Day 4- Brainstorming and Decision Making

This week, my little OMers put in a lot of good work.  As always, we started the session with some Spontaneous practice with emphasis on SCAMPER.  Lately, we've been practicing a lot Verbal Spontaneous Problems (mostly because they are short and concise) and the kids seem to be really getting a hang of it.  The two problems we focused on today involved explaining why the Leaning Tower of Pisa was leaning and listing signs and their "directions".  During Spontaneous problems, students are given anywhere from one to two minutes of 'think time' (usually just silent, sometimes can talk with group members) with two to four minutes to respond.  Responses are also graded in a variety of ways.  Usually, common answers receive one point while creative answers receive 3 points.  Some questions offer highly creative/ humorous points which are 5 points per response.  Both questions the students did today offered all three levels and I am very proud to say that on both questions we averaged half common answers and half creative/highly creative!  Let me say that again,

HALF OF THE RESPONSES GIVEN SCORED AS EITHER CREATIVE OR HIGHLY CREATIVE!

That's a big deal!  Not only have the students really improved quickly, but they have been really developing some serious creative thinking skills.  In the sign question, Eminem-ily* kicked off the round with a highly creative answer!  Everybody is really thinking about their answers so they can get as many points as they can.

After Spontaneous, we went to the daunting task of deciding various pieces of our solution.  Last week, the kids had begun to narrow down their lists of possible characters, setting, and reactions to the "frightening haunted house".  Today, I wanted our goal to be decided our reaction.  The kids voted on the list we had brainstormed using the same basic scoring technique that is used for Spontaneous problems (1pt for common reaction, 2pts for creative reactions, and 3pts for highly creative reactions).  The team narrowed it down to two possibilities before deciding to take a vote.  After voting, it was three in favor in one and 4 in favor of the other.  While that's not technically a gridlock, I decided it was probably best to have each side "make their case" to help the kids decided more unanimously.  Two kids performed a short skit for their side, while two other kids performed their short skit for their side.  The three neutral students were left to discuss which mini-performance could work for our solution.  Needless to say, time was running out and the students were still discussing.  I called another vote that would stand as final.  Unfortunately, the results were the same- four for one reaction and 3 for the other.  However, we got something decided which helps moves us forward and provides us with a starting point for next week!

*Eminem-ily is a nickname since I have two Emilys!

Day 3- Brainstorming for Problem 2: The Not-So-Haunted House

So great to be back! It's been almost two weeks due to crazy snow-apocalypes that have canceled school, which, of course, included OM.

To kick off this week's meeting we did two spontaneous problems.  Since the Art Room hosts carpool students immediately after school, we start the first 15 minutes in the library.  I think I'm going to start making this time, Spontaneous time since its really too short to accomplish anything else. We did two verbal problems today.  The first problem we did involved using the word "catch" as creative as they could.  On this problem, 5 points were awarded for creative and humorous answers and only 1 point was award for common answers.

THEY KILLED IT!!

Over half of the answers they gave were scored as creative or humorous! They gave answers such as "What's the catch", "Ketchup", "Catching Fire".   It was fantastic! 

And then we went to the other problem...

The second problem required the team to use some new skills.  First, it required the team to discuss ideas during the think time (which is new, usually they just think silently) and it required them to give "alternative endings" to the classic tale of Little Red Riding Hood, which are length-er responses than they are used to giving.  This team has so many great ideas, however, they haven't mastered how to be concise in their thoughts and let each other have turns to speak.  Additionally, they haven't mastered the idea of "feeding off each other".  I think if we can work on the listening and "feeding off" skills, this team will do really well in the future.

As we moved into the Art Room, we began brainstorming ideas for solving The Not-So-Haunted House long-term problem.  First, we brainstormed characteristics that make a performance enjoyable or entertaining to us.  From there we began to brainstorm possible characters, settings, and reactions (to the frightenings of the Haunted House) that could be used in the solutions.  While some of the ideas were commonplace, I think the team got a couple of really solid ideas.  The trick is going to developing these ideas into something they could use.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how well the students worked and brainstormed together.  I think next week we will begin to dive more deeply into developing a story-line for this problem!

