ITC Student “Olympics” a Success

Posted on 28/08/2012 by itcnz

Students from two Level 5 International Travel College classes organised a 2012 Olympics event at the college.

The event was conducted as a quiz session along the lines of TV show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

ITC tutor Lanthia Stewart oversaw the students’ organisation of the event and was impressed with the project management skills they demonstrated.

Lanthia initially briefed both classes on how to manage a project, and the students were asked to nominate and select a project manager by secret ballot.  Student Raffaela Macke was selected. 

Lanthia and tutor Jacques Janse Van Rensburg met with Raffaela and a team member from both classes to discuss the process and procedures to follow in managing a project.

“Raffaela then basically managed the whole project and event, with Jacues or I attending their progress meetings to provide guidance, advice and support,” says Lanthia.

“It was quite a challenge for them to decide on how they could run a really fun event without having the space to have any actual sporting events,” she says. “They settled on having an Olympics quiz, which was an excellent choice, as they could accommodate all the classes in the one student area.”

“To begin with they held a series of brainstorming sessions to decide on the activity, format, process, rules, criteria, prizes, judges, music, and team themes.”
 
“Then they identified all the tasks that needed to be performed, and grouped them under categories. The next step was to identify the people, resources and skills they had within the Level 5 classes, and to appoint teams with team leaders. They then allocated tasks with deadlines to each team and monitored and controlled the project with weekly meetings.”

Each class designed and dress a mascot to carry the class flag they created.

A “specialist” was nominated in each of the six categories: Ancient Olympic History, Modern Olympics, Olympic Destinations, Olympic Athletes, Olympic Flags, and Olympic Sports.

This team member sat in the “hot” seat and competed against the specialists from the other teams. 

Instead of using buzzers, it was the first contestant to hop on one leg and hold both hands in the air who was given the opportunity to select the correct answer from four possible choices. 

Contestants did not have the TV version’s options of asking the audience, 50/50 or phone a friend.
 
“The tutors entered a team, although they were not eligible for prizes,” says Lanthia. “The students had enormous fun watching the antics and the sometimes wrong answers of the tutor team!”

The prizes were:
 Best Mascot: One-day trip to Bay of Islands
Top team:  Return cruise tickets to Rotoroa Island
Second team: Single event tickets to Spookers
Third team: Movie tickets
Best class flag and mascot outfit design and production: Pizzas
 
“The whole event was a great success,” says Lanthia. “I was really impressed with the students’ maturity and competence. They all did an excellent job and everyone is anxiously awaiting the next student event!”

 

Posted in News | Tagged Student events |