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May 14, 2007
The new blog in town
Middlesex Middle School's Odyssey of the Mind team is preparing for its trip to the World Finals at Michigan State University later this month. Read about their progress on their new blog: http://darienodysseyofthemind.blogspot.com/
In case you aren’t already familiar with the Odyssey of the Mind program, it is an international creative problem-solving program in which small teams of students utilize their creative thinking skills to solve open-ended problems that can be applied to real-life situations on a competitive basis under the guidance of an adult coach. The program incorporates and expands upon state and national academic curricula, but at the same time develops children's other gifts that often aren't the focus in a traditional classroom environment: social skills, teamwork, creativity and negotiation. The students call the shots in terms of solving the problem; the adult coach acts only as a facilitator. Students both succeed and fail on their own, and learn the value of their failures as they use that data to find the ultimate solution. The problems range from technical to classical to performance. All members of the team contribute based upon their individual talents, and the program rewards a variety of kinds of giftedness other than academic giftedness. It is open to all children in the Middle School.
Posted by EmilyW at May 14, 2007 11:38 AM