Take Your Coaching to the Next Level with these Additional Tips

General Coach Checklist: This is a Month-to-Month combination of KO-Specific coach duties (and dates) combined with the checklist published by OM.
Competition Day Checklist working

Top 25 things coaches should know: A great collaboration of funny but true things you'll need to know to get through your year as a coach!

A Guide to Planning Meetings: Ideas for planning your meetings broken down between all divisions. BONUS: tips on how to choose a problem.

WPAOM Spontaneous Tips:  This document was developed by Western Pennsylvania Odyssey of the Mind.  Here you will get a full breakdown of spontaneous. Included are some real competition problems that were used in the past.

NOTE: links to spontaneous problems are on our QUICK LINKS page

Outside Assistance overview and the true spirit of Odyssey of the Mind:  WPA OM put together a great document outlining outside assistance and how to know when help is OK or not.  

No, really, DON'T DO IT!  
OA Continued...:  If you are at all unsure, please read through this very thorough explanation.  Please direct parents to this as well if you suspect outside assistance. 

Brainstorming Tips:  This document has three lists to assist with brainstorming activities for your team.  They can be used a verbal spontaneous activity both as spontaneous practice but also ways to brainstorm ideas when working on the LT problem.
Creative Process: This is a list of ideas for enhancing creativity, fostering creativity and tips to NOT inhibit creativity.
SCAMPER: Out-of-the-Box thinking starts with In-the-Box thinking.  Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to other uses, Eliminate and Rearrange.

Style Overview: Style can make or break your score!  Here, you will learn what style is, and how to get the most out of your style points, and what questions to ask your team to make sure they are understanding their style potential.

The Elements of Style:  Another take on an important aspect of the competition; STYLE!

Funny Vs. Silly:  is a poem exercise which makes the point: What you create has to make sense.  The coach reads a funny and then a silly poem as the team acts each out or draws it on the board. A great exercise to help a team recognize when something is funny and when it's just silly.

Advancing team tips:  Here, you will learn how to analyze your score and determine areas that may need work.