Testing for Learning by Ruth Mitchell

Author:Ruth Mitchell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Free Press
Published: 1992-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Odyssey of the Mind

The Odyssey of the Mind has been in existence for a dozen years as an adjunct, noncurricular activity in members schools. 8 There is an annual fee for membership. The objective of the organization is to develop students’ creativity by setting them problems that can be solved only in groups and by applying knowledge and skills from a variety of disciplines. Clearly, these aims are consonant with desires expressed by business and industry executives for employees who can think flexibly and work cooperatively. The business community has enthusiastically supported the Odyssey of the Mind.

Competitions are held in four divisions, from kindergarten through college. An adult coach takes care of logistics such as meeting places and gives some training in divergent thinking, but the coach is strictly prohibited from helping the team with its competition project.

As soon as they decide to enter the competition, the teams begin in their school meetings to deal with problems like this one: Divisions II and III (grade 6-12) were asked in 1989 “to design and produce a transportation system consisting of five battery-powered vehicles carrying costume parts to each of the five, six, or seven teammates. Costume parts will arrive just in time to change the team’s appearance. Vehicles will run in paths that will allow vehicles to crash into one another if their movements are timed incorrectly.” Those are the only instructions, leaving plenty of room for creative interpretation as the team members prepared over a few months for the competition. The teams could spend no more than $75 on materials and equipment in their presentation and could take no more than 8 minutes for the final version.

In the same year, another division (K-12) was set the problem of designing and constructing “a balsa wood and glue structure that will balance and support the greatest weight for its specifications. The structure must measure 8 to 8½ inches in height and may not exceed 15 grams in weight. The score will be determined by the pounds of weight supported per gram weight of the structure.” The elementary divisions (K-8) were asked to “create a fable and perform the team’s interpretation of how a moral came into existence.” They could spend only $50 on costumes and equipment and had 8 minutes to perform.

There is a maximum score for these long-term problems and additional points for enhancement or stylistic elegance in the solution. At the competition itself, each team must solve a problem on the spot, with judges alone allowed in the room with the team.

These Odyssey of the Mind group problems are models for interdisciplinary integrated assessments. There is irony in the observation that although 6,000 schools throughout the world (more than 200 schools in California alone) now participate in the Odyssey of the Mind, the U.S. schools do not seem to have connected the competition to the teaching and learning core of the school and seen in it a model for accomplishing the purposes of education.

The examples in this chapter have provided some idea of the creativity that can be found in and around our schools.

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