What Do Girl Scout Leaders Think of VTK? (Part One)

 

Several years ago, GSUSA introduced its online leader's platform Volunteer Toolkit.  VTK, which is accessed by clicking on the "My GS" tab on your council's website, logging in, clicking "my account" and then "Volunteer Toolkit" is supposed to be sort of an online dashboard for leaders.  If you utilize it fully, you select an award to work in at a meeting, set a date for the meeting, choose activities for a meeting, read a script for the meeting, send meeting reminders, record attendance and submit reports to council.   There are also training materials and resources available in VTK.  However, it has been my impression that many Girl Scout leaders do not love VTK.  This post is the result of a survey of members of various Girl Scout leader Facebook Groups. 

This post focuses on people's opinion of the meeting plans in VTK.  The results are similar to those found in my surveys about the Daisy program  and the Brownie Program.  I will be writing another posts about other aspects of VTK.

Who Responded

My request went live 24 hours ago; within the first six hours I had 365 responses. I watched it through the day and the percentages never changed much   Now I have 591 responses and have closed the survey. 

82.3 % of the people who responded were troop leaders and 13.6% were co-leaders.  The others were Juliette parents, service unit leaders, council trainers, etc.  3 people were council employees.

Very few newbies responded--only 4.7% had been adult Girl Scouts for less than a year, and 22.5% had served for 1-3 years.  The majority, 72.8% had served for more than three years.  

I'd say the responding group is probably more experienced than the average Girl Scout leader.  I solicited answers on Girl Scout leader Facebook pages so my pool of people probably skews toward those who like looking beyond the obvious places when planning meetings, so it is possible that a more representative group would have different responses.  However, my council won't make it possible for me to email every leader in the council and ask them to complete my survey.

Meeting Plans

VTK contains meeting plans for all the badges and Journeys at all levels.  Leaders of single-level troops get access to their level only; leaders of multi-level troops get access to all levels, even if no girls are in those levels.  Generally speaking VTK breaks badges into two meetings.  The "Progressive" STEM badge plans are clearly unified lesson plans.  For the other badges, VTK generally mirrors the activities from the badge inserts from the Girls Guide to Girl Scouting (and those inserts are now available to be purchased as individual downloads).  The VTK plans are presented as scripted meetings though if you use VTK as a planner,  you can, according to the materials I've read, add other activities or subtract some that are there.  

Who uses them?

39.1% of those responding said that their "go to" when planning meetings was The Girls Guide/Badge Inserts; 10% said VTK and 8.5% used the plans from Girl Scouts River Valleys.  A general web search garnered 25.5% of the votes and Pinterest, 8.3%. 

53.5% said they rarely or never consult VTK when planning meetings.  11.2% check it when planning for a badge or journey.  4.2% checked it only when doing a progressive badge or a "Think Like A" journey as those plans were originally only on VTK.  11.5% check it often and 19.6% sometimes. 

Next I asked why people who used VTK plans chose to do so, and respondents could select multiple answers.  67% of people who responded said they don't use the VTK plans.  The next most popular answer was that they did not have books (14.3%) followed by liking having the plans and resources in one place (13.8%). 7.2% found the scripts useful and 5.9% liked the plans. 6.4 % thought access was more convenient than the books.  

What do people think of the plans? 

Those who did not use the VTK plans overwhelmingly said (57.3%) that VTK was way too complicated.  30.1% did not like the activities suggested, 25.2% said that the scripts make it too hard to figure out what the activities are, and 28.4% said the scripts take too long to read. 13.7% said the girls plan the meetings and couldn't access VTK and 10.9% said they do use VTK regularly.  A bunch of "write in" responses were received and most could be categorized at saying VTK was too complicated, that it wasn't flexible enough to use with a multi-level troop and that they didn't like the activities.

 

Only 2.1% said they thought the meeting plans in VTK were great.  46.3% said some were good and some needed work and 51.6% said that in general, they don't care for the VTK plans.  

When VTK first came out, the badge plans were significantly different from those in the badge inserts. (See post on First Aid Badge and post on Snacks badge). During a recent revamp, the VTK plans were changed to generally offer the same options as the badge inserts.  I was curious as to whether people realized this, as there were a lot of negative comments about the VTK plans themselves when it first came out.  66.6% of people were not aware the plans had changed.  However, I did not follow up to see if they had ever seen the original plans.  Oh well, I'm not a professional survey designer. 

