seperate section for team leaders
 

is there any way to set up a fourum sedction specifically for team leaders as there is fodder for dicussion /concerns that should only be dealt with by team leaders that do not need to be dicussed by members at lager?



dahl
rugby prop: stomping on hands since 1987

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

I think this is a good idea, but.... how are you going to know who should gain access to the forum or not? Most teams have members that visit the board, and with exception of a few, how do you know who is the leader? Also there are teams that do not have any adults that visit this website, but with some of the wierd posting names that people choose these days, you never know who is an adult or who isn't. It seems like too much effort for one little forum. I just don't think this idea is very feasible, but hey I could be wrong. I've been wrong before.


Anyway isn't that what the FIRST forums are for? Discussing issues with the team leaders?

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

What kind of discussion/concerns are you thinking about?

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

The biggest problem I have with that isn't that against the whole idea of a message board? Isn't it so everyone can talk about a subject and everyone can voice their opinions. What makes team leaders any better at problems than other non-team leaders? I can name a few team heads who didn't know jack-squat and the kids ran the team. Do you really think that by having a seperate board for team heads will make discussions better? For me, having 200 people in on a discussion that each know a little is better than 20 people in a discussion that know a lot, since each one of the 200 people has different experences, they can give info that is valuable to everyone.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Hey first of all i am a team leader for 1219 and i agree with JosephM. I find that the best ideas comewhen we discuss as a team. Tho i also must say that team leaders arent just made on their knowledge, it depedns on their communication, dicission making and administration. Emery boys(team1219) has a big team (about 70+ people) we cannot involve everyone in dicissions like who should goto tha kick off(canadian regional is allowing about 13 persons per team because of space limnitation) now we alsomight need to judge who goes in the box(tho this decision has to be made after the building is over, onlydrivers are chosen 3 weeks in) because positions in the box are "prize positions" and people who are most commited should get them. Tho team leaders are not the ones who might know the most. ;) .

Any ways lets get back on topic, now if you need a seperate thread or category or forum for you team leaders, make them signup first. You should get their usernames from them. In phpBB (www.phpbb.com) you have an option of user groups. Make a usergroup name TeamLeaders. Add usernames of team leaders in that group. Now you go to usergroup permissions under group admin(or something to that aspect) you can set the forum permission from there for the TeamLeaders group. As in which forum they can mdoerate, or which they can view or in which one they can post. After this goto forum permissions and set the secured forum permission to Private.

Tho remember its not the team leaders team, its not the teachers team, its a team that belongs to all of you, and most decisions should not be made by the team leaders alone.

ps: ignore the Typos

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

I like the idea personally...

Everyone knows there are times when the "Big People" have to talk alone without all you pesky kids interfering, or about issues that don't involve the younger crowd, but are still important for the overall cause!!

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

um..

i'd have to dissagree.

First, I really can't see any topic that should only be discuessed by "team leaders". Second, it would be very changleing (sp?) to know which members are team leaders, and even if that were possible, then there would always be people who just wanted to get in to the forum and would find some way to get themselves a team leader.

Personally, I've found that if you have something that only certin people can do / access, there are a lot of people who try very hard to spam, etc.. to get whatever.

My $.025 :)

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

I can see the good side to that. I think that in any situation, some people may have certain privilages to take about topics without others getting involved. There are many good reasons to have a private forum for a certain group of people are allowed access and others do not. I would not be surprised if something like this was already happening on these forums without the knowledge of the "general public". Heck, on the websites I run, I have private forums that others dont have knowledge of existance.

Some may not like it, but its the real world.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

well, emery forums (which are based on ASP not phpBB) has something similar, but the good thing is that u can have the private forum without the others even knowing or seeing it.And giving access to team leaders shouldnt take more than 10 minutes. Get there usernames and increase their access permission. So no one even knows about the private discussion and its going on. I will give you a prieview of our forums once the Beta Testing is done.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

I think we all understand that it's very easy to restrict a forum to only allow certain people to either view or post in it.

However, what you aren't thinking about is getting their usernames.. how in the world are you going to determine who is "a team leader" and who isn't?? ;)

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

hehe, well there are only atmost 5-6 team leaders or something. Either you can ask them to use their realnames or when u goto school ask them to give you their usernames. It shouldnt take much to get them.

