Quote:
Originally Posted by katahar
Our club has been growing for the past few years, and we've seen a lot of good members join our ranks. Unfortunately, we also seem to find that there are people who "join" the club but don't want to do the work required for each member. We're looking for a formal way of tracking what everyone does in case we need to launch a "formal investigation" (as our team likes to call it). We've juggled the ideas of having individual logbooks or of possibly having a group log book. Anyone have any other possible ideas?
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To get to the bottom of what's happening, I think you need to find out why some of your students aren't doing the work. It's normal to have a few new people who end up leaving the team because it wasn't right for them. But it's a different story for those students who show up and socialize, watch other people, and otherwise don't participate. That's usually a sign of poor engagement. It's a very common problem. There are a lot of reasons it could be happening.
- Students might not be able see opportunity for getting involved at the (lack of) skill level they're at.
- Students might find the way skills are taught to be incompatible with the way they learn.
- Students aren't invited to engage in something that they find interesting. (ex: "Bob does all of our programming so you probably won't do that.")
- Students might be worried about embarrassing themselves if they suck at doing something new-to-them.
- Students are often still learning how to balance their time commitments so they miss meetings or drop tasks.
- Some students have personal problems that distract them from focusing.
Here are some other questions you might want to look at:
- Does your team have a core group of go-to students that are experts? If so, do these students spend most of their time mentoring new students or do your student experts mostly spend their time getting the legwork done on projects?
- Does your team clearly and precisely communicate their expectations regarding what students should accomplish and in what timeframe?
- Does your team plan its activities as projects with milestones?
- Does your team have a process for monitoring project status?
Watching progress too closely is counterproductive too. Nobody likes to be micromanaged. Accountability is good but not when it's used to blame or pass judgement. If your team isn't satisfied with a student's work, someone on the team needs to get to the bottom of it. It's much more informal than an investigation. More like a having a private conversation of concern with that student. ("Hey, you don't seem too interested in doing XYZ. What's going on?") The team of course has the right to give the student the choice of working or leaving, whether for the day or permanently. But it's the team's job to help that student find a good fit before it comes to that.
It's also nice if you can find ways to recognize students that go above and beyond. The trick there is to find ways that reward more than time-in or being connected to a resource (ex: getting the team access to money/goods/services/opportunities through family or family-friends). Look for creativity and meaningful efforts. A little recognition can go a long way.