Northwest Parli-IE Warmup

 

Action Forums!

 

 

HOW THE ACTION FORUMS WORK. 1

NINE FORUMS. 2

Being a Positive Discussion Participant 3

 

HOW THE ACTION FORUMS WORK

At the NW Parli-IE Warmup, students, coaches, and judges will work together in an action forum of their choice.

For Each Action Forum, we request that one person in each group take on the role of leader for the group. The Action Forum Group Leader should encourage and assure the forum achieves its goals including good discussion, developing a list of action items, and emailing Jim Hanson the list of action items for your group: hansonjb@gmail.com

Note: Each group will be provided a sheet for students to signup as student advisors for the NFC Equity project—a larger project beyond the Action Forums to make our community better. Take advantage of this opportunity and join this great effort for student advisors to be involved for change for the better!   

Each Action Forum group will discuss, work on, engage, there are many possibilities for addressing the issue that each group chooses to address. You’ll meet twice—once on Saturday and once on Sunday.

We expect all participants in each forum to participate with equal support. We want the effort to be collaborative rather than to “win” points or “show someone isn’t smart” or to value a highly successful student, coach, or judge’s comments more than any other’s. Participants—give yourself and the other participants the opportunity to speak and _be heard_ equally as much as is possible.

--Please read “action-forums-good-discussions.docx” sheet. : )

The Action Forum Group Leader should type up a list of actions/items/key points relevant to their group--could be a plan of action, could be lists of problems to avoid/address, could be lists of ideas the group has, etc. Email this list to Jim Hanson at hansonjb@gmail.com on Sunday at the end of Session 2—leave yourself 5 to 10 minutes to do this.

--note, Jim will forward your list to Kristen Stevens, Chris Pierini, Denise Vaughan, and Korry Harvey who are heading up NFC Equity Projects.

At the Awards Assembly on Sunday, Action Forum Group Leaders will make short announcements of the results of their work. Jim will also work with the Action Forum Group Leaders after the tournament to post online helpful information to the community.

The goal: We want action. We want community involvement. We want students, coaches, and judges to step up to make this a great community. We want programs and the people in our community to learn from the results of the forums and to implement the best of these ideas into their daily practices, team guidelines, and student, coach and judge behaviors and interactions.

NINE FORUMS

--Rooms will be posted on Saturday morning for these forums.

 1) LIFE-DEBATE CONFLICT GROUP: ways to address the work-personal life conflict with speech-debate. L211

2) ACCESSIBILITY FOR NEW DEBATERS: ways to make speech and debate accessible to beginners from start, to beginning, to growing towards junior and open divisions. L212

3) ALCOHOL-DRUGS-PROFESSIONAL ENVIRONMENT: ways to assure a professional, legal, and safe environment at tournaments, on teams at home, and at colleges in general regarding alcohol and drug consumption. L213

4) SMALL RESOURCE PROGRAMS: ways to make programs with minimal resources successful—small teams and teams with small budgets. L214

5) TOOLKIT FOR GOOD TEAM ENVIRONMENTS: ways coaches can assure the best environments for their students; examining a “toolkit/checklist” of best practices that programs should be doing L215

6) RACE-ETHNICITY INCLUSION: ways to make the community more accessible for all races/ethnicities (can and should also include these aspects intersecting with other groups) L218

7) GENDER INCLUSION: ways to make the community more accessible for all genders (can and should also include these aspects intersecting with other groups) L219

8) STUDENT LEADERSHIP: ways to develop student leadership in the northwest to help the community L220

9) JUDGE TREAT STUDENTS RIGHT: ways to improve how judges treat all students in an equally positive way—addressing issues of race, gender, sexuality, etc. in the round, coaching, and in social arenas L221

 

Being a Positive Discussion Participant

 

1. Goals for your Action Forum Group

A.   We want you to develop your action forum in a positive way—a way that reflects your views and your way of addressing the issue

B.   We also have an overall goal for the forums that we hope you will accomplish:

1.   Develop a list of action items, possibly take action during the tournament—you’ll email this list to Jim Hanson who’ll work with you to get this information to the community, to Kristen Stevens, Chris Pierini, and Korry Harvey to further implement your ideas.

2.   Cooperatively work toward developing your group’s action items

3.   Your goal is NOT to win against other discussion participants—THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM A DEBATE.

4.   One Person in each group should be selected as Action Forum Group Leader.

 

2. Act to further your Action Forum Group’s goal

A.   Prepare–read and think through the material

If you have time, think through the issue of the action forum you want to attend. Reading up on the issue would be good—check out the internet, ask your coach, ask another debater . . .

B.  Discuss to develop, explore, create—build toward a helpful action forum list

C.   Ask and answer questions

–clarify, find out about missing information

–express disagreement (cordially)

D.  Make and respond to arguments

–counter (disagree if you do diagree but keep focused on helping the goal of the discussion)

–offer alternatives, additional ideas

E.   Demonstrate respect for others; support, encourage, and help other people

F.   Relieve group tension with appropriate humor

G.  Build on what other group members said (eg “I really liked what Sue said about . . .”)

H.   Keep on track toward developing your group’s action list—including watching the time.


3. Don’t undermine the group’s goals

A.   Show up on time; don’t be late or not show at all.

B.   Don’t speak too often, or respond too quickly, so you keep others out

Here’s a good test: HAVE YOU ALREADY SPOKEN TWICE? Start thinking--how many other people in the group are saying things between when i say something? if it is just 1 or 2 students--then, odds are, you are talking too much.

C.   Don’t zone out, doodle, appear inattentive; STAY ATTENTIVE

D.  Don’t use humor too often as a distraction; KEEP IT SERIOUS

E.   Avoid irrelevant points; STAY ON THE TOPIC—KEEP FOCUSED ON YOUR ACTION FORUM LIST

F.   Don’t insist on your point of view; STATE YOUR VIEW AND BE WILLING TO MOVE WITH THE GROUP TO NEW ISSUES/VIEWS

G.  Don’t ignore others who do not speak; FIND WAYS TO INCLUDE THEM (don’t call them out; try to find topics they want to discuss rather than putting them on the spot)

H.   Avoid being too quiet/not contributing; TRY TO CONTRIBUTE
--even if you feel others won’t listen; this is the moment to have everyone’s voice be heard

--even if you think a topic isn't that engaging or controversial enough to comment

I.    Don’t be rude; BE KIND, SUPPORTIVE, ENGAGING

a.   –Avoid expressing hostility

b.   –Avoid interrupting rudely (occasionally polite interruptions can be effective)

J.   Don’t treat this discussion as win/loss; WORK TOGETHER TOWARD YOUR GOAL

--do not treat discussion as showing other students how dumb their ideas are (that totally undermines the group and really makes you look bad)

K.   Respect EVERY student/coach/judge regardless of their “stature” in the community—that means don’t always turn to the “best debater” “the coach” or “coolest person” –turn to everyone in the group as equally as possible—regardless of win-loss, gender, race, political views, coach or student or judge, etc.

--don’t dismiss other participant ideas; instead, focus on providing helpful additions, thoughts, and ideas.

4. In the last 5 to 10 minutes of the Second Session, Action Forum Group Leaders should email Jim Hanson your Action Forum Group’s List of Action Items. Send to hansonjb@gmail.com