Race for the galaxy

If you're a fan of this game and haven't seen the free AI written by Keldon Jones - go and grab it, it's fantastic.

If you're not a fan - don't bother, free or not you won't understand the appeal until you've played the card game (which will do your head in until you get the game mechanic, then you'll obsess over it and wonder why you found it so hard at first).

The most impressive thing (besides the AI) is the UI, it's neat, functional and fast.  Yay!

Year 10 motivation, Citadels & Singstar

It's been noticed that year 10's can sometimes lack motivation.  Yelling at them can work for awhile (but unfortunately an authoritative style is not my style of teaching). I aim to get them to that point where they want to do well.  Success is a great motivator - but it's hard to achieve meaningful success without some motivation in the first place - a real "Catch 22" situation.  Turning around truanting and disinterested students can be a real challenge.

We have some extrinsic motivators as part of school behaviour management policy - such as the gold note we send home and the reward events at the end of term, but these are generally for the achievers in the school and don't help the unmotivated reach their potential.

So, I thought about it and set about building other motivators into the programme based around their interests.  I discussed with my group that I would run a Singstar competition on the last day of term, if students put in a big effort to work up until then.  I also suggested that if they reached a 50% average on the next test I would buy pizza.  I set about being more positive in class and discussing 'what if's' when students put in more effort.  I started encouraging students to do online tutorials to help themselves achieve higher grades.

Low and behold, in the last week of term, I needed to add desks to my room to hold all the students (I didn't even realise I was short until then as I rarely had a full class - albeit it has been growing with new students all term). Students actively wanted to know when the next test was, turned up on the day, bugged me until they were marked and wanted to know what their marks were! I nearly fell out of my chair.

I've also been trialling a card game "Citadels" with differing groups of students - it has been a hit with kids in the senior school of varying age groups and ability levels - from Ed support to Calc students. It takes about 5 minutes to learn, requires social interaction, forward thinking, decision making and is a bit of fun.  Even the Mrs likes it.

Maybe the ideas have some potential.

Space Hulk and my lack of assembling ability

One of the best things about getting older is that you can afford some of the things you really, really wanted as a kid. One thing that springs to mind is the out of print game Space Hulk by Games Workshop.

Well, maybe not afford, but perhaps "borrow" some money out of the housekeeping funds while the Mrs isn't watching..

Anyhoo.. picked it up yesterday when I stumbled on the 20th anniversary limited reprint (translated: expensive - but with extra cool bits!). So I sat down and assembled all the miniatures. I'm now missing bits of two fingers after a mishap with a stanley knife and know some interesting uses for a rabbit nailclipper.

Four of the figures are a little wonky and missing arms but nothing a bit of superglue can't fix once I unstick my remaining fingers.

Only problem now is that the lamb pie from the other night hasn't agreed with me and she who must be obeyed has declared that she won't come within 10 ft - which would make playing the game a little difficult. So I can't play! ..and she says I have to clean the red mess off the floor**

I just need to think of someone with no sense of smell that likes board games...

So here I sit with a Winnie the Pooh band aid and a sponge.

:-(

**from the accident with the Stanley knife.

Synthesis of ideas

Typically in an organisation, inspirational achievement is driven by recognition.  By inspirational achievement, I mean achievement that goes beyond organic or inertial achievement - achievement that happens as a factor of time.

Allowing inspirational achievement to be driven by recognition is counterproductive as it breaks down the ability for future success as entities within the organisation confuse the success of organisational goals with the need for personal recognition (or more importantly the belief that others are taking credit where it is not due).

To prevent this occurring the process of organisational synthesis must occur, where credit is distributed to effective teams and the goals of the team are acknowledged first (and valued), with credit being accrued as leader and as individual participants in the team as a secondary and lessor factor.  This is not a natural process, and although we commonly achieve this in sporting teams, it is rarely seen in organisations, especially those as filled with individuals as school staff rooms.

The idea of synthesis occurs where ideas are naturally shared with the team and the team develops the idea to fulfill a team goal.  The idea of public personal credit is eliminated and only the goal is celebrated publically when it is achieved - by the whole team. Elements that caused the success are identified inside the team and only extraordinary and measurable contributions (motivational, leadership, content, skill, effort, time) acknowledged by the whole team are documented and/or rewarded further.  This gives the appearance of a coherent and solid team and removes the perception of fractured teams (that may in fact only be debating different methods to the same goal).  Loafers get credit but may not be invited to be part of the next team (thus eliminating a fractured element).

External input breaks the model, which dictates that the most capable people need to be in the team (or added to the team) and that any external inputs are donated without requirement for credit.