Your opinions greatly appreciated.

[Allison K]

Originally Posted by kyle1997

The reason I chose this to do this is because within other FLL and FRC teams I have noticed that sometimes the males push the females out of leadership positions and sometimes females think that they are not allowed to be in a leadership position by separating by gender my hope is to show that the females are just as capable if not more capable of being in the leadership positions. It also does the same for the males. I was going to split them like that at least for one year to show and make an example that anyone can be in the lead they just have to work hard for it.

If the more reserved kids being pushed out of leadership roles is a concern, you could consider doing a "leader of the week" type system. This would ensure that all kids get equal leadership experience regardless of gender lines, so the more shy boys would be given the opportunity to step up as well. You can let the kids know at the beginning of the season that each week there will be a designated leader of the week that will fulfill certain responsibilities. You can either define these responsibilities for them, or have them be an active part of the process of deciding what the leader should do. For young students without experience, you may be better off giving them the list since they won't know what's necessary anyway. The leader responsibilities can include tasks such as standing in front of the group and leading the end of meeting wrap up session, being in charge of calling on team members to keep group discussions civil and productive, recording entries in a team journal/engineering notebook/meeting minutes, deciding who should work on which tasks each day, etc.

With any sort of leadership structure in FLL, keep in mind that age appropriate expectations are really important. The vast majority of elementary age FLL students will need significant assistance with "leadership" tasks, especially at the beginning of the season, and many older FLL age students will need help as well. If the kids are expected to take on too much responsibility before they are mature enough to handle such a task the experience will probably not be a positive one and may hamper them from taking on such roles when they get older. Especially given that you have fifth graders, remember that ten year olds are very much still kids. This isn't a bad thing, I love working with that age group, but make sure your expectations of your leaders are in line with the social and emotional maturity of the student in question.