3rd Remote Girl Scout Troop Session

(read all the posts on the remote Girl Scout Troop series here)

Yesterday we had our 14th session of our Junior Troop, our 3rd since we’ve been “paused” here in NYC held completely online, with all participants and leaders at home. I’ve been documenting the experience here on my old blog, in part to share what’s been working for me but, at the same time, to show where we are struggling – both with the digital tools and with maintaining engagement while many of us are afraid for our lives and those of our friends and families.

The first two remote sessions were mostly about transitioning us from in-person to remote, both technologically and socially. Technically, how do we make sure all the girls can see and hear, be seen and be heard; this was our first session where all 15 of our girls were able to join. Socially, what did we need to cover about WHY we needed to meet in person, about how they were dealing with the crisis and being stuck at home, and what experiences could we design to support them to maintain their social connections with one another.

So, as our third session, I felt like we still need to figure a lot about, but technically it went smoothly while socially the psychological weight of social distancing is posing more of a challenge than the limitations of digital tools. Nonetheless, we had enough work behind us to start taking on some programming. And with that, we dove in to start working on our Bronze Award.

But first… we had another session between this one and our 2nd remote session last week – an open session last Thursday. The girls had asked us to move from meeting twice a month to meeting EIGHT times a month. We don’t have enough adult support to do that so we added an open Zoom session, supervised by an adult, but they are 100% in charge. So last week was their first open session – they spent their 90 minutes playing Kahoots with each other – about fun topics like Harry Potter fandom and animals – but I watched in amazement as they also did one they found on COVID-19 (they knew a lot, but I suspect learned much much more). One girl tried to get them to switch from playing to work on badges or their Bronze Award, but the group just needed to play together.

So now for our 3rd remote session:

Opening / Zoom

I logged in 10 minutes early, and girls started to log in. I let them collaborate on the Zoom draw screen, and suggested they make welcome messages for the other girls arriving. I waited 10 minutes from the official start time, making sure everyone’s audio was working (it was), and kept the alert bell on so I could always hear when someone entered. When I hear that alert, I checked to see who it was – both to welcome them by voice, and to ensure I knew everyone in the room. If someone’s screen name was unclear – a phone number, a device “iPad” – I would change it to the girl’s name, to help others know who they were and for us to aid in the facilitation.

Kaper Chart

Going to the Google Doc for our Kaper Chart is still working. But again, I found the girls quite reluctant to sign-up for either the opening or the closing tradition. I suggested they try doing it pairs, as it might be feeling awkward for them to do it while the others are muted. They were still reluctant to sign-up, so I called on girls. A number passed (unusual for them) and eventually I picked two girls to do BOTH together. That worked, at least the sign-up part, for now.

Promise and Law

In the past I was sharing my screen, going to Google Images, and pulling up a Promise and Law for all to see. This time I planned ahead, and downloaded it this time, and just pulled up the file when needed. So technically, all set. The experience however was still the worst. The girls who agreed to do it on the Kaper Chart needed me to count them down, to get them started, and then once all the others joined in we turned once again into the Zombie chorus. That’s it – I’m done with that. It’s awful for everyone. Later on I muted everyone else, for the Friendship song, and might keep doing that, but for Promise and Law next time I will try assigning each girl to a line, and they can “pass the mic” around.

Thin Mint Bear Report / Birthday check-in / Kahoot Ice-breaker

First, Thin Mint – our teddy bear passed from girl to girl. Last time it was virtually passed. Jordan, as you’ll see below, choose cooking activities (related to Girl Scouts) to do with her virtual bear (its image on her phone) And since she couldn’t write in the shared notebook, she wrote on her own sheets of paper and then her mom scanned the pages and shared them in a new channel on our Slack, #tthinmintsbear. (We’re doing all we can to figure this out together).

We then asked if anyone had a birthday. One girl did, the day before. We knew it was coming some time this month. That’s hard – normally you ask someone what they did. I kinda did that. But we all know the general shape of the answer – it was full of disappointment. How could it not? So we tried to steer it towards the other girls writing her a birthday message in the Zoom white board, and singing her happy birthday (whoops! Return of the zombie choir! When will I learn…)

Then, the girl who signed up for games prepared a Kahoot for us. Not one she made but one she found. It was all questions about spring, which was a lovely tone to set. One girl was new to these remote sessions, but the others had no problem and it ran smoothly – and with the game girl hosting the Kahoot and sharing her own screen through Zoom, I could just sit back and watch. They laughed, and chatted, and the Kahoot seemed to have its intended affect, preparing them to transition to working together on something with a higher cognitive load.

