Scioly.org

My Science Olympiad team has a problem.

We have a lot of very strong competitors on all of our teams, which isn't that big of an issue. However, on our C team especially, a lot of our members are busy outside of Science Olympiad. This means that they often can't check in or work with our coach, which leads to people procrastinating or even no-showing at events. At state, we had to desperately cover events that some people just didn't show up to, and it resulted in us doing worse than we probably could have.

I know this probably isn't the first thread of its kind. I also know that one of the hardest parts of team competitions like this is keeping competitors accountable and making sure that they're actually doing good work on their events. I'm just wondering how you make sure that people are sticking to what they're supposed to be doing. Do invitationals actually ensure people get work done, or are the stakes that much lower because they don't determine whether or not you advance to states? Mandatory meetings aren't an option, since some people (such as myself) can't attend but are still working outside of the club.

TL;DR: How can we ensure that competitors get their work done and aren't cramming the night before State?

Invitationals certainly help, but there's ultimately no substitute for individual motivation. If there is a secret, I haven't found it.

I think cramming before states isn't terrible - it gets you to remeber things.
I think instead of having the students come in for a checkin, either the coach or the captains should reach out to the students and be more aggresive about it. You can even have them turn in evidence of their work on Google classroom or edmodo or something like that.

jaspattack wrote:My Science Olympiad team has a problem.

We have a lot of very strong competitors on all of our teams, which isn't that big of an issue. However, on our C team especially, a lot of our members are busy outside of Science Olympiad. This means that they often can't check in or work with our coach, which leads to people procrastinating or even no-showing at events. At state, we had to desperately cover events that some people just didn't show up to, and it resulted in us doing worse than we probably could have.

I don't know much about people-y... management... stuff, but it sounds like you guys need a lot more communication. Procrastination is a problem (ask me how I know...), but no-shows!? Oof. That's... That's an issue.

What I would do <bad_idea>If I was in charge of a SciOly team</bad_idea> would be to set up scheduled communication. Once a month, once every two months... Doesn't matter, as long as it's regular. That way, the busy people have a way to fit it into their schedules. I'd probably send out an email with a form for the students to fill out, and get back to me by the end of the week. The form would probably contain these core questions (Probably. I think.):

1: What did you get done since the last communication?
2: What did you not get done?
3: Why did you not get it done/ what's standing in your way?
4: What are you going to do to fix/remove your obstacles?
5: What do you plan to do between now and the next communication?

This way, you can get the students to have a feedback loop, which will help them keep on track, the coach gets to keep tabs on how everybody's doing, and the students have more accountability since they're communicating directly with the coach on a regular basis.

Hope this helps!
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Unome wrote:Invitationals certainly help, but there's ultimately no substitute for individual motivation. If there is a secret, I haven't found it.

Agreed. Some additional points (summarizing what you're saying for my sake...hopefully ok):

jaspattack wrote: We have a lot of very strong competitors ... C team especially, a lot of our members are busy outside of Science Olympiad. ... At state, we had to desperately cover events that some people just didn't show up to, and it resulted in us doing worse than we probably could have.

Do invitationals actually ensure people get work done, or are the stakes that much lower because they don't determine whether or not you advance to states?
Mandatory meetings aren't an option, since some people (such as myself) can't attend but are still working outside of the club.

It's good you consider this an issue for C team too. Caring about everyone helps make the club more of a team...whether or not individuals know.

Invites aren't a guarantee. There's always a student (or people in general) that bend the system in their favor, skip things, etc whether on purpose or not. For example results can be obscured if they cram, have a partner do everything, cram afterwards, have prior background (so they don't study...short-run can't tell, long-run can hurt when you need it...), etc.

You may want to consider positive and negative reinforcement, along with learning what motivates individuals on your team. EXs below.
Positive: If someone who is trusted is friends with the person, they can actively make that person responsible. Or food / incentives for doing things. Can get bumped to a higher team for doing well. Though, someone has to be booted then...onto negative!
Negative: Kick 'em off team in response to something, need not be over every little thing either (e.g. take attendance and they never show up to any meetings ever, never sign forms after a certain point, etc).

So invites CAN matter if you MAKE them matter. Obviously you can't always do this, mileage varies, and these things can be easily gamed too. This is just for the gist. To implement consequences, you really have to know who you're dealing with and who you can trust to deal with someone. I agree with the above post, communication helps, though people can BS anything (e.g. everyone botches emails, showing up to meetings and doing no work, etc). The balance is not easy!

There's no fool proof system, but I hope this gives some ideas.

Unome wrote:Invitationals certainly help, but there's ultimately no substitute for individual motivation. If there is a secret, I haven't found it.

For us it's making people take scio more seriously and communication between people. If the person isn't accountable and isn't studying/whatever, then switch them with someone that is probably better from the B team.

jaspattack wrote:My Science Olympiad team has a problem.

We have a lot of very strong competitors on all of our teams, which isn't that big of an issue. However, on our C team especially, a lot of our members are busy outside of Science Olympiad. This means that they often can't check in or work with our coach, which leads to people procrastinating or even no-showing at events. At state, we had to desperately cover events that some people just didn't show up to, and it resulted in us doing worse than we probably could have.

I know this probably isn't the first thread of its kind. I also know that one of the hardest parts of team competitions like this is keeping competitors accountable and making sure that they're actually doing good work on their events. I'm just wondering how you make sure that people are sticking to what they're supposed to be doing. Do invitationals actually ensure people get work done, or are the stakes that much lower because they don't determine whether or not you advance to states? Mandatory meetings aren't an option, since some people (such as myself) can't attend but are still working outside of the club.

TL;DR: How can we ensure that competitors get their work done and aren't cramming the night before State?

I think (and I believe some other team captains recommend this as well) the best motivator for SciOly is making everyone understand their importance to the team. The best way to do this is to have, first of all, a steady communication of sorts between the team. For our team, this was a text groupchat. The benefit of this is that 1, it serves as a constant reminder that hey, I am on a team with other people. It also allows people to ask for help with resources and post on their progress, and by seeing other people progressing such as "hey, just finished the first prototype for our rocket" will be like oh shoot others are working I should too. This last mentality is super important, and so this year I made sure that I kept providing my team with materials, practice tests, etc. and kept updating them with those materials. By doing this, I was able to again remind them that others are working hard for the competition and they should do, and by providing materials and practice tests right there in front of them they are more motivated to work.

IDK, just a thought.

We had weekly check-ins this year but they kind of stopped being effective when most of the officers stopped checking them/responding to them sometime around winter break - GGSO. If a check-in system is used there must be some way to make sure the people in charge of checking them are held accountable for that too.