Talk:Group Forum/How do I combat competing school interests / activities? - WVwiki

At the Globaloria Academy in Charleston last month we had a great session that provided all educators to ask questions. We then attempted to have a group discussion around these great questions. However, time was not on our side and we had to limit some of the great discussion that we taking place. I am goign to try to continue that discussion here on my blog. The first question I will mention is about competing against school interests. I posted a response on the Educator's Wiki in the Educator's Forum and I am going to share it here on the blog as well for those of you who didn't go back and check it out. 

The first paragraph is notes from our discussion, the second is my response after the workshop. If you have any ideas, post them in the comments.

Crittenton team: You can offer incentives for the students to participate. We had an incentive every 3 months for those who continued participating. You can also offer different times than during activities and work around their times. You can also offer more than one time a day for the class so they can pick between the 2 times. You also can get the schedules of the students before you decide on your class times. Loretta: We encountered this in Year 1. We doubled up days in weeks when they were there. Having laptops that students could take home helped too.

Being Proactive

I think there is a lot to be said about being proactive. If you can plan ahead, get the word out early, and really empower the students to continuing to work even if conflicts present themselves, you can go a long way in reducing the impact of other school activities. If missing once or twice due to an alternative event doesn't slowdown progress in game development, because students know what they need to be working on as soon as they get back, then I think the program can still flourish. I have been reading a lot about being proactive and having an "abundance" attitude, sometimes it is hard, but is really powerful when you can think this way.--Lee 09:47, 21 August 2008 (EDT)

Talk:Group Forum/How do I combat competing school interests / activities? - WVwiki