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  #16   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 23-05-2007, 02:52
Ian H. Ian H. is offline
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Re: Student Initiative

I agree with pretty much everything that has been said. I just wanted to emphasize that making it fun for a large group of people is half of the battle. I would say focus on developing a community that is accepting of ideas, supportive in general, and where all of the kids become friends and supporters of FIRST (remember that this can start with focusing on teaching/connecting with one or two kids and then branching out). Then when it is fun and a lot of people are involving themselves by doing what is presented to them, then to me that is the time to coax some members to take on projects. A little push is always good, just make sure they know that you are looking over their shoulder (You don't have to do anything; just let them learn from the mistakes you think they are making, and teach concepts when appropriate).

In the TRC, I know success and failure really never happen, it is always something in between. Let kids know that if you learn from what you attempted you have really succeeded. It is very rare that everything goes according to plan, but when this happens, I think it is time to start thinking of how you can improve your contraption or concept.

Have fun with the students, be yourself, and encourage others to be themselves by presenting an environment which excepts ideas and good willed attempts, but discourages putting others ideas down.

In the end maybe the best way to go is just to experiment and imagine a community where you would like to be.

Just my $0.02
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Unread 23-05-2007, 10:54
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Re: Student Initiative

I know what it took to get my intraverted self to take initiative in high school. Granted, I'm not like everyone else, but it did take a lot of leading the horse to water before I could stand on my own. So here's my story:

The inspiration came in 8th grade on a field trip to a museum where I was fascinated by the way a magnet moving around a coiled wire could create a live current. I then came up with (over the next 3 years) 17 designs for perpetual motion machines that utilised that concept. The final two designs would in theory work since they were in a weightless environment, with no light or sound -- so in theory they would work but we'd never know if they actually did or not because we could never see or hear it. For the entirety of those three years I argued and argued via email of why my design would work with some professor from Research Triangle Park, NC. The professor did bring up an interesting idea, wondering if the magnetic bearings could cause friction via the magnetic field, however my electromagnetics course in college didn't have anything I could use to prove/disprove the idea.

Parallel to all of this, I started playing football in 10th grade. I knew it would take work to become any good at it, so I worked out starting the middle of 9th grade, did foot drills and knew every play so well that I could tell anyone on the offensive line what they were supposed to do on a particular play. 175lbs, I had to be fast and quick minded, and strong. I knew what I had to do, but without a great coach along the way (sometimes yelling) for encouragement and leadership, I would never have seen what kind of passion it takes to play such a game on the offensive line to its fullest. (7-4 my senior year with me starting at left guard, knocked out second round of the playoffs)

Ironically, it was my offensive line coach, who admits to knowing next to nothing about the math of physics, that kept directly encouraging me to argue my points to a professor, and to keep redesigning my machine to account for flaws that were pointed out.

From my perspective it takes inspiration, direct coaching, constructive/calm critisism, encouragment, and a leader who lets the student know that there is much expected of him/her. Just as important as the student finding initiative is the leader that should be willing to do all of the above with some heart when a student comes forward.

On a side note, if you wonder why students don't clean up after themselves in the shop/lab, alot of times it can be pointed back to the leadership -- they won't clean it up themselves if they never see you cleaning it up yourself. If you're lazy, they will be too.
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  #18   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 23-05-2007, 11:08
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Re: Student Initiative

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bomberofdoom View Post
What do you mean? Leaders need to accept ideas of others?
If it's really about leaders needing to accept ideas of others, I understand that, but if it's something else, I didn't understand.
Exactly. If leaders don't accept input from anyone, why should anyone make the effort to come up with their own ideas?
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Unread 23-05-2007, 15:40
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Re: Student Initiative

Just a clarification: The large majority of the students on our team do take initiative. However, we would like to improve this quality in any way we can.

