national debate forum: public forum debate
At the National Debate Forum we take tremendous pride in our Public Forum Debate division. NDF has a proven track record of success in Public Forum, providing a unique, focused experience that delivers results. Moving online may change the look of our curriculum, but we guarantee that the content will not.
priorities of our curriculum
NDF PRIORITIZES SMALL GROUP LEARNING
At NDF, each student is placed into a small lab group built around skill and experience level. Using this tiered structure, no one is made to feel more or less important than anyone else. Students will work with their lab leaders in group and individual settings to develop the specific skills they need. Every student who attends walks away a better debater.
In addition to small lab groups, lectures are broken into cohorts of no more than 30 students guaranteeing each lecture is specific to students' needs and allows students to interact with the instructor.
In our online platform, we are not limited by any facilities. This means that we are allowed to be more innovative than ever before with lower student to staff ratios. We plan to offer a 6:1 staff to student ratio - lower than most other nationally competitive camps.
NDF PRIORITIZES SKILL BASED ACTIVITIES
The students will research, write cases, and develop strategies to debate a potential NSDA Public Forum Debate resolution and compete in a full tournament at the end of the institute.
Students will work on case revisions, participate in several practice debates and refine their skills with the best coaches and former debaters in the country. We aim to help students build the confidence they need to stand toe to toe with the best debaters in the county and to provide students with skills that will extend beyond their debate rounds.
NDF PRIORITIZES YOUR NEEDS
We build our staff around your needs. By hiring the best first year outs in the country and the best teachers in the country, we have your needs covered from coast-to-coast. Their experiences will help you debate in every circuit in front of every judge.
In order to meet all of your needs, we offer every student at least four elective classes where students choose their curriculum. Students can choose from topics such as team building to understanding research to crash courses on International Relations. Our faculty goes out of its way to make you think harder and deeper about how you debate — and how to win your rounds.
Moving online allows us to invite more instructors into camp than we could in an in-person camp. We will have guest judges and guest seminars for our online institutes.