Day 2- SCAMPER and BrainStorming

After a LONG break since our first meeting (early release followed by a snow day), I finally got to be reunited with my OM kids!  To kick off this meeting, we created an OM contract.  Since our first meeting was just meant to have fun and get to know one another, this meeting I wanted to create a little more structure and flow.  As a team we created rules/ Dos and Don'ts that the team is supposed to follow at every meeting.  Some of the rules that the group came up with were "school-like" such as "be respectful", however some of the rules that they came up with were more OM-oriented such as "think outside of the box!"  After creating 15 rules, we all signed the contract, meaning that we read and understood all of the rules in the contract.

After the contract we dove right into some Spontaneous practice.  First, we practiced a verbal Spontaneous problem.  The problem read: Tell how you would get a wooly mammoth out of the hole. For example, you could say, " I would use a piece of rope and pull it out of the hole."  For this problem, the answers received 1 point for common answers, 3 for creative, and 5 for highly creative answers.  The students really enjoy the Spontaneous problems and gave some really interesting solutions.  Some of the more creative answers that were give were: Fill up the hole with water and let the wooly mammoth float out of the hole, bring an attractive lady-mammoth and the wooly mammoth will run out of the hole, and a play on the word hole/whole- cut the whole in half, then you would only have a half and no whole for the mammoth to be stuck in.

The kids came up with some creative answers - they are naturally creative!  However, there are some techniques that I would like to teach the students to help guide their thinking during the think-time that they are giving before having to answer.  Today, we went over the acronym SCAMPER, an idea-spurring trick to generate ideas or improve objects.  Each letter in the acronym can help students think of creative solutions to many problems.

After exploring several ways we could use each letter to help us think more creatively, we tried another verbal Spontaneous problem.  The problem we did read: We all enjoy reading about animals that are "make believe," such as the "Push-Me Pull-You" in Dr. Doolittle. Your problem is to pretend you could add something to an existing animal to make a new animal. Tell what you would add to which animal and why. For example, you could say "I would give my dog a lion’s roar, so he would be a better watchdog."

The students struggled with this one more than the first Spontaneous problem, which surprised me at first, however I realized that they were trying so hard to us SCAMPER in their thought process that it blocked their natural creativity juices from flowing.  I think as long as we keep incorporating SCAMPER into all of our Spontaneous practice, the students will start to incorporate it more naturally into their thinking, bumping up the creativity in their answers drastically.

At the end of practice today, I read the Long Term Style synopses for each of the available problems.  While I read all five problems, I told the students that for the next couple of weeks we would only be focusing of the performance problems; Seeing is Believing, The Not-So-Haunted House, and It's How We Rule.  I'm really looking forward to diving into these Long Term problems with more depth as I think the students are ready to brainstorm and think of some really creative solutions!

Day 1 - Meeting the Minds!

Today was the first day of my Odyssey of the Mind (OM) group.  Unfortunately, this group will not be competing in the OM competition in March, however, we will continue meeting to practice and prepare for next year!  I think by trying to stay together as a group and get some good practice in, this team will be unstoppable next year!


To kick off the start of Odyssey of the Mind in Dillard Drive Elementary School, I started with a "Get to Know You" worksheet for all the kids to fill out as well as myself and my co-coach Ms. Brink.  I loved doing these worksheets as I can add any kind of crazy question that I want! (And the kids love the crazy questions!)  After introducing ourselves to one another, I had the group do a team building activity.  I divided the group up - boys vs. girls - and gave each group a bag of miniature marshmallows and a packet of bendy straws.  I gave them about 3 minutes to talk with their group, do some planning, before they were allowed to build.  Then, I gave the students 10 minutes to try and build the tallest tower with just a bag of marshmallows and bendy straws.  I was great to see how the students worked together to build their towers.  While neither tower was very successful, I think the students gained some valuable skills in teamwork.