Emery forums have different access levels for public members(non school) private members(school). And in our case we have a field Named Real Name and the in school people are supposed to give their first and last name. Then the admin has a list of their real names and he can check the names and give the respected access levels. Our forums will have about 150 private members and it take about 2 hours to give them all private access so it shouldnt take you long to do it.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

the concerns that I had were:
money: how the bills get paid
people issues- problems between students and others
deciding who goes on what trip (money concerns)
discipline for studetns who break rules (school and team)
dealing with school/county admin
security issues
and just venting- the team does not to see this but we also have much biggers commitments to this than most of the students becuase of out other involvmetns of all the adminstrative duties along with living our lives


these are thing i feel do not need to be addresses by the team at large

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Very True, if the above issues were to be decided by the whole team there would be a lot of unhappy people, lots of cross arugments and well no final decision. Specially things like deciding who goes on what trip (money concerns)
discipline for studetns who break rules (school and team), these things have to be looked over by someone who is non bias, and deals with each student fairly. :) .

Thats my opinnion anyways.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

I don't like this. I don't like it at all. First, these are not issues that need to be discussed among multiple teams, and one team can communicate amongst its members in an easier fashion than by CD forum. Second, I believe adults should not hold secret little meetings for adults only whether it is in person or on forum. If the kids are old enough to handle FIRST, they are old enough to handle what comes with it.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

What the heck does that mean?

You honestly believe every single participant of this program has the maturity level to express themselves intelligently in a roundtable discussion on the merits/potential pitfalls of a topic of import in the FIRST world?

Do you believe that everyone is capable of stopping to listen, before calmly and succinctly voicing an opinion that is driven by logic, and rational thought?

Ummm *raises hand* Have you READ these forums?

C'mon man... I can't believe this.
Everyone involved in this program is not created equal. We have the full spectrum of intelligence, and maturity represented in this program, and on these forums.

You honestly don't believe some of the engineers wouldn't want to step back to the "adults table" every now and then?

If they wanted to, I wouldn't hold it against them.
*Shrug*

Better that than leaving these forums altogether.

John

edit: Sorry for getting wound up. When I started posting here, I was a moron. Everyone grows up, until then... why should they be allowed at the "big boy table"?

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

I have been giving this topic a lot of thoughts, that's why I haven't said anything until now.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but what Andrew ISN'T suggesting is to limit the chief delphi forum so that only team leaders can read/post in it. As far as I can tell, Andrew's idea sounds more like an private e-mail list, or a small private chatroom.

Imagine the regional competition, or an off season competition. After a long day of competition, an engineer, or team leader might want to invite some other mentors/engineers and talk about FIRST stuff. Yes, everyone deserve to talk about FIRST stuff, but they wouldn't want to invite everyone at the competition. When it is the next day again, EVERYONE goes back to the competition and have fun again. That goes along the same line with the chief delphi forum. Sure, people might PM each other for a little bit, but the next day they are posting in CD forum again.

So, let's not keep arguing about who deserve to express their opinions or not. As far as I am concerned, as long as the Chief Delphi Forum exist, EVERYONE will get a chance to share their opinions and knowledge. That's the best anyone can ask for. Anything more than that is just helpful additions.

Learn to PM the mentors/engineers/team leaders more often, or learn to structure your disucssion better so they are more constructive and easy to read. Chances are, if your discussion is really good and organized, good stuff are going to come out of them. I bet you the mentors/adults/engineers/team leaders will jump right in and join in the discussion if they find it interesting. In the end, that's what we want to do in the CD forum right? To meet other people, learn from what they say, and be better off than when you came in here the first time.

No need to argue about who deserve more to share their opinions. I know all of you care really much about your right to express your opinions, most are even passionate about it. That's why I keep coming back into this forum. There are a lot of great folks around here who aren't afraid to say what they mean. Sure, some could be a little more considerate of others, but all in all, I am proud to be part of this community. As long as the Chief Delphi Forum community exist, everyone can have a say in it.

Now sit straight and organize this thread into Pros, Cons, constructive criticisms, suggestions, and analyze the method of the way you organize it. Oh wait, that's forcing my opinions onto others... Never mind. :P :P :P

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Ive been involved with FIRST since '97. I dont think its any secret that the adults onthe teams DO hold leadership meetings without the students present.

This is not so we can get together and talk about the students behind their back - or to make decisions that involve the students without giving them a chance to voice their opinion.

