The 2023 PBIC Public Benefit International Challenge for Youth is just around the corner, and this year we are busy preparing for the competition.
(Click on the image to see how to register)
The process of preparing for the competition is the process of practice. As the leading teacher, I have really seen a lot of problems, and I am not afraid of exposing problems, and no one can be perfect. What matters is how we solve the problem after we see it.
Today, from the perspective of a big competition, let's share "how to play a team competition?" and "Contest Tips".
【Part 2】
Search capability
One of the contents of PBIC is - General Knowledge of Africa, which has 30 questions and answers in an open volume. Like the university's online quiz, you will encounter more such quiz in the future, which affects search results in several ways:
Search for content
In fact, during the PBIC preparation stage, I shared some URLs suitable for everyone to search, most of which are the United Nations, various programs, Chinese officials, and Chinese and African official content. Official content can be well endorsed.
At the same time, scientific research papers are also good search content. Because there are not only conclusions, but also the original data and methodology from which the conclusions were derived. (I often say that the soul of a scientific paper is the process of argumentation.) The conclusion is important, but the underlying design logic and methodology of the experiment/survey are even more important. ）
Search tool
Search tools are critical. For academic searches, we can use Google. If you can't use Google, you can use bing.com.
There is also an artifact for searching materials - public account. As an irreplaceable ecosystem, enterprises, individuals, institutions, and brands will be exposed on WeChat. In addition to popular science and company content, the public account will collect a lot of stories.
The other is to search for the artifact ChatGPT. But everyone must know that all the content found in ChatGPT, if you need to use it, needs to do secondary verification.
Search for keywords
For everyone, using combined keywords is very effective. You can even combine 3-5 keywords to search together.
Search for good habits
When doing a lot of research, you need to do 2 things:
1. When sharing with everyone, not only share the link. At the same time, it will be highlighted, indicating the focus of the link. This will improve the efficiency of team collaboration.
2. Find a document specifically, save all the text links that may be used, and when extracting data or citing data in the future, you will not find the original text.
Writing ability
In fact, in this tutorial, we found that not all students can write citations, or know citations, but are relatively new to in-text citations.
citations typically reference MLA or Chicago methods. There is a very, very practical website to learn :https://owl.purdue.edu/index.html.
And now there are many websites that automatically generate citations, which is very trouble-free. Citation still needs to be studied carefully. This is the foundation of academic writing.
【Part 2】
Project disassembly
Like work, what we do at this step is – know how to do this from start to finish? How do I plan Timeline?
So I basically start with two things for each group:
1. Give me a plan in terms of time;
2. Give each group member a content based on the points that everyone is good at;
Most likely, our students will divide the Schedule into two parts: one is to do the problem and the other is to write the project proposal. Teams that have done projects before may be divided into three parts: one more - research and discussion.
Because our students have been "task-based" training since childhood, generally completing homework and completing exams. Therefore, the ability to disassemble the project on your own is not strong. And this proposal has clearly listed the questions, you only need to answer.
This limitation is that students will only think and complete the content that is about to be submitted, and the thinking about the entire project may be incomplete, including the proposal written to the later stage, and many students cannot disassemble well when writing the overall plan.
We took the Design Thinking course before, also to train us to think about problems from 0 to 1 and implement projects.
At the heart of design is problem solving. The core of design thinking is the idea and methodology of problem solving:
Empathy - Locate problems - Burst ideas - Prototype - Test - Iterate
【Part 3】
proposal writing
Proposal writing was the biggest challenge in the preparation. One is because many students have not written a proposal before, and the other is because it is easy to go astray when writing it. Proposal writing can actually pull a series out to talk.
Here I want to express why I value proposals so much? While training our students in-house, we also trained speech pitch?
I find that the children are very good grades, and they are students in prestigious schools, but there may be problems – unclear expression, or I ask what to do and do without thinking about why I do it...
Ultimately, it's a matter of consciousness. I want our students, no matter what the conditions, to get to the point and report/write what the questioner wants to see, rather than just answering the question.