Thanks everyone, we'll look into using some of your suggestions to push for even greater student involvement on our team.
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Unread 23-05-2007, 16:01
JaneYoung JaneYoung is offline
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Re: Student Initiative

Quote:
Originally Posted by BMartin 234 View Post
Just a clarification: The large majority of the students on our team do take initiative. However, we would like to improve this quality in any way we can.

Thanks everyone, we'll look into using some of your suggestions to push for even greater student involvement on our team.
Ben,
I was pleasantly surprised to see this thread started by you because of the efforts that 234 consistently puts forth in team development and initiative. Your team is a wonderful role model in many areas of teamwork and team building. It was exciting to see that your team is discussing aspects that are often taken for granted or overlooked and that you were willing to post a thread asking for opinions and ways to improve. By doing this, you have created an opportunity for everyone to think, read, participate, and improve. It's great. Keep posting great topics.
Jane
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Last edited by JaneYoung : 23-05-2007 at 23:27. Reason: word change
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Unread 23-05-2007, 18:18
4throck 4throck is offline
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Re: Student Initiative

Regular beatings. We beat them constantly.

But in all seriousness, the best way to foster student initiative is to have a completely student built/designed robot. If the kids see the seniors designing and building the robot, they know that it is within their reach to do the same. When new kids see other students knowing everything that they have to know about building a robot, they will see that with some experience, their ideas have equal weight with all other ideas.

Naturally, this fosters fosters a lot of initiative if done correctly. If the kids know the basics, and also know that it is within their ability to do what the team has done in the past, they will take the initiative. Did any of you know what you were doing as freshmen? Hell no, and neither did I. But gradually, we all worked our way up into the leadership of the team, and had a hand in making our robot.

Of course, the problem with this method is that your robot MAY not be as good as if the mentors did everything. Naturally, the students will make stupid mistakes that could have easily been gotten around, or make mistakes due to inexperience. Hopefully though, the new leadership knows enough to do well anyway. If not, remember that students still get a lot out of a robot that is a complete and utter failure. Trust me on this one.
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  #22   Spotlight this post!  
Unread 23-05-2007, 20:47
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Re: Student Initiative

In all my years of engineering in the automotive field, I have found one constant (which has been stated already) - Initiative cannot be taught, it comes from within each individual based on what they choose to accomplish. I have worked with very intelligent people who need to be led by a leash and quite a few, um, "thinking challenged" individuals who are self starters...though not necessarily on the right path. Initiaitive coupled with skill is the trick, only way to accomplish that is get the kids with the right skill set interested in the end result. Want an example? Check out this little off season project that our kids did recently, this was a life lesson for the kids involved - they will not sit on the sidelines given opportunity... I am extremely proud of this team!

http://www.oxfordpress.com/hp/conten...007konrad.html

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local/story...4-77fc6f9b868b
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Last edited by Dan 1038 : 23-05-2007 at 20:49.
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Unread 23-05-2007, 22:20
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Re: Student Initiative

On my team we often have problems with students being devoted. I think that showing them that they can have control and that they can be leaders is a big step in the direction of devotion. Another step IMO is students showing/telling other students that they do care, and that other students want to work with them, not just along side of them.

Essentially, make students feel like they matter, and they will feel more responsible for the robot and the team.
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Unread 24-05-2007, 03:09
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Re: Student Initiative

Quote:
Originally Posted by 4throck View Post
Regular beatings. We beat them constantly.

But in all seriousness, the best way to foster student initiative is to have a completely student built/designed robot. If the kids see the seniors designing and building the robot, they know that it is within their reach to do the same. When new kids see other students knowing everything that they have to know about building a robot, they will see that with some experience, their ideas have equal weight with all other ideas.

Naturally, this fosters fosters a lot of initiative if done correctly. If the kids know the basics, and also know that it is within their ability to do what the team has done in the past, they will take the initiative. Did any of you know what you were doing as freshmen? Hell no, and neither did I. But gradually, we all worked our way up into the leadership of the team, and had a hand in making our robot.

