Wanted: Scholarly Articles on EDGE

[evmori]

EDGE is a fancy acronym for teaching skills the way the BSA has been teaching for decades! In another 10 years, there will be a new fancy acronym for the same thing!

[OldGreyEagle]

BTW, how did scouts teach skills for years?

[Beavah]

I agree about knots. Need to know the uses of the knot. I would put that as part of the Explanation in EDGE

 

If yeh just explain, then you're expecting 'em to memorize da explanation. I'd just have some fun trying the knot out on different tasks. That way they see and remember.

 

OGE, I reckon that's how most scouts learn most things, eh? They just watch other scouts and try things out. Or, for da ones who are readers, they do like quazse said and they read and try things out. I think that worked better with some of da old handbooks, though. The recent ones seem a more shallow and school-like.

 

I always laugh when someone tries to explain how to set up a tent. Just do it. In fact, next campout challenge your TG to set up tents with new scouts without talking at all, and see if it makes it better or worse.

 

Beavah

Beavah

 

[AvidSM]

Jet526 mentioned that the BSA went with EDGE to avoid royalties. I heard the same thing from the Course Director of the Wood Badge course that I am currently staffing.

 

Otherwise, what does it matter what you call it? The BSA needs structure, procedures and written processes. They can't put, "just do it" in the handbooks and the course syllabus.

 

They had to make up something and it does make sense. Time will tell if they keep it or come up with some other name.

[Beavah]

Jet526 mentioned that the BSA went with EDGE to avoid royalties. I heard the same thing from the Course Director of the Wood Badge course that I am currently staffing.

 

Yah, just curious, AvidSM. Did your WB Course Director happen to mention what it's a rip-off of?

 

Jet526 seems to think it's a rip-off of da Hersey & Blanchard lightweight organizational behavior stuff. That sorta makes sense for EDGE as a leadership model (leastways, if yeh think there's any merit to the Hersey & Blanchard stuff). The leader's style changes based on da skills of the group and da nature of the task.

 

But it doesn't make any sense at all for EDGE as an educational model.

 

Beavah

 

 

[desertrat77]

EDGE, Hersey Blanchard, et al--

 

Concepts borrowed from the past, mashed together unnaturally at times, with fancy packaging, presented with great earnestness as something new.

 

All attempts to harness dynamic human endeavor, and reduce it to a process, or easily digestable powerpoint slides, will guarantee its death.(This message has been edited by desertrat77)

[GKlose]

I can't recall where I saw it online, but I saw a reference sheet listing the various works used to help develop the original version of WB21C (Blanchard et al). I reviewed a bunch of those works prior to starting my WB21C course 18 months ago.

 

Along the way, someone said that WB21C was reformulated to remove some of the content that required royalties (Blanchard, for example), and that is pretty much what I witnessed in the course. Some of those concepts were still there, but in a repackaged form.

 

Guy

[qwazse]

Guy,

 

You almost had me there. April fools to you.

 

Now, by way of testimonial from the opposite camp, one SM of ours had a dreadful fear of public speaking. (I had no clue until the first Court of Honor that we let him lead.) This guy has a lot of outdoor skills, but was really intimidated by the concept of teaching. He appreciated having EDGE in his head because it gave him an outline of what he needed to do to instruct kids.

 

I'm sure some of you have had similar experiences, but this is anecdotal evidence. What I'd really like to see is some trial, maybe at summer camp. Randomly assign 1st years to EDGE-training or some alternative (maybe even no training), teach them a scout skill. Then have them teach the skill to Webelos. Quiz the Webelos the following day and see if there is a significantly higher rate of skill-retention in the group taught by EDGE-educated scouts.

 

Why do this? Because for every other skill, I can explain to a boy its importance. (E.g., why talking to a community leader about rights and responsibilities is better than showing me a grade report on your civics test, why "Reach, Throw, Row" is likely to save your life, why a sloppy lashing is going to make your trebuchet fail.) Life experience tells me that meeting these requirements helps one integrate into their community, forestall death, launch projectiles farther.

 

But, I can't explain why a boy being able to decipher an acronym is going to do any better than a boy just spending time helping his brother until he learns it. If I can say to a boy "Weblos taught by scouts using EDGE scored higher on their knot test. So learning EDGE will make you a more efficient instructor." Well, that would be a game-changer.

 

[Kudu]

qwazse writes:

 

but this is anecdotal evidence. What I'd really like to see is some trial

 

Easy enough to do: Study the presentation in which EDGE theory itself is taught to Scoutmasters and Assistant Scoutmasters: the Patrol Method presentation of Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster Specific Training.

 

1) Before the presentation, test the participants' knowledge of the function of a Patrol Leader and a Patrol.

 

2) Monitor the presentation to verify that the staffer presents only the official course content.

 

3) Directly after the presentation, again test the participants' knowledge of the function of a Patrol Leader and a Patrol.

 

If EDGE theory was applied according to the specifications of the national training committee (the BSA's highest authority on EDGE theory), then the participants will NOT have learned a SINGLE THING about the Patrol Method.