There are many aspects of a FIRST team that the students are not involved with: the responsibilities and liabilities to the sponsor corporations, travel, primary fundraising, lining up mentors and sponsors for next year, problems with mentors (yes! sometimes mentors need a talking to)

and sometimes the adults just need to get their act together, and need to hobnob with their fellow mentor wizards :^)

Our team has always had (adult) leadership meetings a couple times a month -believe me, if students were forced to attend they would think they were being punished. And there have always been meetings of adults of the teams in our area, to find ways to sponsor new teams, to find ways to work together cooperatively, to share major expenses.

Lots of stuff goes on behind the scenes that the students arnt fully aware of, and to be honest, they would not want to participate in 99% of the time.

If you want to be a part of the exclusive group know as 'FIRST mentors' - when you get into college or land your first job, join a team and be a mentor.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

my repsonse to the above post- that excatly what i was asked (its called reading for content)
just a litte niche here that the faculty leaders can learn from each other on how to run the day to day operation of a team and a job and a family life while doing this FIRST thing

as for the ad hom attacks by email (you will be dealt with shortly)

and which pretty much reinforce the fact that we are not aways dealing with repsoinsible enities and that why i brought this subject up

I deeply resent the fact that it is portayed that i wanted to exclude people from knowing whats going on with the team
i just think that not everyone of the team needs to knwo what goes on witht eh dreary day to day stuff- because they in most cases dont have the whole picture nor do they have the experince of dealing with it

the niche fourm place was for the vetrans to share with the rookie leaders how to cope and still maintain a modicum iof a life outside of school

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

i like this idea .. personally there are certain topics that i would like to address to team leaders alone and get advice from the team leaders without having any of my team's members reading about them ... i realize that htis can be done through pms and emails, but that would be a lot of pms/emails to send and even then, you are only getting a limited amount of opinions and advice because you cant possibly send it to everyone ...

and deciding who gets access to this forum .. i would love to say use the honour system .. if you are a team leader, etc. maybe send a pm to brandon or something and you will be granted access .. however i do not think that this will work becuase some will always lie to get access (not to put anyone down ...) ...

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

So I admit my first thought when I read Andrew's post I didn't really like the idea. However, after thinking about it, and then reading the rest of this thread i changed my mind. Especially after reading Andrew's post about possible topics, I realized that our team has issues with nearly every one of those, and even if they can't really do a lot to help it would be nice just to have someone I can talk to with out having to risk hurting anyine's feelings.

About what sanddrag said, these things don't need to be discussed with multiple teams, well I don't have anyone else on my team I can discuss them with. There's just me and the kids. And it doesn't help half the time I still feel like I should be one of the kids. It was kind of a shocker going from being one of the kids last year on 226 (goofing off and sword fighting with meter sticks) to being the only adult (finally understanding that although meter stick battle are highly entertaining, we need to get stuff done) and the one that every expects not to mess up. It's not that I want to exclude the students and have a private little adults meeting, but that I don't want to hurt their feelings in discussing some of the things that Andrew mentioned earlier. And ignoring them doesn't make them go away. And it would really help if I had someone to talk with about them.

Allison

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Its really good that you see it our way :)

Though i just want to clarify that the idea of private forum is for the team's own website not the ChiefDelphi site; Altough, team leaders can learn a lot form you guys with a lot of experience( especially me who just became a team leader) though that thread doesnt really has to be private(in my opinion).

And if the chief delphi guys make a private forum it would be really hard to judge who gets access and who doesnt, i mean Brandon would have to look through a lot of PM's and still he wouldnt really know who is telling the truth or not ;)

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

it would be easy to know who the real mentors are

we are the only ones who know the secret handshake

[oops! was I suppose to say that?]

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

so is anything going to happen with this ?? or was it just an idea thrown out ?? because as i said earlier, i like the idea of the forum for team leaders only ....

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Here are my thoughts.

1. VB3 just came to the Chief Delphi Forum. Brandon has a ton of work to do to get it back into shape.
2. The season is about to start. Everyone is ready to get the new game and build robots. There won't be much time and energy to think about this yet.
3. CD forum is still working well. We can still survive for 1 more season without adding anything.