Comments about the meeting plans

These are some edited for clarity, spelling etc. responses to the question "Have you tried any activities from VTK which were total flops such that you think there is no way GSUSA piloted the plan or activity?

• Junior Flowers badge. Bath beads recipe gave me a soupy mess, not bath beads.
  
  
• Amuse journey is woefully unclear and inadequate
  
  
• They have one for Daisies that's literally sorting used recycling which is kind of gross, like nobody wants their children playing with someone else's garbage no matter how well-rinsed it is
  
  
• I believe GSUSA contracted the content out and I do not find it practical or flexible enough. And, it requires electricity and internet.
  
  
• The journeys for Daisies, too much time commitment for 6 year olds
  
  
• I’ve had a couple of flops, primarily in science/engineering activities (for example, all sunflower seeds half-float, whether they are in their shells or not). I now always check another resource to see how something SHOULD work. Often the VTK plans are just written badly and once you check other resources, you get a better sense of how to lead the activity.
  
  
• I don’t believe anyone who read the requirements for badges worked on the VTK product. As a project manager and business analyst I would have been fired if I released a product like VTK.
  
  
• The balloon cars. 11 girls, none worked
  
  
• Yes - Brownie Quest skips half the information that makes the journey make sense. We started with the VTK plans and after meeting 1, I completely rewrote it (but still using materials from the girls book).
  
  
• The entire Programmer journey (Cadettes) was a huge flop. GSUSA was given feedback and ignored it. They were given feedback in follow up pilot programs and continue to ignore it.
  
  
•  Expecting Daisies to write full sentences without assistance. Most girls that age can barely read let alone write full sentences. You don’t understand the ability level of the girls.
  
  
• Some of the early ones for older girls have the "leader" adult doing way to much talking and not enough asking and listening and note-taking.
  
  
• Some crafts were flops. Things like making paper were lacking in instruction.
  
  
• My girls did not care for any of the stories or most activities as Daisy’s so I never went back to the activities in the VTK
  
  
• I know 5 year old girls don’t want to listen to deep discussions and read boring stories after sitting still in school all day. They need to move and like to craft..both which VTK never suggests in petal plan I’ve looked at.
  
  
• The petal stories are awful! My girls absolutely hate them.
  
  
• No. But it feels Classroom like and I would rather do it a bit more organically
  
  
• I don’t like the plans that say research something. GS is not school and shouldn’t have home work
  
  
• Think Like A is just a mess!
  
  
• Some, like the coding for Daisy’s series, are way to complicated for more than 1:1. I still appreciate the jumping off point though.
  
  
• The last program I tried to work from VTK was Cadette robotics basics. It was confusing and didn't hold their attention and it was a topic that interested the group. They said that they expected more from the class.
  
  
• Between Earth and Sky for Daisies seems useless and painfully boring.
  
  
• Who plans a paper mache activity with a group of k-1st graders? Good grief, the mess! And, most troops meet in a borrowed or rented space. How is a leader supposed to transport a wet, soggy “bird feeder” after that?
  
  
• No. They are pretty good. But all of the younger activities in every platform have too much drawing.
  
  
• Journeys are unrealistic...ie Movers...girls bike to school ...where is the safe? In what % of the country?
  
  
• Most of the activities there currently are the same as from the printed materials just more specific in some cases. I think GSUSA doesn’t think about the amount of legwork required for some activities to make them happen (lots of “guest speaker” type things for example)
  
  
• yes. the bath bombs. some of the games (brownies) we were left scratching our heads as to what the directions meant. I used it a lot more when we were daisies 5 years ago (the dialog was helpful then) but as I grew as a leader, VTK was less and less helpful.
  
  
• Fling flyer. Can you please give me instructions on how to make it properly? I get it, the girls are supposed to play around with the materials, but how can I guide them to an answer that ends in a plane if I'm not sure what they're supposed to do with the materials? (here is my Fling Flyer post)
  
  
• Specific TAP ideas per actual Journey. They’re all vague and basic - even across all levels. Useless.
  
  
• Yes, several times. Usually the financial literacy badges.
  
