Help Needed

[polymath25]

Im a Junior from Wimberley (3A) and im trying to get a # sense, calculator, and math team started basically from scratch (science is pretty strong here). If you have any advice as to getting people motivated or helping them get better, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[mathslug]

There are three things you need to put together a good Number Sense, Calculator, or Math team - a group of talented teammates, elucidated goals to accomplish during the season, and a rigorous training schedule.

Remember, you only need 3 good team members to join. Strangely enough, this task generally lends itself to be a very difficult one, since not too many people like the prospect of getting up early in the morning to do math. The way our school got people to come to a inaugeral math meeting afterschool was accomplished with two simple words, "Free Food". Anyway, once you get 3 teammates to commit you're gonna want to get them to be enthusiastic about competing by perhaps drawing up a list of goals for the season, like to place at regionals or score over a 200 at an invitational, or whatever. Just make sure that you reinforce their drive to compete with encouragement so that they'll not get lazy and refuse to practice like my team :(.

Once all that is taken care of, the most important part of any of those three contest must commence - practice. The secret to all three of those contests is pattern recognition and speed which can be attained through taking truckloads of practice tests and analyzing each one like crazy. I would suggest that you get a copy of Elements of Number Sense by JT Cummings (you can order it on http://www.academicmeet.com ) and as many practice tests as you can get your hands on for Number Sense. There are several archived in the download section of this site. After doing so, try to hold practice sessions with your team before school, during lunch, during an off period, after school, whatever - just as long as you're able to get a good number of regular meetings with your teammates (like 2-3 a week). The same goes for math and calculator. I'd try an buy back order copies of TMSCA seasons so that y'all can all practice on something harder than the UIL tests. Its also good to have the sample soultion manual that comes with the seasons. Try and make sure that your calculator and math teams get together twice a week for problem analysis and practice.

Other than that, I dont really have much to say... I wish the best of luck to you and your future math teams. I hope that you'll have them ready to destroy by the 10th when Dripping Springs comes to your Invite B contest. If you're there, say hi to me. My name's Zack.

Zack

[Quelloquialism]

[AuSmith]

You probably have a decent school, Quell, so this is just to anybody trying to start a team. You could very well be lucky to get a full 2 kids that are willing to work. There are teams that will not be motivated, no matter how good the coach or committed students are. There are usually many more activities in high school compared to junior high, and a lot of kids are still trying to figure out where they fit. Area matters very much. Like, Sam could start a rocking numbersense team partly because he did well putting one together, partly because Nacadoches has a college and the top kids on his team consisted of profs kids. Nevertheless, keep trying and have some fun.

[hhhsmath06]

you may think what i say is completely inpertinent to ur question...but i think it's a good advice:

instead of going through the pain of putting a team together (w/ a 50% chance of ppl getting lazy and quit cuz they are not committed), put that time into practicing for urself.

i got tired of carrying my team or be carried...UIL is not basketball, you don't need a team to win an individual medal. plus to most ppl an individual medal is worth more than a team medal, at least for me.

q

[fht]

Yeah, find some people you think that have potential, then show them how interesting NS MA and CA can be. If you get them interested, you don't even need to ENFORCE a schedule; people, however many there are, will be motivated.
However, all those are based on your own passion, devotion, and expertise. Getting other people interested requires you being so at the first place. Also, take NS for example, you need to know the shortcuts yourself to show other people. Show them questions from the tests that outsiders would deem impossible to do mentally, then do it mentally in front of them, then explain the shortcut and show that it not just looks easy, it really is easy.
This has been how I was started off in NS and how I start off other people. I had a devoted coach. I heard about NS and reluctantly decided to talk to him about it one November afternoon. The first problem he showed me was 5/8+8/5, and then he did it just like that and told me how to do it. Then he showed me the 142857s. I was hooked by that time. He started teaching me, and I started to practice. A few days later I gave the algebraic proof of that shortcut to him. And in a few weeks, I started teaching my coach shortcuts that I figured out. Even though he left after my freshman year, the support he gave me was enough to enable me to take over and maintain my team from then on.
Also, I found that I always remember that shortcuts I figured out myself a LOT better than those I saw # or learned on the forum from other people. Let your students prove the shortcuts themselves, so it carves into their memory.
The last suggest I'd give is to contact Mr. White. If he's not busy, he'd never hesitate to share his experience and tips as a coach. Other coaches will do just as well. Those above are some of my experiences and thoughts from my share of coaching. And I hope they help. And to your promising team my
Best Wishes

[fht]

Oh yeah, lol, free food does help. I grew up not snacking, but I didn't mind him popping a few bags of popcorn during practice. Other people on my team, because they grew up in the snack-iac America, would get ecstatic seeing free popcorns. And it did become one of their incentives to practice.
Best Wishes