Facilitator’s Guide · SW4 · College and Career Readiness
Facilitator’s Guide: Competition Pathways (CTSO)
Four browsing pages, one external link, and one graded check-in — this module is a menu, not a project.
📑 4 pages · 1 link🏆 5 points in the module📅 Dates change every year
The unit at a glance
| Module item | What happens | Points |
|---|---|---|
| TSA | Technology Student Association. Tabbed page: what TSA is, six popular starter events (Coding, Robotics, Video Game Design, Digital Photography, Data Science, Technical Design), the full middle-school event list, a four-step preparation path, and a TSA-vs-DI fit comparison. | — |
| Destination Imagination | Seven challenge areas — Technical, Engineering, Scientific, Fine Arts, Improvisational, Service Learning, plus the Instant Challenge everyone does — with a preview video. Student-led teams: adults coach the process, not the solution. | — |
| Film Festival | The Middle School VILS Film Festival. Three categories (Animation/Motion Graphics, Documentary/News, Narrative/Story), five minutes maximum, up to three students per entry, a 200-word summary, and a six-part 180-point rubric. | — |
| Ignite | The Ignite STEAM Competition at Verizon’s headquarters. Detailed challenges with full rubrics: Video Game Design (Ecosystem Adventure), Logo Design in GloForge, 3D Printing Mini-Sculpture, Rover Maze with a Sphero RVR, and Problem Solving (Weather the Storm). Two students per event, per school. | — |
| TSA Website | External link to the national middle-school competition list. Opens in a new tab. | — |
| Closing | ||
| Xello Check-in: 4-Year Course Plan | Students build a four-year high school course plan in Xello and upload a screenshot. Runs last, and it is the only graded item in the module. | 5 |
Materials + prep
- This year’s actual dates, in your hand, before you open these pages with students. The pages are written evergreen on purpose — they say “mid-January,” “in the spring,” “ask your teacher” — so the calendar is yours to supply. Check the current TSA, Destination Imagination, Film Festival and Ignite dates each year and give students the real ones out loud.
- The current Ignite competition packet, if you plan to enter. The page describes last cycle’s challenges in detail and they change.
- A decision, made in advance, about which competitions your campus is actually entering. This module reads as a menu; students will pick something.
- Xello through ClassLink for the check-in, and a sense of the high school course catalogue so you can answer questions about the four-year plan.
- For the Film Festival: the Google Folder submission link for this year, and a plan for who films what.
Watch-fors
- Every date on these pages is deliberately vague, and that is not an oversight. Film Festival submissions run mid-January, judging late February into early March, and the festival itself late March at Singley Academy. Ignite is a spring day at Verizon headquarters, morning to early afternoon. Confirm all of it annually — the pages will not go stale, but they also will not tell students when to show up.
- The Ignite page says six challenges and describes five. Video Game Design, Logo Design, 3D Printing Sculpture, Rover Maze and Problem Solving are on the page in full. If the sixth matters to your students, get the current packet.
- Ignite’s Rover Maze is a Sphero RVR event. Anyone who came through RVR Robotics is already trained for it — that is the strongest recruiting line in this module. Logo Design needs GloForge access, so check you have the machine before promising that one.
- TSA and DI are genuinely different animals, and the TSA page says so. TSA is spec-driven: rubrics, artifacts, interviews. DI is a live performance with engineering inside the skit. Students who pick wrong usually picked on the name. Use the fit comparison at the bottom of the TSA page.
- Links inside these pages sometimes will not open in the Canvas frame. Both the TSA and DI pages carry the same tip: right-click and open in a new tab. Say it before students start clicking.
Grading
Only one item in this module is graded: the Xello Check-in: 4-Year Course Plan, worth 5 points, submitted as a screenshot upload. The four competition pages and the TSA external link carry no points and no submission — they are there to be read and chosen from. If you want students accountable for exploring them, the check-in is the only hook currently in the gradebook.