코칭센터

As I’ve stated elsewhere, spont is the only area in OotM which you are allowed to directly help. As such, this page tells you the best coaching techniques (and team techniques) for spontaneous, broken down by general rules followed by problem type.

General Coaching Tips

OotM teams can have 7 members but in spont you are only allowed to use five. Here are important notes on that:
 

• If you have fewer than five members, all may participate. However, you do not get any “help” in your score for having fewer members. In verbal and VHO, this can be very detrimental. For example, my team has 3 members who each get 7 response cards. We only get 21 responses rather than the 35 that a normal team gets.
  
• If you have more than five members, the team and coach need to figure out who works best for the different problem types. For instance, I had a team member when I first started who would wait until the last second of hands-on and would goof around and destroy our solutions. Needless to say, he was not allowed on the hands-on team for competition. The best way to find things like this out is to have all 6 or 7 kids participate early in the year and figure out everybody’s strengths. I guarantee that there will be one kid who freezes up during verbal and can’t respond in a timely manner. It’s fine if they aren’t on verbal.
  
• Deciding who gets placed on what teams can be contentious because there will be some kids who are good at all problem types and some who are terrible at all of them. Some years we would have kids volunteer to not participate in a certain type, other years we had to vote, and other years my coach straight up dictated the teams. Each method has its pros and cons, I would shy away from dictating the teams because that’s an easy way to build resentment. Instead, help people realize their strengths and weaknesses and hopefully they’ll decide in which types to participate so that it’s good for the team.
  
• Also keep in mind the team dynamic while crafting teams. Maybe someone isn’t that good at hands-on, but they have a ton of leadership abilities. They can be a facilitator and cheerleader helping gain teamwork points, even if they don’t directly contribute to the solution.
  
• Practice each type often. It’s really easy to practice verbal problems during snack time or while running errands, it’s harder to practice hands-on, but still important. You could set up problems before the team arrives at the meeting or you could use it as a work break during the meeting, but don’t forget to practice it!
  
• Go over what went well/poorly during the solution. Ask what the team noticed and give your own input. For example, if you noticed one team member had a great idea in hands-on but wasn’t heard because someone else was being loud, politely ask the kid what their idea was and talk about why it wasn’t heard during the solution.
  
• PRACTICE HAVING FUN DURING SPONTANEOUS!!!! When kids go to competition, they need to feel relaxed and confident to think creatively. Cultivate this mood during practice. Our team always made super cheesy comments: “You guys are the best! I love this team! Way to attach that popsicle stick, that’s a really solid connection you just made!” In addition to showing the judges that you’re having a good time, you’re making the judges have a good time, which results in higher scores.
  
• Look for loopholes in the problem. Basically every spont problem has some sort of loophole and you find them by asking questions to the judges. For instance, a hands on problem may not allow you to pass a certain line on the ground. But can you lean over it? Can a team member stand on the edge of the line with one foot and have the team hold her other foot so that she can reach 4 feet beyond the line? A verbal problem might have a list of words on the table that you get points each time you use them in a sentence. Can you only use one word in each response, or can you say “Majesty, Knuckles, Everyday, Hospital, Cold, Moon, and Ghost are the names of my dogs.” You may lose creativity points, but if you get points for using each of the words, it’s probably worth it.
  
• Pay attention to scoring. If you are judged entirely on the end result, don’t bother with creativity. If you are judged on teamwork, make sure you’re not yelling in each other’s faces. 

Verbal 

• As I said above, practice verbal during otherwise wasted time, such as picking the kids up from school or snack time.
  
• Practice using response cards. 9 times out of 10 they’ll be using them during competition and it behooves the team to get used to not moving on until the card has been put in the center box.
  
• Alternate the team’s sitting order. If you’re seated in a circle, experiment around to find chemistry between certain kids. I always sat first and Mason always sat next to me, because I was a good leader and he was great at playing off of my responses. Other people may always want to go last to give them more time to think.
  
• Keep answers short (generally). Spont is timed, so if you have one kid who likes to expound for 20 seconds on each answer, focus on getting the time down.
  
• “Tag” objects around the room with your answers during the think time. If you think of a creative response, stare at a certain item in the room thinking about that answer so that when you look back to it later, you’ll remember your answer.
  
• Practice special ways of getting creative answers. 90% of my team’s answers were puns and were basically always creative. I’ve also toyed with rhyming answers and alliterative answers, rather than relying on humor alone.
  
• Use your long term jokes if possible. The spont judges have not/will not see your long term solution, so you can reuse your jokes if the problem lends itself to it. 

Verbal Hands-On 

• Most of the above tips apply to VHO as well.
  
• If you are asked to construct something, it’s a good idea to make something with meaning to the team (I.E. something that you have jokes about in your performance) or something relatively non-specific. A wadded up piece of paper could be an asteroid, a baseball, a rock, or hundreds of other things. A beautifully folded paper crane is always going to be a paper crane. (If you are judged on artistic creations, this might not be a good tip. Pay attention to scoring). 

​Hands-On 

•   Ask questions first, plan second, and build third. Do not even think about touching your materials until everyone has an idea of what should happen. Most teams have members just grab their materials, each person works on a separate solution and then you end up with a hodge-podge at the end. If you communicate first, you get teamwork cred and your solution will probably be better. A team I knew always had one guy lead the discussion by saying “Alright gang!” and then starting to plan. I would always speak first, but it was generally “who has a good idea of what to do” or a question to the judges. This is your best time to look for loopholes, because you can start capitalizing on them early.
  
• Quiet people have good ideas too. Don’t let your team fall into the trap of thinking the loudest person has the best idea. We had a quiet person always give the idea we ended up using about 3 minutes before any of us thought of it, so we made it to where he was always the first person to present his ideas.
  
• Team wide problems often manifest themselves in hands-on, so a lot of the time you can address overarching problems in the context of the specific hands-on problem. “John, was there a reason you immediately grabbed all of the materials and wouldn’t let anyone else touch them?” is a good way to open up a conversation about sharing or listening to other people’s ideas in the long term problem.
  
• If you have 5 members, one of whom hates hands-on or is bad at it, they can easily serve as a cheerleader and reiterater. We had a member who would just say what people were doing to remind the group as a whole what was happening in the solution and she would complement us on our work. That shows teamwork and gives the member something productive to do.