Mini-subgroup for Chief Delphi?

[Mowling]

Hello, my name is MeeNa Ko and I am part of the Public Relations subgroup in Team 122, the NASA Knights. I'm relatively new to the site, so I apologize if this thread is out of place, needlessly repetitive, or anything like that. >.<

Chief Delphi has always been a great way to talk to other teams as well as letting your own team be known. Our team as been slacking on these forums, so we want to do as much as we can to get involved again. I've suggested organizing a "mini-subgroup" consisting of at least one student from each subgroup to work together on Chief Delphi. As well as being knowledgeable, students need to be flexible enough to work on posting online.

I would like to organize a test to evaluate the potential of the students on my team. The test won't be anything multiple choice or fill-in-the blank, as I feel like that would be a poor indicator of value. The test will be hand-written and have a ten-minute time limit. It will consist of five "threads" based off of the various questions on Chief Delphi. The test will also be intentionally designed so that students will not be able to answer every question by themselves. After all, it's very difficult for students to know information not related to their subgroup. However, the time limit is one of the only restrictions on the test. Students are allowed and encouraged to work with other students and mentors to answer the questions, the only exception is not to use the internet/computer. With these rules, we'll be able to evaluate whether one can cooperate with other people as well as quickly gather information. We'll also be evaluating the originality and "voice" of the response. Cookie-cutter answers will not cut the cake.

If you would like to offer some example threads to put on the test or have any suggestions or questions about this process, please let me know. Also, any obvious problems you see with the test would also be appreciated. I would also like to point out that this test is not set in stone as of yet. This is only being endorsed by me has not been presented to our main mentor, Ms. T. The reason being is that I don't like presenting without some sort of definite outline... *cough* Thank you for reading this, and I'd love to hear your response!

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by Mowling

I would like to organize a test to evaluate the potential of the students on my team. The test won't be anything multiple choice or fill-in-the blank, as I feel like that would be a poor indicator of value. The test will be hand-written and have a ten-minute time limit. It will consist of five "threads" based off of the various questions on Chief Delphi. The test will also be intentionally designed so that students will not be able to answer every question by themselves. After all, it's very difficult for students to know information not related to their subgroup. However, the time limit is one of the only restrictions on the test. Students are allowed and encouraged to work with other students and mentors to answer the questions, the only exception is not to use the internet/computer. With these rules, we'll be able to evaluate whether one can cooperate with other people as well as quickly gather information. We'll also be evaluating the originality and "voice" of the response. Cookie-cutter answers will not cut the cake.

Do I understand correctly that you're considering testing students on their ability to participate in a simulated forum discussion, so that you can assign them the responsibility to post on ChiefDelphi occasionally? (That doesn't sound too valuable.)

Or was your preamble about "slacking on these forums" unrelated to the objective of the test? In that case, is the test just to see who can gather information the most effectively, and/or to train students in how to operate as a group? (That seems more useful, except that by limiting participation to team members, you risk missing out on other viewpoints or bodies of knowledge that are not represented within your team.)

I'd suggest fleshing out the idea some more before proceeding with it.

[Mowling]

Originally Posted by Tristan Lall

Do I understand correctly that you're considering testing students on their ability to participate in a simulated forum discussion, so that you can assign them the responsibility to post on ChiefDelphi occasionally? (That doesn't sound too valuable.)

Or was your preamble about "slacking on these forums" unrelated to the objective of the test? In that case, is the test just to see who can gather information the most effectively, and/or to train students in how to operate as a group? (That seems more useful, except that by limiting participation to team members, you risk missing out on other viewpoints or bodies of knowledge that are not represented within your team.)

I'd suggest fleshing out the idea some more before proceeding with it.

Thank you for your post. XP It helped a lot with how I should word things. You're right, my introduction was misleading to the cause. To clarify, the test is, like you said, to see who can gather information the most effectively. Forums are hard to work around. Even completely knowledgeable people are terrible at wording out their thoughts and responding to others. Some people can be rough on the internet, so some students aren't able to handle that kind of pressure. A problem you stated is limited participation. It may seem like that, but the test is meant to evaluate whether or not a student is willing to talk to others. I'm hoping that having a group willing to represent the team's thoughts and opinions will actually increase participation. Students who don't know too much learn from other members, and students who are too scared to speak up will now know who to go to to speak for them. The whole concept of the test is teamwork. Working with others to create the most reasonable response to a situation is what I think would help the team the most. Thank you again for reading.

[Garrett.d.w]

I like your ideas behind testing for teamwork and communication, so Ill focus on these first. The idea of getting together to solve a problem is a very good team building exercise. The only issue that I see with your current plan is involving the newer students (the ones that should be targeted in these exercises). CD contains a huge amount of jargon and issues that would easily overwhelm a rookie. My suggestion is to find a more universal approach that you could use at first. As the season progresses, and rookies learn more about the games and robots, this would gradually become a very good approach.

PS, if you decide to try your approach, could you send me a PM to let me know if it works. I would like to try it once the preseason starts wrapping up.

