How would you do it?

[Bob White]

In the year 2007 8,800 new units were started in the three traditional programs of the BSA. Let's average 7 adults leaders per unit for 61,600 adults spread out through over 2,200 districts nation wide.

 

If you were given the task of getting basic training to all 61,600, so that you could reasonable insure that no matter where they were each got the same program information in an effective learning format, how would you do it?

[scoutldr]

Synchronous distance learning via satellite...like colleges do. Allows interaction with instructor for Q&A.

[Crew21_Adv]

Bob White and fellow Scouters,

 

Greetings!

 

I fairly much concur with scoutldr. That is why the BSA has transitioned to powerpoint NLE and Specifics and all the Specifics facilitator handbooks. Also, Scoutmastership Fundamentals has tranistioned Scoutmaster Specifics and Introduction to Outdoor Leadership Skills. To make the same platform the same, between all Councils, and attempt to remove the local rules and "slight modifications" to the program.

 

More recently, BSA has begun the Online Learning Center. There is no "personal changes", there is no interpretation. There may be alot of questions, when learning from a computer based training, but at least the platform and statements do not vary.

 

 

I do like scoutldr thought on synchronous distant learning via satellite. In theory it is a good idea. I just don't see getting 61,600 in theaters and conference rooms nation wide. I don't even see 10 percent of that 6,160 in theaters and conference rooms. I would imagine they would like the idea of training, (hey, I like a lot of ideas), but putting words into action is another subject.

 

But if I had the tasks nation-wide, I may do something more radical.

 

Such as a complete change to the membership policy. Each Scout would require the simultaneous membership of an eligible parent, guardian, or sibling. Then a completion of a CD issued computer based training for Youth Protection and NLE would be required prior to the youths and adults acceptance.

 

In the end (of my radical theory) we may have fewer annual memberships, but we may have an even better quality program nation wide.

 

Scouting Forever and Venture On!

Crew21 Adv

[Bob White]

Scoutldr,

Please share your plan for getting 61,600 people available at the same time at locations across the country with the required technological resources needed to achieve that. With approx 308 councils (if we were to do this on a council level) we would need a meeting place for an average of 200 people each. of course that will vary. In some councils you may only have 14 people where in other councils you could have over 600 based on the average of new units per district.

 

Are you confident that such facilities will exist in every Council?

 

Are you aware of any volunteer organization who has been able to complete an undertaking of that magnitude?

 

What would you estimate the cost per person to be as compared to the current cost of training at the basic level?

 

If only 2% of the participants asked a question at an average of 2 minutes for the question to be asked and answered, the Q&A session alone would take over 41 hours. Do we plan this as a marathon weekend course? or should it be a week long so that breaks could be allowed for meals?

 

Crew21_Adv,

Are you aware of the uproar caused when programs such as Youth Protection and Safe Swim Defense were put on line?

 

I agree that recording all training is one way to guarantee consistent information. Please tell me how the Q&A would be handled. It will be interesting to here how others percieve the effectiveness of the training if there were no face to face instruction?

 

Plus, this has not resolved the basic training issue since we still have the outdoor trainig to cover. Should that be done as a purely video presentation as well?

 

Are you confident that 100% of the 61,600 volunteers have access to a CD or DVD player?

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[John-in-KC]

A preliminary before I start answering: I assume the new leader can be of either gender, may or may not have their own special needs, most likely lacks functional outdoor skills, and was not a youth member of BSA or GSUSA.

 

First,

 

You need a commitment from the volunteer that he will undertake training. There is no such commitment on the leader app at this time. So, there's the first systemic fix... a buy-in from the new volunteer.

 

Second,

 

You need multiple and frequent delivery media, for at least two reasons. Not everyone learns well in a lecture. Not everyone learns well from small group discussion. The blind, truly, cannot see (and if you don't think we wont have some special needs adults, think again). The deaf cannot hear. You have to meet the need.

 

Another reason for multiple delivery media is people's lives. Six times a year, I go to shift work... 12/12 continuous ops for two weeks a pop. I'm not available to anybody else for any reason. You need multiple opportuntities to answer the requirement. So, online training may be the best delivery tool for me. OTOH, the Mom who works 20 hours per week may well have time to attend a local, in person session.

 

Third, no matter how you deliver the content, you must ensure the presenter has the instructional delivery skills to get his point across. How many times have I seen a presenter read me the %%%% slides, or drone in a voice so small (while looking into the script, not his audiences' eyes) that I cannot hear him (and I still have a normal hearing range)?

