Science Olympiad Event Coaches: Difference between Middle and High School

The school year is beginning and plans are being made to organize a Science Olympiad team.  Whether you are an experienced coach or just beginning, you look over the list of this year's 23 events with both anticipation and anxiety.  How will you get every event covered by students and monitor their progress?  High school students are better able to organize their time and motivate themselves than middle school students and high school students are better able to see the long-term benefits of their efforts, which provides them the intrinsic motivation needed to study for their events on their own.[1]  Therefore, many high school coaches monitor all the events at a high level,  periodically checking on progress, and relying on students to motivate themselves to study for and work on their events.

In middle school, more extrinsic motivation is needed to keep the students on task and develop their study and organizational skills. Therefore, it is more common to assign an adult event coach to monitor the progress of each event with some adults coaching more than one event. Drew Kirian, retired middle school coach from Solon Middle School in Solon, Ohio and 6 time national champion remarked:

It took me a long while to realize I couldn’t coach 23 events.  It’s a lot of work.  I try to get the parents to coach events so my assistant coach and I only have one or two events.

Some teams are able to get teachers to help coach an event, or people in the community with a special interest in science education.  But parents are often asked to volunteer their time to help their team whether or not they have a strong science background.  While every team will have their own formula for success, there is a trend of more adult involvement and support at the middle school level compared to the high school level.

For more information on the 23 events for the 2013-2014 school year, visit http://www.soinc.org/2014_event_table

[1] http://www.education.com/reference/article/developmental-motivation-dfferent-age/