Judge Training

JUDGES TRAINING

Judges---THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! We are so grateful to you to take your time to help our students learn and grow through this amazing activity. 

Please refer to the following pages to help familiarize yourself with specific events and how to judge them. If you need/want to know which events you will be judging (speech/debate/congress) please ask the coach for your school what they signed you up for.

We do ask that you complete the Training which includes the Cultural Competence Training as well.

https://www.speechanddebate.org/judge-training/

We also ask that you familiarize yourself with the conscious style guide in order to help ensure that comments are done in a respectful and appropriate manner. 

https://consciousstyleguide.com/

Please also check with your coach and district on what conditions they may have to ensure background checks, etc for volunteers.

Then you can refer to the specific events below with more details to assist you.

If you have never judged online on tabroom before, please refer to this video. The only thing that is different about being online is that instead of a room number, you will see a camera button. You will click on that button and it will take you to the virtual room to judge. Only you and the competitors assigned to that room will be allowed entry. If for some reason, someone else is able to get in, please contact tabroom. **TAB Staff are able to enter any room, so if you see someone with TAB in front of their name, they are just there to check on things and will likely leave quickly if not needed. **

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_0-QHikCBg

Judging Online on Tabroom is not as hard as it seems, and now can be done from the comfort of your own home as we go through this era of virtual tournaments to get us through the pandemic. It is really no different than a normal tournament, other than you now don't have to travel to a school, you can take breaks in your own home, --but please do remember your environment and professionalism with students on screens with you. 

1. Check into the Judge Pool Room (there will be a virtual link for this in your tabroom). Friday this will be at 3:15 pm, and Saturday, 7:30am. We will review instructions and what to do. You will hang out here until you know if you have a round or not and are excused. Then you will return at the beginning of the next round time if you do not receive a ballot until we ensure all rounds have been picked up, at which time you will be excused, or if we need you to take a ballot you will be asked to do so. 

2. Make sure that you have your cell number attached to your tabroom account so that you will get the texts when a round comes out to you, it will also go to your email.

3. When you do have a round, log in, click START (even if you haven't started the round with students yet, so we know that you have the ballot and are there).

4. Ensure students are there, start the round (even if all aren't there in a speech event), and enjoy!

    Tip, open the Room window in a separate pane, and have your tabroom side by side with the video so that you can take notes as you go right into the ballot or a document to copy over later. 

5. Submit your ballot decision as quickly as possible, and then update your comments later if needed. 

6. Return to the Judge Pool Room at the beginning of the next round if you don't receive a ballot and if you do receive a ballot, repeat! :)

YOU SHOULD NEVER give them your personal phone number, or email. If you are a debate judge and want to do an email chain, create a separate account. However, with today's climate and the online ability here to send documents and chain through the chat instead, I would highly recommend that route instead for you safety, as well as the competitors'. 

IF for some reason something happens in the round, a competitor's internet cuts out in the middle of the speech or round, please use the contact tab/email to let the tabroom know immediately. We will then work with you and the competitors to ensure the best way to deal with the situation and the round. DO NOT have them join a personal zoom type room to continue the round.

Every ballot will have this at the top:

We are all influenced by implicit bias, or the stereotypes that unconsciously affect our decisions. When judging, our implicit biases negatively impact students who are traditionally marginalized and disenfranchised. Before writing comments or making a decision, please take a moment to reflect on any biases that may impact your decision making process.

We are here to give feedback and rankings on skills and abilities, not on content or opinions. Unless there is something that is completely inappropriate for High School Content, or that a team is acting in a way that is harmful, then we should remember that the students in Debate must debate each side of the topic, no matter their personal opinions or beliefs. Speech topics are often personal to the students and their own experiences, and we are looking at the skills and presentation, not the content topic...you may give suggestions on maybe how to better present the topic to be more inviting to an audience, etc but not be critical of the. topic itself, unless of course it is offensive and not appropriate for HS students to be presenting.  This beauty of this activity is that we can respect everyone's rights to believe and speak about what they want while still understanding and respecting that others' have the same rights and we don't have to agree on everything to appreciate each other as human beings....If a judge feels there may be an issue that they cannot address in a round, then please pause the round and contact tabroom...we can then figure out what, if anything, to do, or discuss a way in which to handle a situation. This is about education and growth, and if we can accommodate that first, we will.