[Mowling]

Originally Posted by Garrett.d.w

The only issue that I see with your current plan is involving the newer students (the ones that should be targeted in these exercises). CD contains a huge amount of jargon and issues that would easily overwhelm a rookie.

Ah!! You're right about leaving rookies out of the picture. Considering the fact that the majority of our team this year are new to FIRST, the test wouldn't do too much to benefit everyone. If I were to host a series of "Chief Delphi" lessons before the test, do you think that would benefit? Also, if there's anything absolutely necessary that needs to be covered in these lessons, I'd love any of your suggestions. Thank you for all of your help!

[Chris is me]

I think you guys are taking Chief Delphi too seriously.

As long as you don't destroy your team's reputation here or something, there's not much need to take the website super seriously. We're a forum to help other teams, not an aspect of the competition itself.

[EricH]

Definitely, a bit of teaching would help.

Some things to cover in teaching:
-Standard forum etiquette.
-Spelling and grammar (while we won't not answer you if you misspell a word, having the right spelling, grammar, and punctuation does wonders for understandability).
-Tone. So many things can ruin a good forum posting, but having an aggressive/flaming tone is probably the big one.
-Topics to avoid. There are a few of these, but in general, three stand out: student vs mentor debates, baseless allegations of cheating (which has an annoying tendency to come up in the student/mentor debates), and the classic "The refs made the wrong call, now my team is 60th instead of 45th" or similar discussions. (Though, the last is dependent on tone. If you ask for an unofficial, broader discussion of an interpretation of a rule because you want to further your understanding of why you got X instead of Y result, chances are that you'll be just fine.)
-Proper placement of a question (i.e., all the subforums)

You may also want to talk about a few of the features of the forums like the reputation feature and the spotlights. Oh, and the search feature. It's amazing how many people don't find that one without being told about it.

Oh, and skip the test. This is a class that goes straight to the final, and the final lasts for a long time.

[Mowling]

I wouldn't like to restrict Chief Delphi only to one group of students. That would be way too awful. The Chief Delphi group would just help our team with forums. It's also a lot easier for students to ask for advice from a specific person, rather than to ask random team members who may or may not have an answer.
Haha, I can see how this process might be going a little bit too far, but, at least for me, I'd rather have students take CD seriously, than not recognize its existence at all. It's hard to tell a large group of students to post on a forum when they have a question. Some of them don't even know what Chief Delphi is! I know several students who feel too busy and never go on Chief Delphi. Of course, they end up missing out on a plethora of information which is a huge loss for everyone. I definitely don't want this process to seem competitive. So I'm really sorry it comes across like that.
Thanks for your suggestion on what to cover! All of these are great topics to learn. Mastering the search feature will be a difficult lesson to learn, but I'm sure that the students could do it. XP
Maybe I'm a little biased, but I'd like to keep this test. The test is still a good team building exercise and the overall results could provide a better outlook for this year's students. Chief Delphi or not, a test like this could really reflect on the character of our team. Thanks for all of your support.

[slijin]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I think you guys are taking Chief Delphi too seriously.

As long as you don't destroy your team's reputation here or something, there's not much need to take the website super seriously. We're a forum to help other teams, not an aspect of the competition itself.

This.

Seriously, CD is a great thing to use during the season but it's not a bible or something - it is what it is, a place for teams to communicate, sometimes collaborate - and sometimes conspire.

That being said, there's no reason for the majority of people on your team to not have a CD account, or at the very least, to not visit the site occasionally. I just keep my CD tab on auto-refresh

[Sconrad]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I think you guys are taking Chief Delphi too seriously.

As long as you don't destroy your team's reputation here or something, there's not much need to take the website super seriously. We're a forum to help other teams, not an aspect of the competition itself.

Thanks for your input. I am on Meena's team and while it may seem like we are taking it too seriously, the purpose of this Chief Delphi thing is not only to figure out who can best represent our team on these forums in order to find answers quickly (Chief Delphi is an excellent source for this purpose ), but also to emphasize the concept of "everybody is a representative of the team." The internet is a great resource, but we have to remember, it only takes one poorly worded post or comment to aggravate or offend somebody.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Sconrad

Thanks for your input. I am on Meena's team and while it may seem like we are taking it too seriously, the purpose of this Chief Delphi thing is not only to figure out who can best represent our team on these forums in order to find answers quickly (Chief Delphi is an excellent source for this purpose ), but also to emphasize the concept of "everybody is a representative of the team." The internet is a great resource, but we have to remember, it only takes one poorly worded post or comment to aggravate or offend somebody.

This is very true, and I'm very thankful that when I was on 1714 I was taught the importance of quality representation. I'm a bit of a loose cannon myself (really??? ), but I think the best way to address the issue is to make the responsibility of representing your team a fundamental part of the team culture. If you're preaching the values of being a good team representative routinely, you'll need nothing special for Chief Delphi. And it sounds like you guys are doing that already!