Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

That would stand a good chance of becoming a shipwreck.

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

Alright,

Today as the deadline approached, our mentor got done with the Nomination around 1:00 pm Pacific time. I tried to upload the essay but got an error, so we had someone else on our team try and we got an error again.

Then our mentor tried though the TIMS, but that didn't seem to work either.

So he called up FIRST before the 4:30 EST deadline and FIRST told him that it had to go though the Student TIMS. He was not allowed to upload the nomination or email it to FIRST.

Has anyone else had the same problem? Its very disappointing not to get in due a problem with TIMS.

Thanks,

-RC

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

Pretty much the same deal with us. Two essays were sent to FIRST via e-mail before 1:30 pm because our students don't have internet access in school. A call to FIRST indicated that they weren't able to accept the e-mail submission.

The real problem is that this award shouldn't be submitted by a student. But, FIRST didn't have time to develop an alternative submission method, so they were stuck with using STMPLGIS (or student TIMS).

Selecting the nominee(s) and essay writing should be done by mentors, otherwise it's a popularity contest (or worse). The notion that a student would read my assessment of the capabilities, commitment, contributions of a peer doesn't sit very well with me. That kind of evaluation should be kept discrete.

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

We made a fake account with the student TIMS so the mentors could submit.

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

This is very upsetting for me to hear RC. I hope your submission pulls through somehow.

Without you in the mix, its not a true competition :(

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

I'd like to see a good working definition of 'regular fail' and 'epic fail'..haha

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

We gave some serious thought to doing that, but decided not to.

I really should have introduced "Ima Mentor" to our team. I wouldn't be whining so much now. :o

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

I'm hearing a lot about getting around the system in order for the mentors to submit an essay or two that highlights the character of a student, hoping to garner a prestigious award that Dean Kamen has created to honor his parents. There's something very wrong. Especially when the team getting around the system is a HoF team.

With the way that it was set up this year, we took a collaborative approach, involving the students that had been selected by our team, in the process. Because of the different constraints involved, we approached the situation as best we could while continuing to maintain a semblance of order and integrity. When mentors from other teams contacted me seeking advice, I advised against doing anything to get around the system.

For this award, is it really that important that only mentors write and submit for the student(s) being honored? Or - is it valuable to include the student(s) and their team (and community) in which they are such a big part of and from where the inspiration has come? I can understand that mentors are asked to write college recommendations year after year, and we all take that very seriously and adhere to the privacy aspect of that. This is a little different. At least this year. One of our sub-team awards members e-mailed the essay submissions to the team yesterday. I printed them out and will frame them and place them where I can see them every day. Are they perfect? No. Could we have used a lot more time than we had. Absolutely. Am I proud as can be? Yes. Am I still frustrated? No. The students' tenacity and perseverance calmed me way down. They're good like that.

Jane

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

I agree that "gaming the system" is not the best way to go, but in this case, it's an indicator how broken the implementation really is.

Team 980 didn't have time to do the team collaborative approach to writing and approving the essays. But even if we did have the time, we don't think that is necessarily the best approach for determining and submitting nominees for this award.

Here is the Team 980 rationale for believing the Dean's List award is the purview of mentors not the students:

A "consensus" submission might turn the Dean's List award into a popularity contest within the team - not a good thing. Even worse, debates might arise among team members (remember, we're dealing with emotional teenagers who are as sleep-deprived and burned-out as the mentors) that actually harm the team. The Dean's List Award should be the mentors' opportunity to identify students that delivered above and beyond expectations. These students might be very shy, very driven, and/or even very "weird" in the eyes of their peers. An adult mentor can easily push aside the "petty stuff" and get to the heart of the matter for the Dean's List award: contribution, commitment, capability, and creativity.

A socially-adept student might contribute to team spirit and perhaps boost the number of students on the team. But I much rather have a student that takes on the design challenges and is committed to work creatively to meet those challenges. If this dedicated student isn't a Facebook friend with other team members, that student shouldn't be penalized in consideration of this award.

This year, no LEGAL mechanism existed in FIRST for mentors to make awards submissions. FIRST must address that next year. FIRST also should give due consideration to teams that did all they could to submit their Dean's List nominees on time - even if it was done by e-mail or FAX to HQ, or created a temporary "fake" account to submit the award.

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

Excellence rises and can be seen/experienced by everyone.
--
So as not to respond with yet another post, I'll add on here.

David, regarding your posts - I can't help but think that we are saying the same things only different. I have great respect for the struggle regarding the timing, the exhaustion of the mentors/students, and the frustrations of working with/contending with the new system set up for submitting for awards. Perhaps, sometimes FIRST forgets that we are all human when they ask for these extraordinary superhuman efforts.

Peace.

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

I agree, and I didn't mean to infer that a consensus approach wouldn't work. I applaud your team's approach. I would be proud of the student's efforts as well.

There are some factors here that cannot be ignored. All of our team members would stand behind our nominees. Given the time constraints (for our team, one evening), selecting nominees and developing collaborative essays (which is what the award call required), would have been asking too much. We selected the two workhorse team leaders, then wrote from the mentor's perspective. Is that the best or correct approach? No, it's just what we could do under the constraints. I think things will be much better next year after FIRST sorts out the implementation.

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

We barely had the time for the mentors to work on it, let alone to form a committee of students to get this done. We had two options here. The mentors write the submission and hope the kids can get it in on time, or the mentors write the submission and slightly circumvent the system (which is completely broken) to ensure that our students have the chance to be recognized. It was a no brainer to us.

I agree with everything that David has said. As mentors we know our students a LOT better than the students do. I also feel that the team does not need to know what we wrote about the students we submitted for.

The point here was to recognize an outstanding student (or two) on your team. We did our absolute best to make that happen, which is what any team should have done. I see absolutely no reason why that is "very wrong"

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

Creating a false account was wrong, in my opinion.

What is very wrong is the way the rollout of the award was handled. That would be "very wrong" with any award. With a new award that already has too much prestige/value to be ignored - it is very wrong to put teams of your caliber with such an incredible reputation - into such difficult positions as to feel that you have to make choices like this. To put all the teams through this.

(In our case - it was a collaborative effort within the team - students and mentors working together.)
Jane

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

Regular: Something's screwed up a little bit. SNAFU, only minor.
Epic: "Something" hit the fan. Major SNAFU.

(I thought about posting a quantitative version, but then realized that I'm the only one on here who knows the units for that one and what they mean.)

The rollout would have been best left for next year, or earlier than it was this year, IMO.

Re: FIRST Dean's List- Thoughts?
 

My only concern award is that I hope the award doesn't take anything away from the Woodie Flower's Award. I was a little used to the concept of awarding adult mentors as the only individual recognition.

The short time frame didn't give me time to write essays about students that particularly inspired me, but they wrote about each other fast enough to submit.

I guess in a way this is a lot like the IRI Scholarships in terms of honoring student achievement.