  
• All the Daisy Peddle stories
  
  
• I used the Daisy think like an engineer plans as written and my group of daisies and brownies enjoyed them. But it was really watching the plans on the Lakes and Pines council YouTube that really gave me a good picture of what we were aiming for.
  
  
• Used VTK plans for a Cadette journey. Girls thought it was a joke and we were doing brownie level activities. Better to have the badge info in front of them and let them plan the activities
  
  
• No. All the actual meeting activities I've ever tried have been successful. There are some activities I am not interested in trying at all, but I haven't had anything I've chosen flop.
  
  
• I think some of the new badge programs like Coding and Cybersecurity are complete flips and obviously not done by GSUSA or if they were they way underestimate the younger girls by assuming they can only draw pictures and provide little to no explanation for the older girls.
  
  
• Look at the geocaching one 😂
  
  
• Goldieblock stuff. The stuff for the engineering badges when they first came out.
  
  
• Yes, but can't think of details but the music with coding was a waste of time. 
  
  
• A lot of the activities require too many supplies or don't provide good examples when trying to foster discussions
  
  
• Some activities are flops because they don't fit a particular group of girls. I generally know my girls interests. Also if an activity doesn't work out well, we don't spend time on it.  Most of the plans in the vtk I recognize from badge books, council suggestions, leader books and older badges activities. I don't think any of it is or was really new. The new journeys are from partners in other kids programs like code.org and PBS etc.
  
  
• "Think Like A Programmer" series - where to start because this was so botched-up.  I ended up not using this at all and instead using "off the library shelf" basic computing skills text books and public access web pages.
  
  
• I don’t think the engineering plans are very good.  It doesn’t give much guidance or prep for the leader, just give the girls these things so they can “engineer” stuff.  What do I do if they can’t figure out how to make something?  World of Girls journey is really disorganized. I gave up after that 

My Comments:

I've never had a survey with so many responses.  This post has gotten long, so I'll finish talking about the survey in another post.

One person called my survey biased, and I guess in some ways it is.  And yes, I have realized there is a typo regarding the latest update.  However, I am a hobby blogger; this is not my job and I certainly do not have the personnel or budget that GSUSA had to implement VTK.

If you click on VTK on the categories below this post, you will pull up other posts I've written on VTK.  In short, I use it regularly as a resource but I do not use it for anything else.  I like being able to access it from my work computer or home computer, as I often plan meetings on my lunch hours.  I find the GGGS binders to be clunky to carry around.  I never use the scripts and can't imagine that many people do (a belief confirmed by this survey).  I often use their activities and like most other experienced leaders I have a pretty good eye for what will work and what will not, and I adapt from there.  

One big problem I see, and this is totally not confirmed by anyone in any position to have any inside knowledge, but I don't think either the Journeys or the Badges in the current program are being used as they were originally intended to be used.  When the Journeys first came out about twelve years ago, the publicity with them called them a new way to "do" Girl Scouts and stated that badges were being downplayed.  If you look at the manuals for the original Journeys and publicity such as these maps, I believe they show that the program creators intended for girls to spend a good bit of the year working on their Journey, with "side trips" for a badge or two, camping and cookies.  

Since troops would not earn many badges, I think the program creators saw them as opportunities to really explore a topic--hence the field trips, research and guest speakers that almost every badge calls for.  However, in reality, troops spend most of their meetings these days on badges and even at a rate of two meetings per badge, that's a lot of guest speakers, books or other research--even if you have girls who are old enough to all bring phones to a meeting.  

My real complaint about VTK is that GSUSA has had twelve years of people telling them that the Journey-centric program doesn't work. They have had twelve years of people complaining about the Daisy stories.  They have had twelve years of people finding out the bath beads recipe in the Junior Flowers badge doesn't work, and yet when they moved the program onto VTK they did little to fix the problems.  All the Daisy stories are still there.  The Journey plans are now for six meetings but people still don't find them to be user-friendly.  And the bath beads recipe, which ticked me off enough to come up with this survey, is STILL there.  

Just before I started my final revisions on this post, I saw this blog post, with which I highly agree.  I think the five basic requirements of today's badges are way too vague, and too many of the activities in the badge packets just don't appeal to people. 

In a few days, I'll have a post on the rest of the survey.