Of course, the problem with this method is that your robot MAY not be as good as if the mentors did everything. Naturally, the students will make stupid mistakes that could have easily been gotten around, or make mistakes due to inexperience. Hopefully though, the new leadership knows enough to do well anyway. If not, remember that students still get a lot out of a robot that is a complete and utter failure. Trust me on this one.

That happened to us this yeay.
We didn't get any sponsers and we didn't have a lot of parents who had any idea about robotics, but with reliance from our mentors, we gave out OUR ideas and combined them with our mentors idea and eventually it was the students robot. Of course, the mentors built small items of the robot that were really important and needed and expert hand to work on them, most of the work was of the students and our robot was one of the best in our regional, we received the Xerox Creativity award and were one of the most "bold" teams this year.

My team's (those who came to the regionals and stayed late at night in the building season)initiative is seen when they talked all the time about FIRST, asked me questions(because I was the only guy who still went into Chief Delphi [gah, the embarasment ]) ,but because we didn't have alot of meetings lately and we had plenty of delays because of teacher and student strikes, special days, tests and more and we're still not sure when the next meeting is, there is less initiative now.

Actually, I think I finally understand why the other team members didn't participate too much (atleast some of them). Some of them wanted to do something from their own, but our mentors, with little time to explain and help, told some of the students, like in the strategy team, to work on something but she couldn't explain too good why because she was under pressure and then the students, confused, didn't do a lot of what was told for them to do, no student came up to them and asked them what's going on(because some were too busy) and evantually they "bumed" and it translated into hatred against our mentor.

From the school's order, students must participate 2 years in the project in order to get a grade on the project, so those students that joined our team for the project will be forced to join us next year or they will have to leave and do a diffrent project for 2 years.
The current team is very mad at those students, including a bit of me, and I'm just not sure how we're gonig to be able to adapet them back into our team. :-/
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Last edited by Bomberofdoom : 24-05-2007 at 03:13.
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Unread 26-05-2007, 22:48
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Re: Student Initiative

Quote:
Originally Posted by 4throck View Post
Regular beatings. We beat them constantly.

But in all seriousness, the best way to foster student initiative is to have a completely student built/designed robot. ...

Of course, the problem with this method is that your robot MAY not be as good as if the mentors did everything. Naturally, the students will make stupid mistakes that could have easily been gotten around, or make mistakes due to inexperience. Hopefully though, the new leadership knows enough to do well anyway. If not, remember that students still get a lot out of a robot that is a complete and utter failure. Trust me on this one.


haha 4throck I think I've responded to you twice today...

Anyway I agree with you entirely. Our robots have been very student built and engineered, and with that has come great initiative. I think this is a function of the success of the robot resting on your shoulders... as a student you want to see your robot do well, and if you've had a hand in building it you're much more invested in the robot's success. I also know from my experiences with my team that it brings your team much closer together, and because you care about your team you want to show initiative and bring a positive impact to your team.

That said, there are also many teams who have students who show great initiative, yet their robots are almost entirely mentor built. I think the ultimate initiative-builder is letting students discover something they really enjoy doing for the team, and letting them run with it. This may mean not holding students to what they said they were interested in doing at the beginning of the season. We had one student who stated an interest in CAD. In the end that student had absolutely nothing to do with the CAD subteam, and instead was crucial in helping us wire the robot.

Team members will show initiative when allowed the freedom to discover their passion. Cliche, I am aware, but very true. This year we tried to require every student to find a sponsor and contact them. It blew up in our faces, because they weren't free to find and do what they enjoyed.

I think the reason student-oriented teams are so successful is because team members are often more free to play around and find what excites them. The teams that are more mentor-oriented and still have members who show great initiative are the teams who are lucky enough to have mentors who encourage this freedom. As high school students, we have to be free to make mistakes, to screw up... and this freedom is the ultimate initiative-builder.

my $.02
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