Importance of GS Law and Promise

As an informal educator, I tend to be on the fast-moving side. I want to get the girls some content, give them a great experience, then move on, move move move, to get to the final steps. But I’ve had to caution myself that the engagement level will be low – due less to the remote learning than to their stress-reduced cognitive load – and I would need to take things slower, introduce some redundancies, repeat the same thing more than once in different ways (see what I did there?).

So BEFORE we formally started talking about the Bronze Award, and its requirements, we did this exercise to warm them up, remind them about what it actually MEANS to be a Girl Scout, and to shift their attention from themselves to society.

I showed on my screen a new Padlet I made, introduced how it was structured and what I wanted them to do with it, and then posted the link in the chat.

On the left column I posted a reminder the GS Law and Promise. There are then three columns to its right: one about themselves, one about their family, and one about their community. I asked them to pick just one item from the law and promise and then apply it to the theme of the column (and then name themselves in it so I would know who wrote it).

Some of course wrote faster than others. I had one more step – to ask them to rate them. I thought this would help us pick the best ones for us to focus on. But I realized I didn’t want any girls to get low ratings. So I decided to only ask them to give ratings of 3, 4, or 5 stars. I also wrote the instructions out, and asked girls who were done first to chat with me 1:1 in Zoom. I pasted the instructions in there – this let girls still writing to not feel like they were behind, and let the girl who were done have something to do and not get bored (something well suited to an online environment – personalized learning!).

It worked REALLY well. They were focused, on point, and productive. And also creative. I then called on girls to read a few highlights from each column, reminded the note-takeer to take some notes, and segued from the last column to talk about the Bronze Award, and that these are all ideas they might draw from. Below you can see some examples. If you want to read all of their responses, please go here and scroll down for each column.

Bronze Award

I brought up the girl-facing PDF in the shared Zoom screen about the Bronze Award and asked a girl to read the introduction (my daughter, with whom I had read it with the day before). I then went through the 7 steps. My goal for today’s session was to do at least the first 2 steps, but maybe get through the third. We only completed two, but I felt that was just fine, and now know what we’re starting with next week.

It’s fun to remind them that they already completed the first step! I helped them remember what they did last fall – a lifetime ago – completing the Think Like an Engineer Journey, and getting 1/3 through the aMuse Journey (cancelled, perhaps forever, due to the pandemic). They recalled the challenges they took on – designing structures to survive a disaster (an earthquake, a tornado… no pandemics), and the video they made as a Take Action project (about protecting endangered animals), and the lack of connection between the two.

They already know each other. Most are friends outside the troop, and in classes together. So I could have blown past this one – hey, you already finished this one – but I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity during this time of social distancing to get them to think about each other, to consider what they bring to the group and what they can do for each other. I originally thought I’d have them share something about themselves, then appreciate each other. But when I took them to the Padlet I had created in advance, each with their own name in its own box, I realized the boxes were not collaborative. But they could make their own. So as they made their own I deleted my empty shells. And for the same reason, they couldn’t post on each others (doh! I could have turned on comments! Just realized. Lesson learned). But we didn’t have time for that anyway, so once all were done I went around the page, shared what they wrote, and reminded them to remember this about each other as they designed their project and worked together as a team.

Clean-up/ Closing

It was kind of a joke, but I asked the girl on the kaper chart to lead clean up, to ask us to make sure the spaces around us are clean. And she did.

I can’t write any more about zombie choirs. I turned off all but the two girls and myself, and remembered at the last minute to cross our hands for the Friendship song, and hold them in close to the camera so we looked like we were holding hands. I felt like the girls leaned into that, perhaps more than the silent singing along at home. But hard to say. I’ll think we’ll try this again this way next week.

Then to conclude I asked the Kaper chart DJ to pick the final dance song. I played my Spotify account and she suggested – please help me! – Baby Shark. There we are below doing all the moves.

Together, we’re figuring it out, making it work, and keeping it going.