Creating a Strong Team: Spread of Subjects

At first, I wanted to write a post about how to create the strongest decathlon team. I sat and thought about the various factors that come into making a successful decathlon team. I think there are three that come into play when selecting a decathlon team:

Range of Grades– How spread out are the team members in terms of grade standing? Are they all eight graders? Do you allow sixth graders to complete? How are you ensuring (or not ensuring) that there are experienced members of the team competing year after year? Do you have a pre-decathlon or alternate team program?

Aptitude – How skilled and how hard working are the members of the team? Do you focus more on picking students with good grades, ITBS scores, or potential for hard work? How do you balance a student’s interest in a particular field with actual ability to study?

Spread of Subjects - How do you spread the five Super Quiz (SQ) subjects out among the members of the team? Do you think that all members of the team should work on all five subjects, or should there be a degree of specialization? Do the SQ/LQ experts have a different role?

These three variables, range, aptitude, and spread, ought to be considered when selecting a team. Now there many methods to pick a good decathlon team, among the options are selection through grades, test scores, and a test off competition.

This week I want to focus on and take a closer look at the concept of spread of subjects in a decathlon team. Even though the selection of who does which subjects on a decathlon team may seem like a second or third step after selecting a team, it is something that a coach should look at before selecting a team.

Let’s consider the following points:

1. Individual subjects are non-distributable, only eight members have those subjects. A decathlete cannot do two subjects, and two decathletes will not complete in the individual event. So we are not going to worry about subject distribution within individuals.

2. It is theoretically possible to spread the subjects in the Logic Quiz (LQ) to different decathletes. However there is such a high number of variables in LQ that such organization is extremely difficult and may in fact be counterproductive.

3. When thinking about spread of subjects in SQ there are two basic ideologies: decathletes are generalists or decathletes are specialists.

Now that you know these three points, let’s look closer at the five SQ subjects and their distribution among the decathletes. Consider the following diagram:


At one side there is this idea that decathletes are generalists. Under this ideology all five SQ subjects are the responsibility of all ten members of the decathlon team. There is zero specialization as no one decathlete says that he or she will do just one subject in the SQ. Next let's look at each style in depth.

Full Spread

I call this form SQ organization a Full Spread, because all five subjects are spread across the team. Within this organization, there is no specialization whatsoever. In a true Full Spread organization, decathletes study all five subjects.

Under Full Spread each decathlete has seven subjects to study for: LQ, five SQ subjects, and an individual. SQ/LQ experts study six.

Full Spread has some advantages:

• Because all ten decathletes study all five subjects, theoretically all of the material in all five subjects should be covered by someone
• There is no pressure on one or two members of the team to know everything about a certain subject
• All team members are engaged in all parts of the SQ, all ten can theoretically put an opinion out for each question.
• Decathletes can find many study partners within the team to work with
• Since the team is always working together, teamwork is more easily built up

It also has some failings:

• Seven subjects is a lot of subjects to study for any middle school student
• Can a team of ten really dialogue in 15-20 seconds during a SQ question to come to a conclusion? I don’t think so.
• When coaching a subject, a coach needs all ten decathletes to be in one place at one time. 
• SQ coaches would need to work with a group of ten decathletes at one time instead of a smaller group
• Students are forced to study all subjects – including ones they may not be interested in
• Students may not be as motivated to study since they can hide in a group of ten decathletes all studying the same material
• An entire set of books would have to be ordered for the decathletes, which can get pricy

Partitioned Full Spread

Full Spread can also take a slightly different form in what I call Partitioned Full Spread. This is a modified form of Full Spread where the five subjects are still the responsibility of all ten decathletes, but each subject is broken up. This further takes two forms:

Pairs Form: the team is divided into pairs. The pair is receives parts of each subject, for example chapters 1-5 of literature, chapter 3 of the science text, pages 50-80 of the religion text, etc. Material is divided among five pairs

Singles Form: each decathlete gets five different assignments from across the five subjects. This is essentially the Pairs Form, but without a partner. This allows each decathlete to work with smaller material because the material is divided among ten decathletes.

Under Partitioned Full Spread decathletes still have seven subjects to study for (LQ, five SQ subjects, and an individual) but only portions of those five SQ subjects. 

