Montana Destination Imagination

Welcome

Welcome to the 2008 Montana Destination ImagiNation program! This is the first of a series of newsletters that you will receive to help you effectively plan and run your team meetings. Whether you are a seasoned Team Manager or you are brand new to the program, the newsletter will contain the information you need to guide your team to a rewarding DI experience.

Each newsletter will have information on fees, deadlines, tournament dates, special events and contact information so you can have questions answered quickly when you need it most. We will also give you team building tips, creative problem solving tools, and Instant Challenges as well as quick reviews of important rules.

If you are a new Team Manager we want to know the questions that you and your teams need answered right away. If you are a seasoned Team Manager, please share some of your successes so we can include them in this newsletter. montanacq@mt-di.org

We wish all Montana DI Teams and Team Managers the best of luck as you carve your unique paths to our Destination ImagiNation celebrations next spring!

Creativity Yours,

Heather Geiger & Connie Ackerman State Directors

Team Building

Whether you are a first time coach or a hardened DI veteran, you will face many team building challenges this year. Face it; it takes time to build a team. We will be sharing some team building moments with you in the coming weeks that may become your team’s favorite meeting activities.

Here’s some food for thought as you get started: Every team is different and has different reasons for participating. Even if you have been coaching for many years, you realize that dropping and adding team members makes huge differences in the way the team works together.

Start building team identity from the very beginning. It’s ok for your team to take up the first few meetings just getting to know and trust each other. As they become team friends, they will build a community where they feel they belong, where they can respect each other’s strengths and weaknesses. They will learn to make "team" decisions and accept that not every good idea is the best for the team. Most of all they will begin to use the creative problem solving process and take pride in their team solution.

If you haven’t done this already, start your next meeting by just getting to know each other and finding out each other’s interests. If you have young team members, you might want to make a list of team member interests and strengths. Fifth grade students and beyond will probably want to take their own notes or use Post-It notes that they can organize and refer to later to assign team member duties.

Just for Fun

Try The Bow Knot and Gift Wrapped team building activities.

NO INTERFERENCE

The Destination ImagiNation rule that sets it apart from most student competitions is the policy of NO INTERFERENCE. Teams must solve their Team Challenges without ideas or help from anyone outside their team. This includes parents, teachers, friends or even the Team Manager(s).

Challenges are designed so that they may be solved by teams of all ages and abilities. DI encourages teams to solve the challenges using their own ideas to produce unique solutions that show off their individual team member talents and skills. Teams may create a solution that seems unpolished or unusual but by DI standards may be extremely creative. Team Mangers are allowed to teach team members creative problem solving tools but must leave the problem solving to the teams. The No Interference rule allows teams to "own" and take pride in their challenge solutions.

Instant Challenges are short exercises that help teach and sharpen creative problem solving skills. These exercises are so valuable and fun that they are integrated into the tournament competition. Your team will not only present their Team Challenge solution to the challenge they have chosen but will be scheduled for a separate Instant Challenge that they have never seen before on tournament day.

Creative problem solving involves a long list of skills that your team will begin to master. Instant Challenges are a way to teach these skills without Interfering in the Team Challenge solution. Some of these skills include teamwork, performance skills, creative use of materials, time management, prioritizing and budgeting. The two exercises mentioned in the Team Building section of this newsletter are excellent beginning level Instant Challenges.

Successful teams practice Instant Challenges (ICs) at every meeting. In the weeks before the tournament, we will focus on various problem solving skills areas and recommend Instant Challenges that you can use to help the team master these skills. In the next issue of the newsletter, we will discuss Instant Challenge formats and how the rules of No Interference apply to the IC competition of the tournament.

Check out the Instant Challenge pages on the MTDI web site for more tips and ideas on training your teams to think quickly. Also try this fun IC from the Maine DI web site Agricultural Education Day.

Team Manager: What is an island ?
Team Member: A piece of land surrounded by water except on one side.
Team Manager: On one side ?
Team Member: Yes, on top !