Suggestions for Managing a Team

[sr243]

I am a sophmore in the high school, but I help out with the middle school science olympiad. Last year, I medaled in my 5 five events and did well. However, my team has always dragged me down. This year, I help make test and talk to people to make the team better. The problem is that it is even worse than last year. One problem is that I feel like the students aren't dedicated enough. They only try to work during the two hours each week we spend in school. I am wondering what suggestions you have for a manager/coach of a team. I have quite a few privileges in terms of making decisions for science olympiad. I am thinking of a couple things to implement next year.
-- Pick the team by December, (Regionals in March, and states in April)
--Choose people by how much work they do, then if two people do the same amount of work, but there is only one spot, make tests.
--Makes student present their events at the end of tryout. (PPT + Explanation)
--Begin with a couple building days, but limit the number after the team is picked, so people have to work outside of school.
--Post how much each person is doing so they know their own and other's work.

So that is what I have so far. What are your thoughts on how to improve teams in general? BTW competition is limited as there are only 20 people who actually come to meetings.

[winneratlife]

From captaining experience, I can tell you:

-> Get started ASAP, set a deadline somewhere in like October for the team; things are going to change and you want time to change them. It won't be flawless.
-> Don't choose based on work; choose based on tests and build designs or prototypes. As much as we want to idealize and say Science Olympiad is about how hard you work, talent DOES play a part. If you've got a kid who's taken APChem and an IQ of 200 putting in half an hour a night vs a kid who hasn't taken Chem1 with an IQ of 70 putting in 3 hours a night, who did more work? But who's going to do better at Chem Lab? Also, tests are easier to quantify and more objective.
-> Asking them to make a ppt is just a waste of their time. It won't help your team.
-> Quantifying work is almost impossible.

Just test an in general test, or maybe something like an astro test, where science classes won't help you, and it will show how hard the members worked. Do a towers test or something for build team. Pick like...a 11 man test team and 8 man build team (I'm assuming some people will do both).

Then, do specific events tests to pick people for each event.

Make sure you don't place lots of work into the hands of people in lots of other clubs too; they only have so much time to spend on all their clubs.

I'm assuming you have lots of people to pick from.

Be sure you know what you're getting yourself into; captaining is a huge commitment, and coaching even more so, I'd imagine.

Last, lighten up. If you expect your team to sweep states, or even regionals, don't. As much as I wish I could say otherwise, captains can't carry the team. If the team refuses to work, there's not really anything you can definitively do to turn it around. Some things are just beyond your control.

[sr243]

I agree with most of what you said, but the reason I want it based on work (at least say so) is because some many people on the team don't even bother to make good notes for the events. There is a couple half witted knuckleheads who don't bother making notes. One person specifically wants to use my notes from last year and "update" it. The binder doesn't even have a table of contents anymore. I made it in 3 days and he has had over three weeks to make one. Instead, he doesn't and just does nothing. Maybe he is smart, but he doesn't deserve to be on the team at this rate. As much as I think Science Olympiad is a competition, (trust me, I am competitive) I believe that advocating values is more important in life than smartness and competition. It may not win the competition, but usually it helps, and at least the students are learning. Today I had to pick four students who tested for two events. One of them got the highest score by around 10% (65%-55%ish) but he didn't make notes and these were his events for the last three months. The second place person attempted to make two pages of notes in just the weekend (he found out Thursday). I know at least he is going to try and that will definitely get him farther in life than intelligent.

Maybe I am a bit bias about work and dedication, but a good attitude can really help the team as I believe that is what we lack most. Another reason is that my brother is lazy and I am really bothered by it. He went to UPenn (Ivy League) but right now he just works at an ordinary job and doesn't try to use his full potential. All and all, I believe that advocating good work ethics is better than just smarts in general. If many people work hard, it will make the team work hard overall. Plus I am coaching middle school and there aren't any geniuses(I doubt anyone is smarter than me and I am not a genius).

[FueL]

The things I'm going to say are fairly obvious, but they're also the things my own team has struggled with the most.

Conferencing with people on their events individually helps a ton (though you might have to get over the initial awkward-ness).

The events don't have to be evenly spread out. That is, if you have a person who you believe can handle 5 or 6 events without being overwhelmed (and he agrees to it, of course), don't hesitate in assigning him those 6 events. On the other hand if you know another person will only be able to handle 2 events, don't give her any more than that.

You should let the building people work as much as they need during the meets, instead of limiting their time so they'll be forced to work at home.

The team should have balance so there is a strong team next year as well. A few 6th graders should have the opportunity of being on the team even if they may not be the absolute best choice.

Checkpoints. Conferences help a lot with this, but there is a very strong tendency for people to put off their events until the last minute (point in case: me). Two hours every weekend in the months before regionals is much better than twenty hours the week of the competition. Know how much people are progressing.

The "true" lab events are much more difficult to work with than the study or half study, half lab events. For events such as WIDI, Crime, and Compute, a practice test needs to be done at every available opportunity. The partners for these events have to work well together, and be able to meet with each other regularly.

Like winneratlife said, it can be hard to anticipate who will work and who won't after the teams are made, so I think tests are a better idea.

And be positive with what you have. A team that will do work during a two hour meet is good already - last year we had a few incidents where the meet degenerated into Truth or Dare and Starcraft on library computers.

[sr243]

So let me try to justify a couple of my points to see if you will agree with me. I know it sounds unorthodox but it is what I seen from experience.
-limiting the hours in school for building will force them to work outside of school.
So every year our building events's average place is less than the average of all the events. This means that we should improve building events as it is the weakest link. I have medal for the past two years in elevated bridge which I worked on completely outside of school. I only tested on building days. I built around 20 towers each year and I say that testing definitely helped me improve. I was the only person working on the event as others simply tested with me. On the other hand, trajectory had 6 people working on it every building day, yet they did not finish till two weeks before states. Two members left the big group to work on it alone at home. They had about a month to finish it and they did. In fact, they did better on it than the big group and the members of the large group are more intelligent. This year, I tried to make towers during the building days. It just did not work. It took over a class period to build one side, and probably a total of 5 before one would be complete. That is too long so I made them work at it at home. Although only two people, they can build it in just two weeks. I built a couple which only take a week. Over the last month, we created more towers than we did than before regionals. Now we got a good enough design that would medal if it does as well as it did during testing. On the other hand, only one other group is done with their building event and they had to work on it at home for a while. I think it is during the beginning of the year to design, but they need to build at home or else they won't finish for whatever reason.

Now I tried testing this year and it is failing horribly. Almost no one prepares for the test, and some are just directly off the wiki. It is kinda sad that they don't utilize this website even though they know it. Anyway, all the scores are about the same(60%ish), and since there are 20 students, it is almost impossible to chose who will do what. However, so far less than five groups actually have their notes done, which can be used on the test. Some of it is just their attitude. As I repeat myself, one of the person doing fossils wants to use my binder from last year. That binder was made in 3 days (I spent 30 hours before that to study ornithology) and although I placed, the binder can be improved. They had a month to prepare the binder which they didn't and now procrasinate to finish it. I think this is where testing has failed. By saying or choosing work over testing, the students will focus on notes and preparing the information. Maybe I will add tests to how much work they accomplish, but it is very frustrating to tell them to make good notes when they just are too lazy. Otherwise I need a way for them to study science olympiad outside of school as that is the main problem. I am thinking of even making it like a class where there are basically grades/score. If I only test them, they have less of a chance of studying than telling them to show they studied. The last problem with tests is the time necessary to make them. I spend about 3 hours making them and getting tests ready, plus another hour to grade. It is very time-consuming and I barely have enough time for it.