 

Fourth, no matter how you present the material, you must ensure the presenter is no less than subject matter competent on his material. How many times have I seen a presenter who said "I just was handed this, let's discover it together." True anecdote: At a commissioner college, a Doctor of Commissioner Service told me with a straight face that all youth in Venturing require a BSA Class III Physical annually! Competency in the material mitigates the risk of passing the baloney

 

Fifth, some tasks mandate hands-on training (let's see... life in the outdoors). Provide it, often, away from the youth. Every youth deserves a TRAINED TO STANDARD leader (note the difference between what I say and what National says). The adult starting a unit should not stumble along learning with the youth.

 

Sixth, modularize and target the hands-on training: Use pre-testing. Build training modules for skill levels, don't do "one size fits all" as our outdoor syllabi (BALOO, WOL (or whatever it is this week) and IOLS now assume. HAVE A MODULE THAT ASSUMES NO EXPERIENCE. OTOH, THE NEW LEADER WHO IS EXPERT... GET HIM ENGAGED WITH HIS UNIT.

 

Seventh, increase the opportunities for adults to train-up away from youth. It does not help leader credibility to play "discovery learning" with his/her training audience.

 

Eighth, we need a way to answer questions: In some of my hobbies, folks have invested in writing online FAQ. That's one path. We have some good subject matter specific training material, but not enough... especially in outdoor skills. We need more and better self-study materials for adults ... focused, narrow topic materials ... "How to select a tent" "Dutch Oven 1" "Walking in the wilderness" (Gee, sounds like the chapters from Colin Fletcher... who is one of my heroes). The internet has radically increased the availability of knowledge. If we must kill a tree for books and pamphlets, charge only the cost of reproduction and distribution.

 

Ninth, and last, we need a way to socialize, integrate, and facilitate further learning: Here, at least we have a tool in the box, when it's used: District Roundtable. I think our District does a good job here, but we work from a unique philosophy: ONE STOP SHOPPING for unit serving Scouters... Each operating committee of the District Committee must staff a table for questions and answers in their lane. The Professionals staff a table to take stuff back to the Service center. Advancement Committee does ELSP approval. OA chapter meets the same night. All 3 programs (Cub/Boy/Venturing) meet the same night.

 

Allow me to summarize:

 

- Commitment from the new volunteer. THIS IS A CURRENT BSA SYSTEMIC SHORTFALL.

 

- Multiple:

-- Means of course delivery.

-- Opportunities for course delivery.

 

- Competency in presentation skills from the presenter.

 

- Competency in subject matter skills from the presenter.

 

- Hands-on training where appropriate. Pre-test.

 

- Modularize the training, both in skill level and in subject.

 

- Increase the opportunity for hands-on training, so adults can master skills away from the youth.

 

- Improve the follow-on distribution of knowledge. LOWER THE COST OF KNOWLEDGE when it must be distributed through the traditional bricks/mortar of a Scout Shop.

 

- The one and only one SUSTAIN: Socialize and integrate using the existing Roundtable system. Make RT a one stop shop, horizontally and vertically integrated across Scouting in a District.

 

Yes, this means the District, Council, Regional and National training committees have their work cut out for them. They have to find more volunteers to be trainers, train them to and certify them as trainers, QC them as they present,...

 

The short version, Bob? We don't do nearly enough of a good job with the due course adults we bring in the door now, let alone a year over year increase of 62K each year.

[Bob White]

John,

Now that you have outlined the criteria, please descbribe the training vehicle that could do those things.

I totally agree with your first point that a lot depends on the selection of quality people as leaders.

Thanks

BW(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[John-in-KC]

No, Bob, NOT SELECTION OF QUALITY PEOPLE. That was an implied task.

 

Systemic shorfall: NEW VOLUNTEERS AGREEING TO TAKE TRAINING TO AN IDENTIFIABLE PROFICIENCY LEVEL FOR THEIR PROGRAM.

 

We don't contract, if you will, with the new volunteers. Training is not a condition of adult membership.

 

As far as the how...

