2013 CDL Coach Training Courses

General Information

The Chicago Debate Commission will offer two Coach Training Courses this summer, as it has for most summers throughout the league’s history. These courses are our most intensive, extended professional development opportunities of the entire season, and are designed to ensure that teachers emerge from them with considerably expanded capacity to teach and coach competitive academic debate, and thereby have a more successful and more satisfying 2013/14 debate season.

Both courses will offer CPDUs through the Illinois State Board of Education, through which the CDC is an approved PD provider. They will also each offer five hours of credit within the Chicago Debate League’s Professional Development System.

Both courses are designed for CMSDL coaches as well as CDL coaches. The MS and HS formats are similar enough, and their topics and many of their arguments are identical; when our HS and MS coaches are learning and training together, good things happen.

Both courses will be held at the location of the 2013 Chicago Debate Summer Institute, Westinghouse College Prep, 3223 W. Franklin Blvd.

Registration is free. Register by email to christinehorst@resources.chicagodebates.org.

Course Descriptions

Fundamentals of Competitive Academic Debate Coaching – July 29th – July 31st, 9:00am – 3:30pm

This course is designed to introduce new coaches to the basic elements of competitive academic debate and to make them familiar with the essential components of effective coaching in the Chicago Debate League. The course is also useful for all relatively new coaches (with one to two years of experience) who want to solidify their comfort with and control over the fundamentals, including all of the Year One CDL Debater Development Benchmarks, as well as a solid introduction to the Latin America topic and the 2013/14 Core Files.

Comments from recent course evaluations.

“I appreciated getting guided through the Core Files arguments.”
“The breakdown of the debate format was very clear.”
“Your explanations made this process seem less pressured.”
“Comprehensive handouts, clear explanations.”
“The past three days have been very rewarding. I am excited about assuming this role in my school.”

Coaching Debate at the Varsity Level – August 5th – August 7th, 9:00am – 3:30pm

This course is designed to help debate coaches who feel comfortable coaching and teaching JV debaters move into the more advanced realms of Varsity debate. Kritiks, counterplan theory and competitiveness, advanced topicality debating, creating negative strategies, researching new cases – these are all on the agenda. We’ll also delve into the Latin America topic, moving into and beyond the 2013/14 Core Files. But we won’t abandon the core of academic debate – rather, we’ll illuminate the connectedness between advanced skills and the essential pillars of refutation and the use of evidence. We’ll examine prepared flows on the new topic, closely analyzing refutation. And we’ll hear from recent debaters on the means they have used to gain competitive advantages, in preparation and in rounds.

Comments from recent course evaluations.

“Lots of great examples provided.”
“Thanks for the interesting and well-structured class.”
“The lecturers featured were great.”
“The best feature of this course was the amount of knowledge imparted in three days.”
“I’m in awe of the entire program. Cannot wait for the start of the [new] CDL season.”