DigiCREST

The year 7/8 DigiCREST team, comprised of Nicolas Neilson, Caleb Woisin and Zachary Doyle are in week 2 of their challenge.  their brief is to "Identify a problem in your school or community and use digital technologies to solve it."  The boys have been brainstorming a range of ideas and today settled on one. They noticed that it can be hard for students to focus on their work at times so they have decided to investigate the creation of an educational incentive website.  Their initial ideas involve students recording their in-class work to earn points that they can spend on creating avatars.  They began to trouble-shoot their audience and the site creation and finished their session with a survey of ten students from each of the Aroha, Tautoko and Haepapa pods.  We are now awaiting contact with our industry mentor - its exciting stuff!

Spontaneous Practice

Our two teams are continuing to develop their spontaneous challenge strategies. Regular practice of these is vital leading up to the Tournament as they can vary so greatly.  The students can be given song lyrics, artworks, or objects to explain, justify, decipher and pontificate about.  They have 3-4 minutes to share their ideas and usually just 1 minute to report back to the judge.  They are marked on very specific criteria and its all about originality, creativity, and collaboration.

Here was today's challenge...

How did this person get here?  Who are they and where are they going?

You have four minutes to create your story and one minute to share it with the judges.  

You will be marked on your collaboration as a group, the creativity in how you tell your story and originality of your ideas.

Long Term Challenge Development

At the beginning of the script writing process for the Long Term Challenges, a lot of team dynamics come into play.  The teams are having to negotiate the sharing of ideas and it's often a real personal challenge to let the group take your idea and manipulate it to fit the common goal.  Experiencing this builds resilience and collaborative work skills and is so useful as these students grow.

Costume Workshops

The Tournament of Minds teams had their last assisted preparation workshops this week looking at costumes and touching on iconography.  Iconography is the study of the elements expected in a given genre.  For example,  if we are telling the story of Snow White, we expect to see an apple, a witch and dwarves.  The students all got to practice basic hand stitching skills and then created a few costumes to represent a given story.  The Year 5/6 team worked on Alice in Wonderland and the 7/8's on Harry Potter characters.  Can you identify the icons used to represent these characters?

Drama Drama Drama!

The TOM teams were extremely lucky to have Alan Dingley come and share with us on Monday afternoon.  Alan is an engaging facilitator and I was really proud of how the students all listened and followed his directions without question, testing their own boundaries and comfort levels.  Alan taught us about layering up a scene, helped the students develop physicality and think about characterisation.  A new concept for me was that of iconography - those elements of a context which you expect to see and help ground a setting.   There was so much to take away from the session - the teams are now even better prepared as Tournament draws closer.

To give you a little more insight into who Alan is and why I sought him as a facilitator for the kind of skills we need - check out this article.  Theatre Sports Success

Here's what the Year 7/8 Team had to say..

Maddi - I learned how to project my voice and how to stand while you're talking.
Emma - I learned how to express how I'm feeling with my body language and I think that this will help our team really well because it will look better on the stage when we are presenting.
Axis - I learned how to present to people on all sides of the stage.  I feel like that's going to be helpful when we show the judges.
Johanna - I learned how to portray characters through facial and body movements.
Kaija - I learned that you can do anything with just one line.  You can act out many different people and storylines.
Riley - I learned how to just go with anything, no matter how silly it is.

Spontaneous Challenge Practice

Our year 5 and 6 TOM team were practicing their Spontaneous Challenge strategies today.  The Spontaneous Challenge makes up half the marks for the Tournament of Minds and uses very different skills from the Long Term Challenge.  This team are practicing a thinking strategy called "Think, Pair, Share".  The timekeeper for the group indicates when their 30 seconds of individual thinking time begins, then the group pair off and share their initial ideas for one minute.  Then the timekeeper calls 'share' and the group comes together to share their best ideas.  From here the group needs to discuss and decide their response to the judges and a designated presenter will bring it all together in a one minute verbal presentation.  As you can see - its a lot to get your head around and it takes practice...can you think of ten things that can be locked in or locked out by a padlock?  Your answers need to be collaborative, considered, and creative...its challenge isn't it! 

Goal Setting - Year 7/8's

Goal setting and reflection can often seem like the poor cousins to the fun of drama games and solving challenges.  Yet, I'm pleased to say, the students are developing an understanding of the benefits of it.  The students in the Navigator Centre are exploring the GROWTH model of goal setting so we are implementing that in TOM this year too.

To give you an idea of what the GROWTH model incorporates, here are some of the reflections of the students in each category.  (We are just exploring G, R, O and W).

Goal - What do you need to achieve?

• Axis - To Contribute to the team and help us move on to the second round.
• Riley - Self-Confidence - I need to be more confident if I'm speaking no matter how silly the script is.  Communication - I think I need to think about how much everyone else is talking and is it on task.
• Johanna - I need to be more helpful by sharing more of my ideas.

Reality - What is happening now?

• Emma - We are working on spontaneous challenges.  I am working on contributing my ideas.  I have been giving attention to the teacher and listening.
• Riley - Training to solve problems within the group if someone does something not on the script.  Understand others ideas and accept them.
• Kaija - I am working with my sister to improve my tolerance.

Options - What could you do?

• Maddi - to work with some of the people in class that are in the TOM group.
• Axis - I can attempt to work with my group outside of GATE. I can also contribute all mu skills to the group.
• Emma - I can listen to others and work with what they have asked me to do.

Will - What will you do?

• Johanna - We will assign jobs that best suit the person's strengths.
• Kaija - I will learn to sew and work with my sister more.
• Maddi - Understand the people and the different ways that everyone works. 

Working Hard!

A great morning was had this morning by the students from Kahurangi and Tautoko.

The year 5/6 TOM team spent time breaking down a past challenge, looking at how they might answer it and gaining an understanding of the scope of creativity they need to bring to their solution. We also had our second mindfulness session with Mrs Jeffery.

We are exploring mindfulness in different parts of the school and in different ways. I have asked these students to master a few basic techniques specifically to help with focus before entering into a spontaneous challenge. Over the coming weeks we will be practicing this further.

The Tautoko students met with me to revisit their multiple intelligences before working again on their 'Seed of Potential' presentations where they are beginning to explore their inherited potential.