So, my suggestion is we wait a week for the new season to start, get used to the new VB3 style, let Brandon have his time to work out everything, then we can figure out what to do afterward.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Sorry, but i've never been a fan of these types of secondary dealings. its not as if they arent a necessary part of every team, especially one where financial and number constraints are as a large a FIRST team's could be. However, all of those issues are issues that should be discussed by a team at large, within their own leadership by students/mentors/teachers that have experience, or wahtever method each particular team chooses. The last issues specifically troubles me. Venting is venting, and especially on the internet, anything can turn into a flame war or a bunch of meaningless replies.. yes even on CD. The idea of having a seperate "higher authority" area to vent cuts down on parity. Yes we know life isnt fair, but when you institute somewhere for people who are supposedly senior to specially complain and disparage people on their own team or otherwise, its not fair to anyone at all, and more importantly, it does not come off as being too friendly or too inspiring for a person to look up to.

everyone needs to blow off steam once in awhile, but doing it in such a way as so they cant see it, but other people of supposedly higher "rank", and on CD too, does not fit with my own ethics and beliefs. Naturally as people have shown already, there will be differences. But i think a large majority of people would be entirely unhappy with the implementation of this idea.

edit: phrasing of a few areas.

This sort of thing seems much too internal to put onto CD.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

A very valid point.
"Keep your garbage, in house..."

It could be disrespectful to come onto a public forum, and talk about team business...

John

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

I agree that flameing others has no part on CD or any other medium. Having a place to vent is not always bad. There are times when it is good to vent to the team (I am guilty). There are times to vent to other mentors (ditto). There are times when venting to others outside of your enviorment can bring a new and refreshed perspective. Other people that have been through the same or similar problems can shed light and help. AGAIN I say NO FLAMEING!!! this is negative all around. Would I like to see a "For Mentors Only" area? I can see the good and bad. I would probably spend some time there. There is still alot for me to learn. If students want to learn from mentors then they should think on how mentors can learn from each other to become better mentors. Mentors also learn from students (I do daily), so for us we can inprove exponentially.

Enough ranting! :o

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

i totally understand that .. i was just wondering if we were going to be getting one or not .. i understand that Brandon has a lot on his plate with the vb3 and a new season starting in a week tomorrow !!!!!!! and i also realize that this is not a major priorities or anything .. i was just wondering if eventually we will be getting one .. sorry i should have explained myself better ...

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

um.. excuse me for being a bit stupid.. but how do you know who's a team leader and who isn't??

I mean yeah... i guess in the profile field there could be a yes/no box for team leader / mentor.. but anyone could change their profile. And.. I'm sure there are CD users who are team leaders, but who don't have any profile filled out.

Mabey there's something I'm not seeing here, but I just don't see how you (or anyone) is going to know who out of the 4,905 CD members is a team leader and who isn't.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

that's where it would require you to know the person in real life (either through work, FIRST experiences, or elsewhere)

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Here is where I stand. I'm the leader of 188, but I am leaning against something like this. I might change my mind. For the moment, let's ignore the feasibility of determining who these 'team leaders' are, and let's ignore the fact that different people will have different definitions of what a 'team leader' is (thoughtful mentioned a small number of team leaders on his team, whereas If I read shyra1353's intent correctly, it was to give the team leader access, and Elgin Clock seems to be thinking more along the lines of adult mentors speaking with each other). I’m willing to bet that at least two-thirds of the participants in this forum have some kind of leadership role. But we can deal with those issues later.

Now, Brandon, judging by his relative silence, is (I think) leaning against this as I am, so the proponents of this proposal would probably have to put forth a strong argument for it to convince him of its necessity, but I'd really like to hear why this forum wouldn't be a fancy euphemism for a place for the 'elite' to vent, which I think is neither gracious nor professional. CD is a very self-sufficient forum. This is shown most recently by the popularity of reputation points and by the fact that we basically moderate ourselves. Now of course there is the odd person who doesn't think before posting, as JVN points out, but it's also true that they are learning as they read and post (and that they lose credibility and thus are effectively gagged, for lack of a better term); John in fact says this was the case for him ("When I started posting here, I was a moron"), though I doubt that. I fear that people might, well... stay moronic if this forum goes in, to use his terminology, because there won’t be that educational aspect that CD has right now. Will instituting this forum really help? Wouldn't such a forum hurt this CD environment I described?

I can see some of the topics that Andrew Dahl mentions might work in a leader’s forum, but at this point I’m not convinced it’d make very much change for the better.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Brandon among the brightest and best web guys I know. I cannot give him enough praise for the hard work, spirit and energy he puts into making this site what it is today... ...but... this is not his site to do with as he likes, nor is he the sole arbitrator when it comes to what happens on this site.