This organizational structure has some advantages:

• Students have less material to study than under Full Spread
• Under the Pairs Form, all decathletes have a study partner
• Under the Singles Form, decathletes focus on less material
• All of the decathletes still participate because some of the questions on the SQ will stretch across the sections assigned to them

It also has some disadvantages:

• It can get complicated when breaking up all of these subjects, especially under the Singles Form
• Under both Singles and Pairs Forms, there is increased pressure on individuals to know something that only they will know because they are the only ones who studied a certain portion of the material
• It becomes very difficult to coach the decathletes because each pair or decathlete would be individual attention for their particular segments
• Like a Full Spread, an entire set of books would have to be ordered for the decathletes, which can get pricy

Subject Shuffle

After Partitioned Full Spread we start moving in the direction of specialization. Under the following two organization systems students start to specialize in different subjects instead of doing whole subjects or parts of many subjects.

The first of these systems is something I call the Subject Shuffle. Under this system, decathletes are assigned different subjects, but never all five decathlon subjects (though exceptions could be made for the team SQ/LQ expert.)

Let’s consider a four subject shuffle. Each decathlete gets four SQ subjects to study. The subjects have to be shuffled among the decathletes to ensure that there are enough decathletes doing every subject.

I’m a visual learner, so here is a visualization of what I am talking about. The black boxes represent subjects a decathlete would not study:

First, a Four Subject Shuffle:



And a Three Subject Shuffle:

Finally a Two Subject Shuffle:

So, under a Four Subject Shuffle each decathlete gets four SQ subjects to study, which after LQ and an individual, equates to six subjects to study. Under a Three Subject Shuffle, a decathlete would have five subjects to study, and under a Two Subject Shuffle four subjects. Subtract one subject for the SQ/LQ expert.

In addition, the number of decathletes studying each subject goes down under a Subject Shuffle organization. Under a Four Subject Shuffle eight decathletes study one subject, under a Three Subject Shuffle six decathletes, and under a Two Subject Shuffle four or three decathletes. Under the Two Subject shuffle, you may want for the SQ/LQ experts to take on the subjects which only have three decathletes on them.

This system has some advantages:

• Because less students are studying each subject, only a few students are participating in the discussion part of the SQ competition. Instead of ten voices trying to come to an answer in 15-20 seconds there are fewer. 
• Coaches can work with smaller groups instead of a large group of ten, and study sessions can occur with only part of the team there (important for when students also want to play a sport during decathlon season, for example those involved in basketball are assigned subjects that have practice when there is no basketball.)
• Students have less material to study overall
• Students are able to pick subjects they are interested in
• A whole set of books would not be required, so this system is cheaper than a Full Spread

It also has some disadvantages:

• There is an increased pressure on fewer decathletes to know material, and this pressure increases as the number of people studying each subject goes down
• Because there are fewer peoples studying each subject, there is a higher change than under a Full Spread system that something will be missed while studying
• It can be a little confusing as to who is doing what subject – a list would always have to be kept on hand
• Since the team would only work together in LQ, it may be more difficult to build team spirit

Full Specialization

The final form of subject organization I have classified is Full Specialization. This is on the extreme side of the ideology of specialization. Under this system two decathletes are assigned one SQ subject. So, there are five pairs each studying one SQ subject each. This system allows decathletes to study the fewest subjects out of all of the other systems: most decathletes study for LQ, one SQ subject, and one individual for a total of three. LQ/SQ experts only study two (!) subjects under this system.

This system has some advantages:

• Decathletes truly focus only on a few subjects, so they have much letter material to cover
• Pairs help to keep decathletes accountable, they can’t hide in a group of ten 
• Coaches have a much easier time scheduling practices since only two decathletes need to be there (this is particularly important if you have large coaching staff)
• Very few books would have to be ordered for the decathletes, since they would only need their individual book(s) and a single SQ subject’s book(s).

It also has disadvantages:

• There is a high degree of pressure put on decathletes for each subject. If the two decathletes do not know the answer, then the team is out of luck
• Since most work is done in pairs, there may be a lack of team unity since the only time it would be important for a team to meet would be for LQ practice and some floor management training near the event

It’s hard to say what is the best system. I really think it depends on the school resources and the students. I have a slight preference for either a Two Subject Shuffle or a Full Specialization. I like how they are the cheapest systems in terms of book purchases and how it is easier to schedule in coaches and practice times. However, I have only tried the Full Spread and Partitioned Full Spread methods during my coaching. Similar to regular pedagogical theory, one needs to meet the needs to the students and differentiate.

To bring this back to the topic of how to pick a successful team, these theory of Spread of Subjects though inform a coach as to who to pick. Like backwards planning in education, one needs to see where they are going and work back from there.

What do you guys think? Are there other systems I missed? Have you used these systems ourselves? Do you have anything else to add to the disadvantages or advantages?