After introducing ourselves and playing with marshmallows and bendy straws, we dove right into OM material- Long Term Style and Spontaneous!  First, to introduce the students to the Style portion of OM I made two lists of verbs and adverbs.  The students had to pick two numbers and act out the coordinating actions.  My list included:

1. Sing           1. Happily

2. Skip           2. Awkwardly

3. Talk           3. Importantly

4. Run           4. Loudly

5. Dance        5. Fast

6. Crawl        6. Quietly

7. Laugh       7. Sleepy

8. Jump         8. Silly

9. Stretch       9. Scary

10. Slide      10. Slowly

I choose this activity to put the students on the spot, to encourage them to think on their feet.  After the first two brave students, we really seemed to enjoy the activity.  And the students thought it was HILARIOUS!  We did several combinations and the students acted them out as best as the could as the other students burst with laughter.  After doing a few rounds of combinations with all the students, I explained that this idea of acting out random things in front of people is a large part of the Style portion of the OM experience, at least for the performance problems.  Since I am most comfortable coaching the performance problems, and the students seemed to really enjoy being silly in front of one another, I think I am going to focus on only the Performance problems from here on out.  After explaining I then turned our focus to the Spontaneous portion. 

To introduce the Spontaneous portion of OM I gave the children four creativity test with two minutes to complete as much as they could on each task.  The first task was on riddles.  I gave each child a sheet with five different riddles on it and asked them to solve/answer as many as they could.  I gave them riddles because generally, riddles are all about logic.  Riddles also measure a person's convergent thinking, the ability to come up with a single, well-established answer to a problem.  This is an important skill to have, especially in the Spontaneous portion.  Since I competed, some of the rules of Spontaneous have changed, included the number of answers one can give.  Judges now control the number of answers given in some problems by giving the students a certain number of marbles; each time they propose a solution to a problem, the student has to relinquish a marble until they are all out.  This requires students to come up with the best and most creative answers as they can.  The students did really well!  I tricked a couple of them, but, some of the riddles were really tough! But I'm glad the students kept trying and none of them gave up.

The second task I had the students complete was the hardest creativity test that I gave the students.  It was on remote associations.  Basically, the way this task works is there are three words given that are all connected by a fourth word.  The trick is to come up with that fourth word that connects all the previous words together.  The example I gave to the students was: Falling - Movie - Dust.  The fourth word in this example would be "star", as in "falling star", "movie star", and "star dust".  Similarly to riddles, you are looking for one right answer to complete the association.  Additionally, many students can only solve these types of problems with just a 'flash of insight'.  I was very surprised with how well many of the students did with this problem!  I would consider solving remote associations very challenging for most people, however several students were able to harness their 'flash of insight' and solve several of the problems- a very important skill for successful OM teams.

The third task I had the students complete was the similarities and differences creativity test.  I like this test because it really has the students think outside of the box.  The question I asked was for the students to list as many similarities and differences as they could for a cat and a lion.  At first, the children began to list very common similarities and differences between the two animals, however some students began to break the functional fixedness of their thinking and list some creative answers.  In contrast to the last two creativity tests, this test was designed so that students would come up with as many responses as they could.  While it is important for students to give well thought-out answers, it's
also important that students generate as many answers in their head as they can during their think time to use as a back up in case one of their team mates 'steal' their answer.

The last task I had the students complete was my favorite creativity test - the Incomplete Figure creativity test.  This test is basically a blank, incomplete figure and students are asked to draw the rest of the figure.  This test almost always generates creative answers; its almost impossible to give a not creative answer.  The Incomplete Figure
test was originally developed in the 60's and was apart of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking and was designed as a creative alternative for IQ testing.  I really just enjoy this type of test, it really gets kids thinking in a creative manner, whether they mean to or not.

Overall, I felt it was a great first day! I loved meeting the kids and seeing their brains work in ways they aren't used to!