The idea for these fori came from many members of the Chief Delphi team and once it was up and running, the Chief Delphi online community.

On another thread, folks ask, "Why is the Chief Delphi Forum so popular, given that other fori exist?"

Brandon is a big part of it, but even more important, in my view, is the Vision behind the technology.

ChiefDelphi.com was formed when the Chief Delphi team leaders decided that the future of FIRST literally depended on teams talking among themselves with out having to involve Mom and Dad back in Manchester. We felt that we were never going to grow up as teams unless we had an effecient method of sharing information.

I am sure that many folks do not realize that in 1996, mass FAXES were the only method FIRST had to communicate to teams (and it sometimes took days for all the faxes to go out over the phone lines).

The Internet hit the popular culture and some folks on the Chief Delphi team had the vision for how it could be used to facilitate that team to team data sharing.

Just a small list of features we were early with and continue to lead in:

• Pictures along with poster names (implemented BEFORE the switch to vBulliten which made this more or less automatic - FYI)
• User Uploadable Picture Galleries
• User Uploadable White Paper section
• User Polls
• Paramutual Betting (Ventures)
• Private Fori (for FIRST Judges and others to communicate -- even WE could not view them -- Rats!)
• The list goes on and will continue to expand.

When we feel there is a need for a feature to help facilitate team to team communication we will do our best to add it.

Bottom line: Near infinite kudos to Brandon, but he is not all there is to the Chief Delphi online community...

Joe J.

P.S. Sorry for the thinly veiled bragging nature of this post, but I had to get that off my chest... ...I am better now. JJ

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Yep. What Joe said. When I make big changes, I still run them past at least my dad, if not all the team 47 leaders.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

I thing I don't quite understand about the first argument is the assumption that the only purpose for this idea is for team leaders to come in and "vent". Can you see no better purpose than that? My belief is that controlled amount of venting is healthy for someone under stress and pressure, but those venting would be kept in a personal level between friends and colleagues. So that would not be a good purpose to start this "team leader forum". I can think of something like "A smaller, more focused place for team leaders to chat about things in FIRST without the massive amount of posts filling the CD foruming right now", but that's just something on top of my head.


The second argument is assuming that if such a place exist, all the team leaders will stop posting in CD forum. I can safely say that, including myself, a lot of team leaders enjoy posting in CD forum and have intelligent discussions with the students and just about everyone else in the FIRST community. They take their time off their busy schedule to come in and post messages. That dedication isn't going to go away because a seperate, smaller forum comes up. You can notice a lot of team leaders aren't posting messages right now. Those prefer to keep their silence will do so anyway. And those who prefer the experience of posting on CD forum, they will continue to do so too.

These are just my opinions anyway.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Sorry for sounding like a lawyer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken Leung I thing I don't quite understand about the first argument is the assumption that the only purpose for this idea is for team leaders to come in and "vent". Can you see no better purpose than that? My belief is that controlled amount of venting is healthy for someone under stress and pressure, but those venting would be kept in a personal level between friends and colleagues. So that would not be a good purpose to start this "team leader forum". I can think of something like "A smaller, more focused place for team leaders to chat about things in FIRST without the massive amount of posts filling the CD foruming right now", but that's just something on top of my head.

This is fair, but I fear it is a bit too idealistic. To suggest that team leaders universally embody some kind of superiority is not right and not accurate. I fear that that is what the mere existance of this forum will suggest. Team leaders are just as guilty of whining and talking behind people's backs as the next person, and encouragement of this certainly isn't the aim of this community. Leaders clearly are not an exclusive group (an example of what I would say is an exclusive group warranting closed discussion would be referees, as Joe Johnson said).

To those that think a 'venting forum' is good, are you saying that it's healthy to vent about non-leaders to others without their knowledge? I'd say if that is what the forum encourages, then it's encouraging pretty childish behaviour, from the eldest of us at that. Venting is fine and healthy, but not here.

