welcome thank you for giving your time to judge at a first Lego League challenge event we've hope you've had a chance to look over the tools in our judging toolkit including the rubrics flowchart Awards list judging session script and judge questions along with any other information from your tournament director in this video we will present a few scenarios you may encounter as you judge and make suggestions on what to consider when evaluating the team remember your primary goals as a judge are to accurately evaluate the team against the rubric and be a supportive Mentor as
always we trust you and your colleagues in your judging pod to make the best decisions possible to ensure each team you see is treated fairly and consistently we know you'll do a great job that's right support comes both in the form of constructive comments about where the team can improve as well as what they have done well team Optimus has an extensive list of sources they used in their Innovation project research included on a poster They carried in however they did not mention the Post-it in their presentation or when prompted to do so by the
judges in the Q&A they left a folder behind with details about their work how does the judging part evaluate them in this scenario it is very important to consider only what the team communicates to you during the session try to make sure the teams don't leave items in the judging room as any materials left cannot be considered because this would give the team an unfair advantage over other teams teams can use visual aids during their presentation or in response to a question but it must be handled within the allocated judging time the schedule for the
day will be tight and every team has a fair opportunity to demonstrate and present their work so if this happens you should not spend time looking through the work left behind and judge them purely on the judging session you could use the comment box at the bottom of the rubrics to suggest the team may do differently next time I've got one for you Andy you've seen two teams in quick succession and already submitted the rubrics for the first team FL chicken who went first did an awesome job with their core values inclusion in the robot
design every team member has learned to build and code but their design and code was simple team egg however has a much more advanced design but only the team's two technicians seem to know how to talk about what they've done how do you think we should handle this try to remember that you are not ranking the teams you see against other teams instead view each individually and ensure you are scoring them according to the rubric criteria we really hope that in every team every student has had a chance to have a meaningful building and coding
experience that being said the rubric criteria will be important to consider in this case note the robot design rubric under design the first line refers to evidence of Team inclusion and the second line refers to developing building and coding skills Flo chicken is likely to score higher for design which describes how they applied the inclusion core value to their work and develop their skills however team egg might receive a higher score and both create criteria as this references the explanation of their robot attachments and code you will get more information from other parts of the
session that will help you to fully decide where on the rubric each team is placed Candice I've got a scenario that happens almost every season would you like to hear it fire away you just finished a lively judging session with Team No Name on a number of criteria the judging pod agrees they are so close to a three that it feels unfair to give them a two can't they just give them a few two and a half points to show the team how well they did and how close they were to a three please Candice
we understand the thinking here but this is where your feedback comments can make a huge difference to a team it's great to let them know what they could do to get them over the line to a three but we've provided four levels of scoring minimal partial clear and exceeds and it is important to stick to these levels if they haven't satisfied the criteria for a three the team can handle the honesty that they're still a two will benefit greatly from your constructive encouragement the engineering design process they have been using all season really emphasizes the
value of iteration a three will be much more meaningful to a team when they have truly earned it speaking of scenarios that come up every year here's one we see often I bet I know what it is Team Super Panda gummy bear arrives to their judging session with a fully rehearsed presentation they seem to struggle answering the judge's questions your judgeing pod believes that it is the team's own work but there is a question about how involved the coach has been and if it has really been the coach doing the work that the kids are
presenting this is truly a tricky one Candice because we really do understand some teams need their coaches to be more supportive when teaching and leading the students and there are often many reasons why a team may seem very rehearsed to overcome shyness or nerves for example if you have very clear evidence of the coach doing the work then you need to speak to the judge advisor and or tournament director as soon as you can and pass the information on otherwise if the team can communicate what they have learned proceed as normal pay close attention to
their explanation to see how well they understand the material that they are presenting and use the Q&A to judge the depth of the understanding this is the part of judging that shows us who has done the work so really ask yourself has the team shown that learning has taken place and score based on what you have seen remember exceeds is for those truly wow moments where you are in no doubt that the team has fully understood all of the amazing work they have produced so it is unlikely that the team in this scenario would score
any exceeds as I said this really is a tricky one but work as a judging team and use the rubric wording to help with the decisions and if you need to seek help from the judge advisor here's one we see come up in the robot design portion team Prime Time Has No sensors on their robot every Mission they have accomplished has been done based on lining up their robot and Counting rotations the engineers in your judging pod are concerned about the Simplicity of the robot what do you think of that good one Andy the true
test of a robot's performance is in the robot game so you don't need to be concerned with judging how well the robot executes the missions during the judging session the robot design section will help you evaluate how well the team understands and communicates the design process they have been through and the intended functionality of their robot and code it's not wrong to make a robot that doesn't use sensors if the team is able to justify why they chose not to include sensors this will strengthen their explanation each simpy a team that has lots of sensors
but does not have a clear explanation of where and why they're using the sensors will not score highly and don't forget you can use the comment boxes to suggest sensors if you feel like they should start to think about including them here's one for you Andy both rubric Pages ask about a team's Pride or enthusiasm for their work on their Innovation project in robot design we've seen a lot of great presentations but they're also different how do we four teams on this what do you suggest looking for we understand that team meetings can have ups
and downs but a team that can work through their disagreements and struggles and still come out invested in the challenge and respectful of each other is a successful team here you'll see the other core values coming into play as well did everyone feel included in the work are they excited about what they have learned and created a team sense of fun is more than whether they are all dressed alike carrying fun props or singing a song they will be supportive of each other and other teams they will be able to see their tournament as a
special day in a great season some things may go better in their meeting room than on tournament day but it shouldn't ruin their experience for them they will understand the experience runs deeper and they will be invested in the work and what they have achieved and they will know that what they learn is more important than what they win one last scenario before we go in the Innovation project portion of judging team idealistic inventors share that they have talked to lots of people about their idea but when the judges asked what did you learn they
answer oh nothing they just thought it was great this is such an important Point Andy adults hearing from teams may be tempted you to say great job without providing anything constructive an advanced team will know to push for feedback on what improvements they could make or other things they should consider if they don't do this the result may be a lower score in the inter rate column the same goes for teams who test and test but don't actually make improvements they just cross their fingers and hope for the best even though they have not actually
made any changes you'll be looking not just for whether they sought feedback or text tested but also what they did with the information if we look at the Innovation project rubric you will notice that the iterate column splits this up did they share their solution did they make improvements based on feedback really use these two lines to help when deciding about the reach and impact of the feedback they sought absolutely thanks Candace speaking of giving good feedback remember that teams benefit from receiving feedback not just when sharing their innovation project with others as a judge
teams will want to hear your feedback about what they can work on after the event but remember that constructive feedback does not mean negative feedback be deliberately encouraging with your feedback and make sure to give specific and actionable suggestions to team your suggestions will help these teams grow and gives them ideas for what they can do better next time you can share this feedback verbally with teams at the end of their session and record the same or additional written feedback on the feedback of the rubric if you need ideas for how to phrase constructive feedback
check out the examples from the judge script and questions list and that brings us to the end of this training we hope this has given you some useful insights as you approach judging the teams and some discussion points when you have a look through the rubrics we're so glad you have been able to join us and we just know you're going to have a great experience judging thanks so much for giving us your time the teams will be so excited to share with with you and we think you'll leave feeling pretty inspired too
