Giving Stucture in a Changing Environment

It has really been made clear that the kids in the lab need structure. I mentioned that this group is always ready for the next activity. This group more than any needs to have a plan.

I have a couple that come in about a half an hour early every day and they are in my face wanting to know what they are going to do today. It is almost the nature of the Think Tank sessions that we don't know exactly what is going to happen everyday. We have an idea and rough schedule but things do change for various reasons.

Monday the project we were working on was in Photoshop. They were to create a character and/or environment for a game they working on. Well, first Jenny had to show them the basics and then we had to go from that to creating something. It proved to be too much of a challenge for this group. One, because it was a lot for one day and two because this group needs more direction. They had too much leeway.

The progress was great but we had to change the plan for the afternoon based on what happened. Now we are changing the assignment so that it is more structured for this group. Had it been the group before that we tried this with, we could have done it.

Sometimes it is hard to find a balance when planning the agenda. And sometimes the agenda isn't really the problem as long as it gives a pretty good idea of what is going to happen. The structure really needs to come in on activities. I found that the consultants like to have game stations. This way they know they play at one station for thirty minutes and then they move to the next station.

Again with the Photoshop activity telling them they could get on and create a character was too overwhelming and not much was accomplished. The next day we discussed main characters, what was important in a main character, what they thought a main character contributed to a game, etc. We analyzed different characters and then they came up with a character of their own, sketched it and described what was so great about it. Then creating the character in Photoshop wasn't so bad. Actually they all did a great job.