 

Not a single thing.

 

That is the purpose of EDGE theory (and the purpose of all Leadership Development): to replace the "Real" Patrol Method with snake oil concepts such as "innovation," "thinking outside the box," and "21st century thinking."

 

So a real "scholarly" study of EDGE would measure the participants' susceptibility to fraud and cult thinking before and after they spend 20 minutes learning about EDGE theory in a presentation fraudulently presented as "The Patrol Method."

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

 

[qwazse]

K,

 

As much as I sympathize with your view of BSA leadership training as post-modern jingoism. I'm really not interested in EDGE as it pertains to a concept like patrol method -- even if it were in the syllabus old school style.

 

We need to know its impact on youth as it pertains to teaching a scouting skill.

 

You and I can claim it has none. Beav can challenge it's compliance to best practices. We might demonstrate its uselessness in adults learning methods of scouting. But, all of that would not speak to the environment where it's explicitly required to be implemented.

[Kudu]

qwazse writes:

 

But, all of that would not speak to the environment where it's explicitly required to be implemented.

 

EDGE is specifically required to be implemented in the Patrol Method presentation of Scoutmaster Specific Training, isn't it?

 

Really, isn't it?

 

Therefore the Patrol Method presentation is the perfect place to study its effectiveness.

 

Easy and straight-forward: Measure the participants understanding of the Patrol Method before and after learning EDGE in the session EDGE experts fraudulently present as the "Patrol Method."

 

After you have studied what EDGE does to adults, THEN test Beavah's example: Study new Scouts who have been forced to listen to an EDGE presentation on how to set up a tent, and test them against new Scouts who have spent the same amount of time using their hands to help someone set up tents in complete silence.

 

My guess is that the EDGE kids will be significantly slower than the kids who learned with their hands and eyes.

 

qwazse writes:

 

We need to know its impact on youth as it pertains to teaching a scouting skill.

 

No, a scholarly study would also measure the BIG PICTURE, what it ACTUALLY does (its impact on adult volunteers), not merely the purpose told by "leadership" experts who dismiss Scoutcraft as "trenching tents" or knowing how to help with a runaway horse.

 

In other words, people who hate Scoutcraft present EDGE as a way to teach Scoutcraft, but Scoutcraft (and the Patrol Method) is EXACTLY what Leadership Development was designed to replace:

 

In general, Patrol Leader training should concentrate on leadership skills rather than on Scoutcraft Skills. The Patrol will not rise and fall on the Patrol Leader's ability to cook, follow a map, or do first aid, but it very definitely depends on his leadership skill http://inquiry.net/leadership/index.htm

 

Face it, qwazse: If you want a scholarly article on EDGE you must write it yourself. That is how all human progress begins: by recognizing a need.

 

Just don't limit yourself to testing only the stated aims of "leadership" snake oil gurus.

 

Test also what the venom does to those who administer it

 

Yours at 300 feet,

 

Kudu

http://kudu.net

(This message has been edited by Kudu)

[BadenP]

 

EDGE= Extreme drudgery generating evil.

 

That's for you Kudu, I am not a big fan of it either, of course we don't use it in Venturing.

[GKlose]

qwazse -- I wasn't joking! (I know the timing was poor, but I don't really go for April Fools gags)

 

http://www.woodbadge.ws/employer/index.aspx

 

The problem is I can't remember where I read the bit about the redesign of the course to remove the royalties. I recall it saying that the curriculum was revised once, since it was first introduced.

 

The Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_Badge_%28Boy_Scouts_of_America%29 under "More recent modifications") says some of this, but that isn't where I orginally read it.

 

Guy

[perdidochas]

Kudu,

 

The EDGE way of training how to put up a tent would require learning with their hands and eyes, just like the conventional method.

 

First, explain the basics of putting up a tent. (Explain)

Second, show how to do it. (i.e. the scouts learning with their eyes) (Demonstrate)

Third, have the scouts put up tents (i.e. the scouts learning with their hands).

(Guide)

 

Fourth, have several campouts where the scouts put up tents. (Enable)

 

Please explain how that is not using their hands and eyes to learn how to set up a tent?

 

I understand your frustration with the watering down of the Patrol method, but using the EDGE method for teaching skills is not a bad thing. Is it the best thing? I don't know. Is it the worst? Probably not.

 

 

 

[John-in-KC]

A very brief google search has yielded nothing on EDGE that does not source back to BSA.

 

I spent a few years on the platform as an Army schoolhouse instructor. The Army uses a modification of Taylorism (scientific analysis of tasks) to train folks: Task, Condition, and Standard. It's enshrined in our Systems Approach to Training, or in university speak: Instructional Systems Development.

 

I will say the 4 step learning process of EDGE dovetails nicely with how the Army trains skills. Whatever the skill is, you have to introduce it to the learner. You demonstrate it. You walk them through in a relatively sterile enviornment. Finally, you do it full up. I care not that the skill is taught in a schoolhouse or a unit. The process is age-old, the buzzword is new.