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Train With Elite Debate Coaches — Now With AI Coaching Superpowers

Train through live debates on Google Meet, guided by expert coaches and powered by an AI-driven system built to accelerate improvement.

Elite Coaches — Now With Coaching Superpowers

More about Connor

More about Sharuka

Connor and Sharuka were already coaching at the highest levels of competitive debating long before Symbai existed — with teams winning championships across multiple formats and experience coaching national squads.

But even great coaching has limits.

Limited practice between sessions.
Feedback that fades after the round.
Too little visibility into how students are actually thinking.

So they built Symbai to break those limits.

They’re excited to soon offer direct coaching again — combining live debate and Symbai-enhanced drills to take their coaching to a new level.

Designed by World-Class Educators

More about Connor

More about Sharuka

Symbai is built by world-class educators with deep competitive debating and teaching experience at the highest international levels.

Our leadership team leadership team has:

  • Won national championships.
  • Coached national debate squads.
  • Judged major Australasian and World Universities tournaments.
  • Supported students from across the globe.

The team brings together practical coaching experience, pedagogical expertise, and cutting-edge AI design to build tools that genuinely improve critical thinking

By combining live coaching with AI-powered activities and a structured argument-mapping canvas, this program makes every move in a debate clearer, more deliberate, and more strategic.

More Time for Real Debates

Before

Live sessions often slow down because feedback takes a long time to explain and write down. Valuable debate time gets eaten up by recap.

With Our Symbai-Enhanced Coaching

Feedback lands faster and more clearly, so sessions spend less time explaining and more time debating. Argument maps and structured tools mean key insights click quickly — freeing up time for more live rounds and hands-on coaching.

Result - You debate more often, apply feedback straight away, and improve through real repetition — not just discussion.

Before

Strategy is talked through and easy to forget. In fast debates, it’s hard to keep track of what really matters and where the round is heading.

With Our Symbai-Enhanced Coaching

Arguments, rebuttals, and clash are mapped visually, so you can actually see how the debate fits together. You know what matters, how your moves connect, and where to focus next.

Result - You stop guessing and start making deliberate, strategic choices — both in prep and in the round.

Before

Between sessions, practice can feel unfocused. You work hard, but it’s not always clear what will make the biggest difference next.

With Our Symbai-Enhanced Coaching

Between sessions, you’ll use targeted Symbai-enhanced activities chosen by your coaches to focus on exactly what you need to improve next. Your practice connects directly to your upcoming debates.

Result - You come into each session sharper, more confident, and ready to push further — because the groundwork is already done.
More Time for Real Debates

Before

Live sessions often slow down because feedback takes a long time to explain and write down. Valuable debate time gets eaten up by recap.

With Our Symbai-Enhanced Coaching

Feedback lands faster and more clearly, so sessions spend less time explaining and more time debating. Argument maps and structured tools mean key insights click quickly — freeing up time for more live rounds and hands-on coaching.

Result - You debate more often, apply feedback straight away, and improve through real repetition — not just discussion.
Clearer Strategy, Not Just More Advice

Before

Strategy is talked through and easy to forget. In fast debates, it’s hard to keep track of what really matters and where the round is heading.

With Our Symbai-Enhanced Coaching

Arguments, rebuttals, and clash are mapped visually, so you can actually see how the debate fits together. You know what matters, how your moves connect, and where to focus next.

Result - You stop guessing and start making deliberate, strategic choices — both in prep and in the round.
Smarter Practice Between Sessions

Before

Between sessions, practice can feel unfocused. You work hard, but it’s not always clear what will make the biggest difference next.

With Our Symbai-Enhanced Coaching

Between sessions, you’ll use targeted Symbai-enhanced activities chosen by your coaches to focus on exactly what you need to improve next. Your practice connects directly to your upcoming debates.

Result - You come into each session sharper, more confident, and ready to push further — because the groundwork is already done.

See what you’re truly capable of in 2026

The first coaching cohorts are being planned now.

If this approach to debate coaching resonated with you, join the waitlist to be notified as soon as places open.

Join the Coaching Waitlist

The Two Most Effective Ways to Improve Critical Thinking

Unified in Symbai

Debating

Hundreds of thousands of students across 60 countries choose to spend their free time in formal debating competitions because it improves their critical thinking skills. 