I cannot fathom a reason to have an exclusive forum for leaders; in the current system, if someone says something silly, uninformed, or preposterous, the experienced forumgoers have the choice to ignore them, or to teach them and help them understand. Do we really need to create an environment where this is not the case? Hey, if someone can find an example of a topic that shouldn't be discussed in the open or privately, I'm all for it. But I can't think of one. I'm not suggesting that the purpose of this forum would be venting; I'm suggesting it would be used as such, because leaders are no better than their teammates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken Leung The second argument is assuming that if such a place exist, all the team leaders will stop posting in CD forum. I can safely say that, including myself, a lot of team leaders enjoy posting in CD forum and have intelligent discussions with the students and just about everyone else in the FIRST community. They take their time off their busy schedule to come in and post messages. That dedication isn't going to go away because a seperate, smaller forum comes up. You can notice a lot of team leaders aren't posting messages right now. Those prefer to keep their silence will do so anyway. And those who prefer the experience of posting on CD forum, they will continue to do so too.

I'm suggesting the possibility of that happening. If leaders--those with presumably the most experience, knowledge, etc.--begin to a) concentrate on that forum, or b) become encouraged to think they are 'too good' for conversing with less experienced members to any degree no matter how small, the community will suffer. I don't think either of these will happen to an appreciable degree, but it's nowhere near impossible either.

Your logic is flawless speaking for yourself. Speaking for myself, if I participated in such a forum, it wouldn't change how I posted elsewhere, but I can't say the same for everyone (nor will I give examples of who I think this might be different for :D). The likelihood of anything in the second argument happening is miniscule. Consider it debunked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson Brandon among the brightest and best web guys I know. I cannot give him enough praise for the hard work, spirit and energy he puts into making this site what it is today... ...but... this is not his site to do with as he likes, nor is he the sole arbitrator when it comes to what happens on this site. The idea for these fori came from many members of the Chief Delphi team and once it was up and running, the Chief Delphi online community. [...] When we feel there is a need for a feature to help facilitate team to team communication we will do our best to add it.

I don't believe I suggested otherwise. But Brandon is the most vocal, and the one that actually implements all the features. But you're right of course. So then what are your thoughts about this topic?

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Perhaps I have misread the initial post in this thread, but the "venting" aspect to me played a minimal part in the thought process for this new forum. In fact, over the past few days that I have been following this entire thread, I have thought that this is very similar to a "teacher's conference room". (I do not mean to imply that all team leaders are teachers. I am merely using this for comparison purposes.)

The forum would be for the team leaders to discuss issues that they may have already attempted a solution to, but need other assistance from more veteran team leaders. These issues, however, do not need to include anyone other than the team leaders. For instance, in dealing with a problem between a student and a mentor, the team leaders on the forum would be the people that had previously dealt with this issue and, therefore, can offer guidance.

To go back to the comparison of the "teacher's conference room," a teacher will often talk to other teachers and administrators about students in their classes. Perhaps one teacher will have noticed that a student is disruptive in his classroom, but not in another. The teacher with the problem will then ferret out the other teachers of the student to determine what solutions are possible to stop the disruptive behavior. This discussion, however, is not one that the students in the school should have the opportunity to listen to.

As a person who was taking credential classes while in the classroom, I can tell you that the other first-year teachers in the classes with me would often discuss possible solutions to problems we were each having in the classroom. I could have turned to my students and said, "You have been disruptive again. How can we change your behavior?" If I did that, I would never have had any semblence of control.

Other issues that were also discussed included lesson plans. What lessons worked and what didn't? What would the other teachers have changed and why? There are things that adults often view in hindsight that a student would have missed, such as covering the topic of plagiarism on a research report. In addition, there are standards that the students are not necessarily aware of, yet they must still be kept in mind during lesson planning.

Again, there are just some issues that the team leaders have either attempted solutions to and need more assistance or that just don't need the attention of the students to begin with.

At least, that was my take on the whole idea behind the new forum.

indieFan

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Allison,

Would it help if we set up some sort of anonymous letter corner type of section, where people can send an e-mail or PM to a person running that section, who will post the message (and remove the sender's name) so others can respond to those questions or concerns?

Because that could be done really easily, without damaging any one's or team's reputation, or hurt their feelings, if the letters are written correctly. Of course, it will only work if everyone understand that it is not a place to vent, or intentionally say bad things about your own team, but a place to ask for advice or seek help from other people in FIRST. And people would only use it if they don’t want their own team to know they have these concerns or problems. But like you said, the problems won’t go away by ignoring them.

This is still an idea to be thought out, of course, but I just want to throw out the idea and see what people think, and how it can be better.

-Ken L

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Without showing any hard evidence, I can only speak what myself would do, and see if others agree or disagree. Speculation can only take us so far, without trying things out. I guess we will never know what other people will do unless they tell us, or use experiments to see what happens.