Running head: FORENSICS 101: A GUIDE FOR NEW COACHES AND STUDENTS

(INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN)

Forensics 101: A Guide for New Coaches and Students (Instructional Plan)
Sonny DeGuzman
CUR/516
December 19, 2016
Joan Becker

Forensics 101 Giving Communication a Say: An overview

FORENSICS 101: A GUIDE FOR NEW COACHES AND STUDENTS

The skill and art of communication, especially public speaking, can cause a great deal of
anxiety and nervous tension. It is an art form and a skill that has been studied and developed
from the early stages of childhood development that extends well into our professional careers,
and is an essential to our lives in both personal conversations, business dialogue, professional
meetings and arenas. Competitive public speaking (speech and debate), commonly referred to as
an activity known as forensics in many educational institutions, provides the communication and
the ability for an individual to communicate an emotion, a message, or a sound bite that gives
information a much brighter ability to impact us in a meaningful way. According to Bartanen
and Littlefield (2005), Competitive speechparticularly debaterepresents a form of highlevel, intellectual play that involves critical thinking, skillful speaking, and a thorough
knowledge of participants and observers an experience some consider thrilling, others believe
daunting, but all think of as fun.
For me, this personally has weight due to my personal involvement in forensics as a
student competitor beginning in my middle school years in seventh grade. Today, I still insert
and involve myself into the activity by giving back, and taking an opportunity to be an assistant
coach and a forensics judge for the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Forensics Program. The
ability for me to give communication a say in both the skill and the art form is one that I will
be involved with for the rest of my lifetime and has been a skill that I have used constantly in my
everyday personal life and in my professional career tenure with great vigor and enthusiasm.
My instructional plan for Forensics will be detailed in four phases discusses the skills and
training needed for both coaches (instructors) and students to develop a college extra-curricular
program for forensics, simply defined as competitive public speaking. This instructional plan

FORENSICS 101: A GUIDE FOR NEW COACHES AND STUDENTS

will give a solid foundation, process, and resources allowing the coaches and students the ability
to learn together and enhance the skill of communication through this competitive activity.
My instructional plan will be laid out in four phases, that will include: The outline of the
training program discussing the analysis and the design, identified learning objectives and their
development, the implementation and delivery of the plan, and the evaluation and measurement
of plan. This paper will discuss the first three phases in detail. Phase IV will be showcased in a
separate power point presentation.

Phase I The Outline, Analysis, and Design for Forensics 101

Course
Name/Title:
Course
Description:

Forensics 101: A Guide for New Coaches and Students

The Forensics 101 Course will give both new coaches and students the
resources, tools, and training necessary to start up a new college forensics
program on their college campus. The course will also be the foundation for
assisting coaches and student the ability to attend and participate in a college
level forensics tournament and to host their own forensics tournament at
their campus location.

Target Audience
Wide (Broad)
Scope:

Universities that have department chairs, academic, or instructional staff

expressing a vested interest, need, or value for a communications department
or performing arts (theater) department.
College instructors who are identified as subject matter experts in forensics.
College Students in a community college or university environment.

Target Audience
Intended
Audience Scope:

College professors who have had exposure and experience being an

instructor, coach, advisor, or director of a forensics program and demonstrate
an interest in starting a program at their college or university program with
no history of a forensics program.
College professors who have had no previous exposure or experience to any
level of college forensics and are being required as part of their job scope or
position to develop and start a forensics program at their college or
university.
Incoming Freshman or Transfer students with no previous exposure to any
level of college forensics that have demonstrated an interest in participation.
Any level of college student who is in an arts or communication course at

FORENSICS 101: A GUIDE FOR NEW COACHES AND STUDENTS

their college or university that may need academic course credit towards a
credit bearing degree program by their participation and involvement in a
forensics program that have had no previous exposure to any level of college
experience.

Delivery
Modality/Length
of Course:

Course Goals:

Forensics 101 will take place in five sessions with each session meeting face
to face in a classroom environment for four hours. A total of 20 hours will
complete the course
After evaluation and video-taping the first course, there may be a future
ability to offer the course online through video.
Foundational development for a forensics program to exist in a college or
university community that has never had a program previously.
Establish tools and resources that coaches and students can use to be
successful in the forensics community hosting and running a tournament,
and allow students to grow their skills from their participation.
Provide strong exposure to the development of a college level forensics
program and serve as an opportunity for student involvement and for a
university community to have additional extra-curricular activities.

