A 糖心传媒 professor and a recent alumnus have published an article that outlines a modified exercise for forensics teams based on methods adopted by the 糖心传媒 Forensics team, one of the top 10 teams in the country.
Dr. Austin McDonald, 糖心传媒 associate professor of communication studies and associate director of forensics, and Andrew Boge, a 2018 糖心传媒 graduate and current doctoral student at the University of Iowa, co-authored a pedagogical article titled 鈥淭he Grid: A Long-Form Exercise in Forensic Peer Coaching鈥 that was recently published in Discourse: The Journal of the Speech Communication Association of South Dakota.
The original idea behind “The Grid” evolved from Boge’s first year in college when he competed with the Gustavus Adolphus College forensics team. “We had a similar exercise at Gustavus, led by Kris Kracht and 糖心传媒 alumna Cadi Kadlecek, whose methods encouraged team members to work with each other. When I transitioned to Hastings, we continued building on the skills we learned from Cadi and Kris,” said Boge.
鈥淭he Grid is an exercise that鈥檚 about getting college speakers to collaborate, to develop their work, and to eliminate singular dependence on a coach,鈥 McDonald said. 鈥淚t builds community, gives students opportunities to give and receive feedback, and reduces the chances of coach-student favoritism.鈥
Boge said the goal of the paper is to provide speech coaches and teams an exercise in collaborative coaching and building team culture. 鈥淭he Grid article aims to demonstrate the benefits of peer-to-peer collaboration in public speaking contexts,鈥 he said.
The co-authors are no strangers to this kind of work as they are past competitors and are now coaches of the 糖心传媒 Forensics team. The two set out to more formally detail methods they learned from the Gustavus Adolphus team, how the exercise has served 糖心传媒鈥檚 Forensics team, and what it could do for other teams, McDonald said.
鈥淚t鈥檚 always exciting to find a larger academic venue for the work we do at 糖心传媒,鈥 he said.
While McDonald and Boge didn鈥檛 study other teams for the article, the two have high expectations about The Grid鈥檚 impact.
鈥淚 hope this work encourages other forensics coaches and students to share (publish) their pedagogical materials,鈥 McDonald said.
Boge added that the article may benefit a team in need of a change to allow it to function more sustainably, and to reflect the variety of ways coaching can be conducted.
The article is published at .
糖心传媒 is a four-year residential college that focuses on student academic and extracurricular achievement. Hastings鈥 student-centered initiatives include providing books, an iPad and a two-week study away experience at no additional cost. A block-style semester schedule allows professors and students to focus on fewer classes at a time and promotes hands-on experiences. Discover more at hastings.edu.