x-post: If you were starting a team to compete academically...?

[Old Dominion Heather]

Dh and I are going to be coaching a FIRST LEGO League team again this year. We will not be joining the local homeschool team and working with them for various reasons. So we have the opportunity to start over from scratch.

 

So, we plan to make some major changes to the structure of the team. The primary change will be that it is no longer going to be exclusive to homeschool students. With that in mind, and since we will have some kids on this team that are returning from our team last year, what type of expectations would you want to have in place for behavior and participation?

 

Last year there were ISSUES. The HS group that we were a part of kept the kids coming to large group meetings for a solid month before breaking up the teams. Other issues were that the boys who participated didn't do equal amounts of work. Several were more like saboteurs. The boys on the team last year will be given the chance to join this team, with the possible exception of one who is 12. He would pull the whole group up to the upper age division, which might not be a bad thing... there seemed to be less cheating in that age group.

 

So, if you have coached an academic group, what advice do you have for starting over with this group.

[Jane in NC]

My husband and I had some great and not so great experiences as FLL coaches. (My husband was the primary coach while I serve as the academic coach for the project.)

 

Our first year was a learning experience. We had too many people on the team for one thing. Our participants were both homeschooled and not. What we felt undermined the team were sibling dynamics. In fact, one of the judges was very critical of apparent lack of team work.

 

So team work became the focus during our second year. In fact, we won a trophy at the state level for team work. At the awards ceremony, the comment was made that our team, despite the age difference among members, excelled in part because the older students allowed the younger students full ownership of the process.

 

The third year, our team fell apart before competition even began. Participants had to choose between sports and attending our meetings. Sports won.

 

I am not sure if any of the rules of FLL have changed over the past few years since we have participated so I hesitate in giving specifics. Generally I can say that while everyone needs to contribute, we were successful by assigning certain roles to certain students. Some kids show more mechanical inclination, others are better programmers. Everyone needs to do research on the topic but we had a natural actress in our group who took ownership of the presentation of the project to the judges. So while everyone kept a finger in the pie, directing those with specific strengths in their interests helped.

 

About that third year when our team fell apart: we had some new kids who really just wanted to play with Legos. Two dropped out when the work became focused on specific tasks. Their parents did not help us since they literally dropped off their kids and ran. Sigh. Perhaps some ownership by other parents may help as well?

 

Good luck.

[Old Dominion Heather]

Thanks, Jane!

 

This is very, very helpful.