Phase II Forensics 101 Identifying the Learning Objectives

In the first phase of Forensics 101, the course description and target audience was
established, along with the modality in which Forensics 101 would be delivered, and four-course
goals that should be gained by the coaches and students. As we begin to look at the goals of
Forensics 101 in more detail, we begin to see that there are essential learning objectives from the
course that should be met to allow both coaches and students the ability to reach the goals for
establishing a forensics program in their college or university.
Charting the Learning Objectives for Forensics 101
Course Title:
Defined Goals:

Forensics 101: A Guide for New Coaches & Students

Allow coaches the ability to understand how to start up their first-year
forensics program by recruiting and gaining student interest for
participation.
Give coaches a successful experience in attending and competing in a
tournament with their students through identifying resources and tools.

FORENSICS 101: A GUIDE FOR NEW COACHES AND STUDENTS

Objectives:

Objective Use:

Ensure coaches have an ability to run a successful forensics tournament on

their campus.
Give students the opportunity to participate, have fun, and be successful in
the competitive forensics tournament season.
At the end of the Forensics 101 course, each coach will establish a
recruitment plan and obtain a listing of students with high school forensics
experience and interest in college forensics from their admissions or student
affairs office. In addition, they will be able to set up an interest booth at
their college organizational or new student involvement fair to obtain student
involvement.
At the end of the Forensics 101 course and by the start of the college
forensics season in August, every coach should be able to establish a budget
of the funds necessary to fund their program and have their forensics yearly
tournament schedule planned before their first general member meeting. In
addition, each coach will be able to access, register, and schedule their
participation in their calendar using both the speechwire.com and
joyoftournments.net resource sites.
Each coach, within six months of the date of their planned tournament, each
coach will establish and execute a tournament action plan, to effectively
host, run, and follow their chronological guide for a successful tournament
platform at their campus location.
At the end of the Forensics 101 course, each student shall have prepared at
least one event to be tournament ready in the first semester, two events by
the start of the second semester, and have successfully qualified at least one
of their events for participation in the national tournament of the National
Forensics Association (NFA) or the American Forensics Association (AFA).
These learning objectives will utilize a strong collaborative learning
environment as many of the first-time coaches will gain experience from
other coaches and establish best practices and learning resources from each
other during the course. The follow up application of the learning objectives
will be applied as they become network colleagues, after the course, and in
the future as they start using the resources in the course as a basic foundation
for the development of their forensics community and their program at their
college or university. In addition, the course will give them network
contacts of experienced coaches as subject matter experts to support their
own individual and personal growth and development with their program.
Aside from the collaborative learning environment that the Forensics 101
program will provide, it will also have content that matches closely to the
project based learning environment. Since many of the forensics activities
align with events, in this case, tournaments, many of the coaches and
students will learn from the project oriented nature of both attending
tournaments with their students as well as running their own tournament.
The course will help coaches and students learn how to manage their
involvement in these (projects) tournaments throughout the year.
Finally, the Forensics 101 course also utilizes critical thinking skills that will
be developed by the coaches and students given the nature of the forensics

FORENSICS 101: A GUIDE FOR NEW COACHES AND STUDENTS

activity they are learning about. As an example, the coach will need to
utilize critical thinking skills as they establish and plan their tournament and
how to effectively manage tasks and operations to ensure that the
tournament runs on time and is a positive experience for the students to
perform and have fun. For the student, they will learn to prepare speeches
and learn to give dramatic interpretive performances from taking the
Forensics 101 course. Their ability to utilize their critical thinking skills will
in turn, be utilized in the participation of their event. As an example, a
student will learn how to compete in Impromptu Speaking, they must utilize
critical thinking as they practice how to prepare and give a speech in seven
minutes on a short proverb or quotation. As they complete the course, they
must utilize their critical thinking on how they will use facts, events, people,
history, or information from pop culture to develop their speech.
Instructional
Activities and
Strategies

Instructional
Technologies

Classroom Training Each coach and student will have a total of five-four
hour sessions with a different topic in terms of their role or participant
involvement with the start of their forensics program, each of the five
sessions in the course will cover introductory material that will allow them
the ability to gain and utilize the resources necessary. The classroom
training will be over the course summer when students and coaches are not
in an active academic session to provide maximum involvement in the
course. Each of the five sessions will have a lesson plan to go over the
topics required for both coaches and students.
Role Play Labs Students will take part in small groups during the course to
help them establish peer to peer feedback including instructor feedback in
the course as if they were mirroring their coaching sessions over the course
of their participation in tournaments and throughout the academic year
NFA and AFA Websites will be used in the course to help coaches access
resources and information to attend and participate in tournaments.
Speechwire.com and joyoftournaments.net will be the website resources
used in the course to better assist a coach in the planning, development,
editing, and execution of their tournament participation schedule including
the tournament they will host throughout the course of the year.
YouTube Videos will be utilized to better assist coaches on how to judge
performances, understand rules and guidelines for events in forensics, and
how to coach their students. Students will utilize YouTube to help them
evaluate their coaching sessions and performances, as well as gain insight
into other forensics performances and to gain a better understanding of the
differences in limited preparation events, public address events, and
interpretive literature events.