So in the direction of Proposal, I gave each group 2 suggestions:
1. Don't look at the template given by the organizing committee first, try to write out the outline of the content you want to write. This outline needs to support you in making one thing clear. Go back and apply the template to check for gaps.
2, at the same time, you can also tell your parents and friends about your proposal to see if you can explain it clearly.
Pick the key points to write the Proposal The 3 biggest points:
【Part 4】
How to search for answers efficiently?
Collaborate on files and division of labor
I asked each team to create a new collaborative document, and everyone put the questions on the collaborative document.
And ask everyone to divide the questions, and at the same time ask for at least 2 cross-checks. This ensures that at least 3 people check each question.
Select Provenance
I ask everyone to add this corresponding link to this option after each search, the purpose of this is to be well documented when reviewing, and there is no need to search again, improving the efficiency of review.
Something wrong is marked in red
If you find that there is a problem somewhere in a sentence, you need to mark it in red, so that when you review and discuss, you also know what is wrong, and you don't need to re-check every error in a long sentence.
【Part 5】
What do I need to do to prepare for the competition?
It is also a very important goal for students to learn to prepare for the competition - I hope that students can participate in this competition and prepare for the competition in the future. You can even use the checklist:
(1) Put official materials and useful links into a document, which I generally call useful links. This makes it easy for everyone to quickly find information, and useful links will be very useful in the future, whether it is work or study.
(2) Make a competition calendar, and mark the DDL and what needs to be done on the calendar.
(3) Be aware that everything is broken down into different steps. For example, writing a proposal requires a lot of preparation - research, discussion, topic selection, determination of details, and so on. We need to be aware of everything and be able to estimate the time it will take in order to arrange the schedule reasonably.
(4) The first is to search for data, in fact, a lot of data does not need to be found separately, we can pay attention to the United Nations dynamics or consult the strategy manual. And academic papers are also a very good choice, not only with underlying data, but also with conclusions. It can also be a strong endorsement.
The second is the people around you, you can see if the people around you have African resources. You can ask your parents or friends for help.
【Part 6】
What if the team can't work together?
A lot of the teams were put together on an ad hoc basis. Everyone will also encounter this problem when participating in competitions in the future.
Make friends first, work later
In fact, the members of the excellent student team do not all know each other. The first thing such a team needs to do is not prepare for the competition, but break the ice. Trusting and understanding teammates is a prerequisite for teamwork.
Therefore, it is recommended that everyone have a meeting to introduce themselves before officially preparing for the competition.
Small talk is not a bad thing
In fact, being a leader of high school students is very challenging, which is everyone's "rebellious period", and it is likely that "no one will obey anyone".
So I generally say you can go a few minutes before each meeting. You can chat first.
Last year we had a group of girls, all very personal. They broke the ice because in the chat, they found out that they had attended the same kindergarten or where classmates had been. All of a sudden, it narrowed everyone's sense of distance.
Do things well
Students who have not experienced the event may not have a concept of each meeting. Because we have always been "lecturers", and now suddenly become the organizer of the conference, it may not be comfortable.
After breaking down the prep content, we basically know the pace of the project – what time frame, what to deliver, what the preparation is, etc.
Meeting Tips:
There is an agenda meeting schedule before the meeting, know the meeting objectives, discuss the content, take notes during the meeting, and summarize after the meeting.
Three-plank axe tips:
Parents who are familiar with Ali's working methods must know the "three axes" - set goals, follow the process, and get results. We do use job requirements to ask kids to do projects. It's an exercise and growth for them.
Set goals
Depending on the schedule, split into do each time phase, with reasonable goals.
Chase the process
In order to accomplish the goal, disassemble to do until it cannot be dismantled, and distribute it.
Take the result
After the results come out, is it in line with expectations? Did something go wrong along the way?
【Part 7】
Make review a habit
According to the review of each group, explain to each group how the next stage of the task needs to be adjusted. But as a teacher, I still hope that children have a sense of "early warning" and "self-adjustment in advance".