 

1) Add a basic duty to the Commissioner Service: Collaterally serve as instructor pool for the District Training Committee. National mandates, as a CONDITION OF CHARTERING THE LOCAL COUNCIL, that all UC and ADC slots be filled with Commissioner Key/Arrowhead Honor completed Commissioners. Further mandate 1 Commissioner in training for every 5 commissioners in service. See this form http://www.scouting.org/forms/34169/63.pdf

 

2) National/Council adds instructional material presentation competency a condition of earning Commissioner's Key/Arrowhead Honor (radically increase pool of available instructors). National/Council requires each Commissioner to be subject matter competent in at least two leader specific training modules. This will add tasks to earning the Commissioner's key/Arrowhead honor.

 

3) Create both Braille/sound and "book only" versions of all classroom content for special needs Scouters.

 

4) Move Cub and Boy YP to online and special needs only. Scouters without PCs can go to the local school or library.

 

5) Move Fast Start for all 3 programs to online and special needs only.

 

6) Make NLE available virtually on demand. New Leader Essentials becomes available online. National mandates each Council to present NLE monthly as a portion of District RT in all Districts.

 

7) All Cub Scout leader specific modules available at least monthly in each district of each council (our SE mandates each district present CS LS modules weekly during the fall recruiting season). All Cub Scout leader specific modules (except BALOO) made available online as well.

 

8) National revises entire outdoor skills acquisition and outdoor leader training curriculum. Develop products which first certify outdoor competency of volunteers at age appropriate leader level, then and only then integrates use of the patrol method in presenting outdoor skills to youth. My estimate here is Councils will need to offer more than 1 outdoor education experience each non-holiday weekend of the year.

 

9) All Boy Scout leader specific training modules available at least quarterly in each district of each council. All classroom based Boy Scout leader specific modules made available online as a training supplement/reinforcement.

 

10) As I said, SUSTAIN the District RT.

 

11) Make Venturing leader specific training an "on-request" course. The ratio I see of new Crews to new Troops to New Packs does not seem to justify scheduled events yet.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From where we are now, what does this represent?

 

6) This is at least a four-fold increase for most districts that I've observed.

 

7) This is a three-fold increase in training frequency for most districts I've observed.

 

9) This is a doubling in training frequency for most districts I've observed.

 

Can existing District training operating committees handle the load? Heck, no. That's why I posit the Commssioner service gain an additional duty of being an instructor pool.

 

 

[Beavah]

If you were given the task of getting basic training to all 61,600, so that you could reasonable insure that no matter where they were each got the same program information in an effective learning format, how would you do it?

 

Oh, I might license individual corporations in the local area of each of the units. Those local corporations would be able to develop community contacts and resources, and they'd understand the local culture and challenges and the needs of the individual Chartered Organizations.

 

I'd authorize them to provide services and training, enlisting their own experts or contracting with other local agencies as necessary. To help 'em out, I might also provide some training guidelines and syllabuses to give 'em a place to start from.

 

I might even call 'em "Councils".

 

B

 

[Bob White]

Interesting Beavah,

However, that does not explain how you would get consistent program information and course content. What is your solution to that?

 

What kind of timeline do you anticipate to have these training resources ready to go in 308 individual councils and 2,200 district communities?

 

To you plan on having the National office pay the fees for development and delivery of the training or will the local volunteers pay the fees for trainers?

 

John, YP is already on line, as is Fast Start, and Roundtable is already available for any volunteer to attend. But none of those are BASIC training components all are "supplementary" training components.

 

How would you deliver basic training so that all 6 thousand plus got the same program info?

 

Putting on line, like having a video or DVD presentation, certainly controls content continuity, butis the difference between that and being read to? What about human interaction, Q&A opportunitues, how will you resolve these issues?

 

The current SM/ Assistant SM course is 7 hours do you the on-line version taking this long as well? And agian you are faced with the outdoor skills phase of leaders training is that to be on-line as well? If not how do you control the the content from one course to another?

 

Thanks for your input.

BW

 

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[evmori]

With the mass number of people & the wide area you are describing, it would be next to impossible to ensure local training was done exactly the same everywhere unless you had a single training team that traveled the country and handled all of the training. Either that or get every one to be trained in local areas & have one big massive video conference. Either one would be prohibitive in cost and time to organize & pull off.

 

So, how would I do it? Require mandatory training at the local level for all registered adult leaders with materials supplied from National.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Bob White]

No one said the training had to be done the same only that all the same information had to be shared.

 

So if we had 1 training team just for Scoutmaster training that would likely solve the consistency problem, and if they spend all day on Thursday doing NLE and Scoutmaster Specific and then the IOLS on Friday thru Sunday and then traveled on Monday and Tuesday taking Wednesday to set up camp, they could get to all 308 Councils in just under 6 years providing they never took any holidays off.