Phase III Implementation and Delivery

Time Frame of
Course:

What:
When:
Where:

Forensics 101 Course

9:30am to 1:30 PM daily from July 10-14, 2017
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh (Oshkosh, Wisconsin)

FORENSICS 101: A GUIDE FOR NEW COACHES AND STUDENTS

Individuals
Involved with
Implementation:

The course will contain a total of 20 hours of classroom instruction with

each daily session being four hours in length.

Sonny DeGuzman, Assistant Coach, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Forensics 101 Instructor
Jim Disrude, Director of Forensics, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Forensics 101 Instructor
Elliott Fisher, Director of Forensics, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh
Forensics 101 Instructor
There will also be support from the Presidents of the college speech and
debate organizations that include Dan Cronn-Mills, President of the
American Forensics Association, and Karen Morris, President of the
National Forensics Association.
Learners for Forensics 101 will be established by sending an invite to the
Chair of the Department of Communications and the Chair of the
Department of Theater to all Colleges and Universities that have
membership in NFA or AFA but do not have a current forensics program on
their campus that have expressed need.

Resources
Needed:

Websites that will be needed to have membership or access to demonstrate

their use and application in the Forensics 101 Course include:
o www.speechwire.com
o www.joyoftournaments.com
o NFA Website:
https://sites.google.com/site/nationalforensicsassociation/home
o AFA Website:
o http://americanforensics.org/
o www.youtube.com
Forensics 101 Guide and Resource Manual Containing the agenda for
each day, the forensics vocabulary guide and all the different activities and
role-play labs for the five day course.
The host site of the course will also need the ability to work with the campus
activities

FORENSICS 101: A GUIDE FOR NEW COACHES AND STUDENTS

Details of Plan
Communication:

Formative
Assessments:

Every third week in May, the governing forensics organizations, that include
NFA and AFA, will send out e-mail and letters to any member schools that
do not have a current forensics program as well as any faculty member,
department chair or dean of a communications program of theater program
that has expressed interest in possibly starting up a forensics program in
their college or university. These invites will be sent via e-mail as well as
regular postal mail to generate the interest in the potential coaches, including
providing the opportunity to link the Forensics 101 course to the websites of
both organizations to gain more information. Also, NFA and AFA will also
generate interest at the annual conference that is held at the National
Communications Association (NCA) every Fall to recruit potential
communications instructors and professors to develop a forensics program
on their campus.
The NFA and AFA organizations will be the governing bodies of the
Forensics 101 Course. Once the invitations sent and registrations have been
received, NFA and AFA will send our correspondence inviting those coaches
and ultimately invite them to that years Forensics 101 course, in mid-June
The course will be capped at a total of no more than 25 coaches to attend the
session at the host site of the college or university that the national
tournament takes place in.
Once the course is completed in July, there will be constant follow ups from
the instructor to the coach to see how they are coming along on their given
plans for their program and what involvements and activities they have
completed in both the first and second semester.
The Morris, Ross, & Kemp model, as discussed by Brown and Green (2006)
describe their three phases of evaluation that include: planning, conducting,
and reporting. This will be most appropriate for evaluation of the model as
it best exemplifies the ability to determine the purpose of the evaluation,
then gather data, and then follow up based upon the evaluation. The chair of
both NFA and AFA organizations will serve as the backdrop for evaluation to
ensure we are covering their materials and information in the correct way
that is current and relevant so it is meaningful for the coaches and ensures
that the needs are being met for the coach and that positive outcomes will
exist for the coach in their first year of running their program.

FORENSICS 101: A GUIDE FOR NEW COACHES AND STUDENTS

References
Bartanen, M. D., & Littlefield, R. S. (2015). Competitive speech and debate: How play
influenced american educational practice. American Journal of Play, 7(2), 155-173.
Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1661719676?accountid=458

Brown, A., & Green, T.D. (2006). The essentials of instructional design: connecting
fundamental principles with process and practice (Second Edition). Retrieved from The
University of Phoenix eBook Collection database