Formal debating improves:

  • Dynamic reasoning — adapting ideas under pressure

  • Strategic thought — anticipating and countering objections

  • Cognitive discipline — structuring arguments with clarity and purpose

Increases Critical Thinking By Up To 50%

Competitive debate produces greater critical thinking improvement than argumentation courses.
Allen et al. measured the improvement using the Watson–Glaser critical-thinking test — a gold-standard assessment of inference, deduction, and evaluation skills.”
Source

8.6% Critical Thinking Gains In Just 3 Weeks

Students who participated in debate competition showed statistically significant improvements in critical thinking scores after just three weeks.
An 8.6% improvement in critical thinking is the cognitive equivalent of dropping your resting heart rate from 70 to 64 BPM. That's not learning facts or techniques — that's developing lasting cognitive fitness.
Source

9 in 10 former debaters go on to earn at least one advanced degree.

Of 703 National Debate Tournament alumni, over 90% held a graduate or professional degree, and many held multiple advanced degrees.
Of the 703 former NDT debaters; 40% earned master’s degrees (MA, MSc, MBA, MEd, etc.), 20% earned doctoral degrees (PhD, MD, EdD) and many held multiple advanced or professional degrees.
Source
Argument Mapping

Argument mapping has been around for hundreds of years, used by philosophers, scientists, and modern critical-thinking educators to make critical thinking clearer by drawing it out.
 And for good reason: when done well, argument mapping is one of the most effective ways to improve critical thinking and develop sharper logical reasoning.

Argument mapping helps you:

  • Clarify reasoning by revealing the actual structure of your thinking
  • Expose weak links that get lost in normal prose
  • Build precision through visual logic rather than persuasive writing tricks
A simple argument map diagram showing a “Main Claim” at the top supported by a “Reason” and “Evidence,” along with an “Objection” connected to a counter-reason, illustrating the structure of logical argumentation.

Improves Critical Thinking Courses By Over 300%

Critical thinking courses that used argument mapping software saw students improve their critical thinking over 300% more than similar critical thinking courses.
Compared a standard logic class to one using argument mapping software. The mapping group made dramatically greater gains on a standardized critical thinking test, far exceeding typical semester improvements.
Source

One Semester Of Argument Mapping Produces 6-7x MORE Critical Thinking Gains Than One Semester Of Normal University Study

Semester-long CT courses using digital argument mapping consistently produced effect sizes of 0.7-0.85 on standardized critical thinking tests. By comparison, a typical university semester yields just 0.11
Source

9% Critical Thinking Gains In Just Weeks

Five weeks of an argument mapping-led course resulted in an average critical thinking gain of 9%
These gains were achieved with minimal explicit critical thinking teaching. The gains came from interactions with other students within argument mapping software.
Source

 

Debating develops the habits that critical thinking courses try to teach:

  • Dynamic reasoning — adapting ideas under pressure

  • Strategic thought — anticipating and countering objections

  • Cognitive discipline — structuring arguments with clarity and purpose

Increases Critical Thinking By Up To 50%

Competitive debate produces greater critical thinking improvement than argumentation courses.
Allen et al. measured the improvement using the Watson–Glaser critical-thinking test — a gold-standard assessment of inference, deduction, and evaluation skills.”
Source

8.6% Critical Thinking Gains In Just 3 Weeks

Students who participated in debate competition showed statistically significant improvements in critical thinking scores after just three weeks.
An 8.6% improvement in critical thinking is the cognitive equivalent of dropping your resting heart rate from 70 to 64 BPM. That's not learning facts or techniques — that's developing lasting cognitive fitness.
Source

9 in 10 former debaters go on to earn at least one advanced degree.

Of 703 National Debate Tournament alumni, over 90% held a graduate or professional degree, and many held multiple advanced degrees.
Of the 703 former NDT debaters; 40% earned master’s degrees (MA, MSc, MBA, MEd, etc.), 20% earned doctoral degrees (PhD, MD, EdD) and many held multiple advanced or professional degrees.
Source

If debating is the clash of ideas, argument mapping is the architecture that makes clear thinking possible.
 It’s the practice of breaking critical thinking into smaller parts — claims, evidence, objections, and assumptions — and arranging them so the logic becomes visible.

Argument mapping has been around for hundreds of years, used by philosophers, scientists, and modern critical-thinking educators to make critical thinking clearer by drawing it out.
 And for good reason: when done well, argument mapping is one of the most effective ways to improve critical thinking and develop sharper logical reasoning.

Argument mapping helps you:

  • Clarify reasoning by revealing the actual structure of your thinking

     

  • Expose weak links that get lost in normal prose

     

  • Build precision through visual logic rather than persuasive writing tricks

     

These benefits make it a powerful method for anyone looking to enhance critical thinking skills, improve decision-making, or analyze arguments more effectively.

But traditional argument mapping has limits:

  • Pen and paper mapping is slow and quickly becomes cluttered
  • Digital mapping tools speed things up but remain static
  • And because the map never talks back, even skilled thinkers can hit writer’s block when faced with a silent diagram