BRAINSTORMING!
The most used skill in Odyssey of the Mind.
This week, we started brainstorming about brainstorming. Being able to produce creative, productive ideas from brainstorms sessions is such an important task within this OM season; it's almost all we do! To kick us off on this brainstorming meeting, we started with a spontaneous that required them to use the skill piggy backing (a sub skill within brainstorming). Piggy backing is when you use one of your teammate's ideas to help formulate your own. In the spontaneous problem the team was tasked to name something heavier than the what the person in front of them said, with the first person naming something heavier than a brick. During the first round of this problem, they struggled a little bit. While they didn't have the issue of not listening to one another, they listed heavier items way to fast.
Ex: A brick, a cement block, an elephant, a ship, all the water in the ocean, the earth, the universe...
After completing the spontaneous problem we discussed the ideas of piggy backing and brainstorming in general, we continued brainstorming rules for brainstorming. Brainstorming is a delicate process; students need to feel safe to come up with as many ideas as possible.
After discussing the rules of brainstorming, I asked the team to revisit the spontaneous problem and think of ways that they could be more successful, specifically using the piggy backing strategy. The team discussed their strategy and tried the problem again. They did significantly better after having the ability to discuss it.
Lastly, we did one final brainstorm session on how we, as a team, can be successful. As mentioned earlier, this is important as we want to be as successful as we can be. We have the unique ability to be able to participate in the competition this year and would love to see how well we can do this year.
Homework:
Students took home two pieces of paper: Video/Photo Release and the Student Team Member Contract. The Video/Photo Release is just for this blog. As we continue working, I love to take pictures of the team doing their thing. As they are minors, I don't want to put these photos/videos online without your consent.
The Team Member Contract is a very basic contract given to us from the Odyssey of the Mind Program. Please take time to review this before signing it.
Students: please bring these two forms back at the next practice.
LASTLY,
Students please fill out this short survey by next practice!
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