 

Well that is one more plan to consider.

 

"So, how would I do it? Require mandatory training at the local level for all registered adult leaders with materials supplied from National.

 

But isn't that what we do now???

And yet not all leaders are not trained or resieving the same information even though every district and council has the exact same syllabus!

How is that possible? What would have to change for the current training system that is in place to get the same information to every participant?(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[OldGreyEagle]

As I once heard a few times, all politics are local, this is how the Council I serve did Mandatory Training. It may not work everywhere, I know it wouldnt, it has to be a Council wide decision.

 

The Executive Board of the Council said it wasnted to move to mandatory training. The Council Exec communicated this to the Council Training Chair who talked about it with the District Training Chairs. The District Training Chairs had to beef up their staffs and agree to provide training on a rotating basis so that training would be available every 2 months in the Council. Also, the District Training Chairs committed to do one on one training or have a trainer go to a unit committee meeting if that was what it woud take. In all of this, a committment to present the syllabus was made and the chairs sit in on sessions in their and other districts to assue this is so. Many people in the COuncil are now invovled in training. I am the Venturing trainer for the Distirct I serve, there is a Cub and Boy Scout Lead trainer as well. Before the training requirement was made official a lot of work was done talking about what it would take and were we committed to making it work. It was talked up, the COuncil President, Exec and Commissioner had "Fireside Chats" with each District to talk about this issue and others. The enforcement was not to recharter units that were not trained, and this was done. First year 3 units were dropped. A few units ended up with different scoutmasters because the first guy wasnt trained, many saw that the requirement was serious and they got trained. At first all Scoutmaster, Cubmasters and Crew Advisors had to be trained. Then the next year it was All COmmittee CHairs, then the next year COmmittee members and Asst Scoutmasters. At the present time if you sign up to be an Asst Scoutmaster, you need to take training in 2 years or you cant be an ASM. It takes a dedicated training staff and dedicated scouters to present the material as many times as it is needed.

 

I would not suggest a council just say we require training unless it has the infrastructure in place, Council reps may sit in on any training session to assure it adheres to the syllabus. It can be done, and done well if you have enough people to do it, other wise it would not be attainable(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

[Beavah]

However, that does not explain how you would get consistent program information and course content. What is your solution to that?

 

Yah, I'm not interested in that, eh? I'm a NFP Service organization, not a McDonalds. My goal isn't to make a consistent hamburger, my goal is to be of service to da local Chartered Organizations and volunteers. To help 'em make different hamburgers, and an occasional tofu or chicken burger, usin' their local, home-grown ingredients.

 

But other folks are right, eh? If yeh really care about sameness, then yeh used fixed media. Printed, burnt, or podcast. That gets yeh identical delivery. We could do that with a robotic SM for da Scouts too, eh?

 

Da tradeoff is that it gets yeh very little by way of uniform understanding, and is usually duller than watchin' cows graze.

 

Beavah

 

[BrentAllen]

For QC and consistency, I would follow the lead of the Red Cross. All of their instruction is now on DVDs. Instructors are trained to be facilitators, to help participants make sure they get the technique right, and to answer questions. The same could be done for much of the BSA training.

 

For Cub Leader training, I would ask each District Training team to volunteer to work one Saturday a year at the Volunteer Service Center to teach the training courses all day. If a Council has at least 12 districts, that would allow a Training Day to be offered once a month. Or maybe not offer it in December, and instead offer 2 Training Days in either September or October, when a lot of new leaders need training. Have several DEs or FDs around for QC and to answer questions. Give new leaders a 20% discount coupon on the cost of their uniform when they complete all of the training components.

 

I'd have to think some more about SM training. Due to the length of the courses, it would take a different approach.

[Bob White]

That's...hmmm...a...'unique' way to view a national program, any national program. But it also explains a lot eh? I wish you luck with that.

 

So if you are not following the BSA's training material to teach the BSA program, what do you use to teach others how to deliver a BSA program

 

Brent

There are 5 Cub Scout Job Specific courses each take an average of three hours. Are you truly suggestion on trainer VOLUNTEER to teach for a minimum of 15 hours in a single day by themselves... not including the 90 minute New Leader essential Course?

 

In addition your plan requires 12 volunteers in every district so we would need to find 26,400 trainers willing to teach 15 hour days.

 

Maybe we should rethink this one.(This message has been edited by Bob White)(This message has been edited by Bob White)