to leverage the Stoa Brand in fundraising. Includes discussion on Stoa Insurance and 501c3. How to use the Stoa logo to create brand recognition to the greater Stoa community.
General Session #3 - Stoa - Celebrating our Diversity
Students, parents, and coaches alike need to understand the differences between rules, norms and theory. Frustration, bitterness, and strained relations can easily take root in any competitive activity. In Forensics, these problems are often more pronounced among parents and coaches than among our students. How do we protect our activity from the “little league parent” syndrome?
General Session #4 - Stoa - The Future and Beyond
General Session #5 - Q and A & Closing Session
This panel discussion will include the new and current board members, and the Debate and IE chairs. Participants will have the opportunity to voice opinions on the Coaches Academy and provide feedback to the board regarding direction. Kind a of like a dinner table chat session...
Workshop Sessions
Workshop Sessions will allow attendees to focus on Individual Events, the world of Debate and Club/Tournament administration.
Workshop sessions will be added as we move forward but here is what will be offered currently:
How to Coach Parli Debate
Griffith Vertican
This class will be an introduction for coaches who want to launch a Parliamentary debate program, but will likely have fresh perspective for veteran Parli coaches too. There will be a quick review of Parli protocol, then instruction on how to teach intro to Parli, and finally information on how to effectively use club time for Parli preparation.
Debate Tab Unplugged and the philosophical side of tab, keeping our software accountable
Mike Winther
(Parent Recommended)
This session is not just for tab staff. Every parent and every coach can benefit from a deeper understanding of the tab room.
"The tab-room is not a black & white, cut and dried place. There are philosophical issues that determine how we tabulate a tournament. Every tab-room embraces certain philosophies whether we are aware of them or not. Mike will discuss some of the competing views of tournaments and how our tab procedures reflect various philosophies of our competition.
Modern software is a great benefit to the tab room, but like many modern technologies, our dependence on software can become a crutch that leaves us unaware of the principles of tabulation. In this session, Mike will briefly demonstrate how to manually tab a debate tournament while teaching the fundamentals of tab. This is important because even our best software contains “bugs” that adversely affect our tournaments. This session will use the principles of manual tabulation to help tournament official’s spot errors and mistakes—both human and electronic."
Avoiding adjudications: effectively training debaters to understand Stoa rules
Tj Harding
We will review pitfalls that land debaters in adjudications and highlight areas that coaches need to be diligent to cover. We will also explore ideas for helping debaters understand and adhere to the Stoa rules.
Forensics is a competitive activity and competition can bring out the worst in all of us. It’s always difficult to watch an opponent use undesirable practices or even to break the rules. In this session you’ll hear thoughts on a proper use of adjudication: how to respond to rule violations, when to opt for adjudication, and the need to always be gracious."
Intro to the 2014/2015 LD resolutions
Lary Sparks
We will introduce and explore this year's LD resolutions. Our new dual resolution model offers fresh challenges to coaches and debaters. This workshop will include recommended resources and ideas for managing the two resolutions.
Materials & methods for supplementing forensics
Mike Winther
(Parent Recommended)
Are we obligated to teach our students more than Rhetoric? Successful Stoa competitors gain some amazing skills including: research, logic, communication, and persuasion skills to name just a few. But is this enough? As Christian parents and coaches, how do we better prepare them to know, maintain and defend their faith as they go into the world? How do we prepare them to defend justice and liberty? Are they prepared to apply scripture to the practical issues faced by our society? Materials: Because forensics is not enough, this session will suggest specific materials including: courses, books, audios, and DVDs from a variety of Christian ministries that parents and coaches might want to use to supplement the speech and debate experience. Methods: As the old saying goes, “You can lead a horse to water but you can make him drink”. How do we make our students hungry for the teaching of their parents, their church and their coach? This session will also discuss ideas and suggest techniques for motivating and inspiring our students to better prepare themselves for a lifetime of service to our Lord.
How to run a tournament & Introduction to One Day Tournaments
Debbie Synder
(Parent Recommended)
This class will cover the nuts and bolts of running tournaments including scheduling, awards ideas, cost savings, judge recruitment, participation, & other out of the box thinking. We also introduce the concept of One Day Tournaments.
What’s the Alternative?
Griffith Vertican
Why counter plans are a scholarly approach to debate and are necessary for fairness, education and help to equip our students for both college and the real world.
Strategic Feedback & How Not to Intervene
Griffith Vertican
(Parent Recommended)
How to maximize your feedback when critiquing a debate round and how to improve the content of your feedback on your ballots. Judge Intervention is antithetical to the spirit of fair play and the purpose statement of Stoa, so this lecture will teach you how to be just a judge and write a better ballot."
NITOC Debate Orientations - Harvesting Input for Continuous Improvement
Angela Childress and Maggie Carabelos
This session will include a presentation of potential ways that NITOC Debate orientations could be modified, followed by a panel discussion & audience input. Our goal is to provide a springboard for brainstorming & assessing ways to best support & educate judges with NITOC Debate orientations
How to Drill a National Champion
Griffith Vertican
(Parent Recommended)
A good baseball coach knows that specific hitting and defense drills will improve the performance of the team, here Coach Griffith will share some of the drills he has used to coach champions.
Debate Coaching Round Table Discussion
Tj Harding
(Parent Recommended)
This is an opportunity for coaches to come together to share resources and insights. Some of Stoa's most experienced coaches will moderate the discussions and provide wisdom, advice and insight gleaned from years of experience.
NITOC Individual Events Orientations - Harvesting Input for Continuous Improvement
Angela Childress
This session will include a presentation of potential ways that NITOC IE orientations could be modified, followed by a panel discussion & audience input. Our goal is to provide a springboard for brainstorming & assessing ways to best support & educate judges with NITOC speech orientations.
Finding Material for Interps & Subjects for Platforms
Craig Smith
(Parent Recommended)
Coaches are always being asked, “Where can I find a piece for my child?” There’s a treasure-trove of materials and sources out there waiting to be discovered! Learn how to get a head-start on prepping interps and platforms.
Working With New Clubbers
Craig Smith
What can you do to get your first year students speaking and excited about Individual Events? There are lots of easy ways to prime the pump long before a speech is written or an interp is located or limited preps are prepped. Get your first-year clubbers off to a successful start!
Building the Bridge: Making Mars Hill Relevant
Leslie Martin and Sue Danielson
(Parent Recommended)
The goal of Mars Hill is evangelism and the speakers should use culture to draw the listener to the truths of Christianity. This class will focus on helping the speaker “build the bridge” and be effective at sharing his faith with unbelievers in an attractive and engaging manner that encourages further interest.
Wild About Wildcards!
Craig Smith
(Parent Recommended)
Building on Broadcasting and Introducing Inspirational/Motivational Speaking. This session will premiere the pre-published rules and ballot for our newest Wildcard, Inspirational/Motivational Speaking and give some lessons learned from our first year of Broadcasting.
IE Round Table
Craig Smith
(Parent Recommended)
This is an opportunity to ask IE experts questions about any IE events, why we have them and what is the goal of each event. The IE team will also outline the future and take feedback on IE.