Tips for New Wood Badge Troop Guides...

[The Beav SR831 & 948]

Do any of you that have been Wood Badge Troop Guides have any tips for us "newbie" guides that will soon be Staffers/Troop Guides? We'll be doing (2) Three day sessions in March.

[John-in-KC]

Don't use the "pretty" versions of the slides for your presentations. The sorta white on camouflage came off so hard to read, it's not funny. Use the black lettering/white background instructor version.

 

DON'T READ THE DAMN SLIDE. I graduated HS, college, and grad school. I can read, dammit. Know your material and the underlying principles/theory/practice to ADD VALUE TO THE BULLET POINTS.

 

Can you tell I'm rather emotional about my second point?

[The Beav SR831 & 948]

Nah...Never noticed.

 

(He says as he wipes powder burns and smoke off face and arms with wall singed behind him.)

 

Thanks, Bro. I'll keep that in mind.

 

The "Beav" m`˚()˚m~#

SR-831 & soon SR-948

[diogenes]

I've not been a TG, but in other classroom environments I've found that white print on a blue background works great for PP slides.

 

And John is right... don't read the friggin' things to us. PP should enhance your presentation, not *be* the presentation. Most people fail to do this properly and, especiqally at Wood Badge, end up with an audience of ZZZZZZZ or people frustrated that you're wasting their time and insulting their intelligence. If your job consists of pressing the clicker and reading the slide, you know you have a poor presentation.

 

Also, same concept as PP, but don't read the handouts either. If you want to print out the notes from PP, hand them out after you're done. It's better if people write their own notes, because they learn more ofit that way. The print out can be used to supplement any parts they may have missed.

[BeaverIII]

As a former TG/ASM for TGs I offer the following:

 

1. KNOW the material!! Backwards and forwards, inside and out.

 

2. Practice-Practice-Practice

 

3 BE THERE for your dens/patrols. As the TG you are Wood Badge to the participants. They deserve nothing less than your best.

 

Wally Hymel

Course Director

SR-957

March 2009

[John-in-KC]

Wally brings up a good point:

 

For the inter-session, YOU will be the Troop for your Patrol. You cannot, cannot punt a question from a participant. If you defer anything beyond "I do not know right now, but I will get with the CD and get you an answer in 3 days" ... you'll be bypassed, not made into a resource.

 

That was perhaps the most valuable statement our TG (who was also ASM for TGs) in our course said, even as we left weekend 1. He walked that walk, too

[Toby Weber]

Create your own presentations. Using someone elses or the canned presentations is a great starting point, but your presentations should be personalized for you.

 

There are many PowerPoint presentations in WB21. If you are presenting material that does not include video segments, and you can effectively NOT use PowerPoint, then dont.

 

Be familiar with the whole syllabus. Sometimes a TG needs to pre-gather materials for an activity an hour or two later, because there will not be time to gather what you need when you need it.

 

Remember you are modeling youth so have fun and use the proper chain of command (namely working through the SPL and ASM TG), just like a normal troop would.

 

[Buffalo Skipper]

In our WB courses, troop guide presentations are made in a true outdoor setting (weather permitting), and no ppts are used. Most TGs use ppt type printouts and flip with a standup notebook. (on the back side are notes, so they don't have to read the slide. It works well.

[SSScout]

Leave time for and encourage personal sharing of situations.

Don't just TELL, but SHARE from your own experience.

Allow the Patrol to add to the training of their own experience.

[BrentAllen]

Take a personal interest in each member of the patrol. You and they will get much more out of the course if you do.

 

Understand your role. You aren't/shouldn't be judged by how well your patrol is doing, and you shouldn't measure yourself by their performance. Some TGs worry that their patrol is struggling, and try to help them out too much. You don't do them any favors when you take the experience away from them. There are some things the patrol needs to work through on their own. Forming, storming, norming, performing. If you don't let them go through the process, they really miss out on a big part of the course.

 

Be prepared. Help your fellow TGs be prepared. Hopefully you will find yourself on a high-performing team of TGs that peaks just as the participants arrive. If you do, you will find you learn more and get more out of the course than the participants. They are drinking from a fire hose - you have time (thru course development) to take it all in like a fine wine.

 

Get organized and try to be one step ahead. Anticipate what is coming up next. Remember to have fun. :-)

[Bob White]

Practice, practice, practice. Know your presentations thoroughly, and know how they interact with each other and with the rest of the course topics.

 

While I agree that the PowerPoints supplied by national need some improvement in their readality I would have to disagree with a previous suggestion of using a white background. In fact a good rule of thumb for PowerPoint type presentations is NEVER use a white background. Light color text on dark backgrounds are not only easier to read when dealing with a projected image but creates less eyestrain due to the reduced amount of projected and reflected glare.

 

You will find that among the easiest to read projected images is yellow text on a medium background with a darker shadow. It's also recommendeed that you use a san serif font no less than 36 pts.

 

Also make your teaching aids well in advance and have a good packing list so that nothing you need is left behind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[AwHeck]

Most important.... HAVE FUN!!!

 

I felt that my fellow troop guides and I bonded and we had a blast while still presenting the program.

 

The advice for dark text on a white background is likely for those (like me) who created the slides to be printed out and presented outdoors. In a projected environment, the darker background is preferred but if the slides will be printed and presented the white background is preferable.

 

For courses in our council, the troop guides form their own patrol and create their own patrol identity for their portions of the training such as the rocket launch. We took our Scoutmaster's theme and extracted a portion that then led to our patrol identity. Once we decided on that, we played it up and had a great time.

 

You'll find that the first day is the most intense for you and you'll feel like you're constantly on the go. You're still busy the rest of the first weekend but it flies by. The second weekend you have much less to do with your patrols and you can enjoy the experience.

 

Yes - get to know each of your patrol members. I'm honestly not sure if it's part of the syllabus but we were encouraged to write personal letters to each of out patrol members before the end of the second weekend. From my perspective, these letters were encouraging and I included my own perception of each person as I wrote them.

[Bob White]

Another PowerPoint Tip

When you print out a presentation outline it will print as black text on white regardless of the look of the presentation.

 

Also if your projector is bright enough to use outdoors you will still be able to read light text on a dark background better.

 

(Personally I still prefer the use of flip charts outdoors.)

 

BW(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[robbybob1]

Hello fellow Wood Badgers! As the ASM for Troop Guides for C-32-09 course here in Cincinnati, I am currently putting together a "Day in the Life of a Troop Guide". It is long and drawn out, so I won't post it here, but if you send me your email, I would be happy to forward it to you in MS Word format, or I could do PDF as well. I would love to hear comments about if this would be helpful or not.

 

robbybob1@yahoo.com