The authors: Julie Tollefson, Managing Editor, KU-Center for Research on Learning, and Jerri Neduchal, SIM Trainer, Orlando, Florida. This article originally appeared in the May 2000 issue of Stratenotes, a newsletter for SIM Professional Developers.
During the 1999 International SIM Trainers' Conference, longtime SIM Trainer Jerri Neduchal of Orlando, Florida, shared her knowledge and experience with newer SIM Trainers. Jerri packed her "Process of Presenting Learning Strategies" session full of hints, tips, and activities that provided great ideas for all trainers, regardless of experience level. The session covered every aspect of training, from developing a training outline to options for varying presentation modes to tips for tailoring a training session to fit a time limit. This is the second of two articles summarizing Jerri's presentation. The first article, which appeared in Stratenotes Volume 8, No. 3 (November/December 1999), focused on PROCESS, a mnemonic Jerri developed for the session. This article will take a close look at how to structure training sessions, using the Test-Taking Strategy as an example.
"My objective is to share with you as much as I can about the process of presenting and provide as much assistance as you need," Jerri said as she introduced the session. She ran the session much like she would a training session, pausing periodically to describe the thinking behind the activities she shared. Some activities, such as the warm up, she conducted in their entirety; others, she simply described in detail before moving on to the next section of the training.
Every professional development session should always include a warm-up activity, Jerri said. The time spent on this activity should be directly related to the number of hours in which participants will be taking part in professional development. If your session is after school, after participants have worked all day, Jerri advised spending no more than 10 minutes on the warm-up activity. If the group will be together all day long, 15 minutes will be appropriate. Regardless of the time you have, always do a warm up.
For the session warm-up activity, Jerri instructed participants to pair up and share three things with each other:
After the pairs had time to talk together for a few minutes, they introduced each other to the bigger group.
Another warm-up idea Jerri shared with the group involved using famous pairs (Mickey and Minnie, Bill and Hillary, Frick and Frack). Write each name on a separate index card and pass them out to people as they come in the room. When it's time for the activity, have the participants seek out the other half of their famous pairs (Bill seeks Hillary, Frick looks for Frack, etc.) and introduce themselves, first to each other and then to the group.
Jerri and her colleagues are a terrific source of ideas for warm ups and other activities. They frequently present sessions full of ideas for activities, such as last year's "Red Hot & New," at SIM conferences. Look for more ideas during this year's international conference when Jerri and Sheri Fiskum present "Pump It Up."
As you are preparing to present your professional development session, review the transparencies provided in the Test-Taking Strategy Trainer's Guide. Select only the most important transparencies to use during the session and carefully plan your transparency sequence to best support your presentation goals. You want the presentation to be meaningful, Jerri said, not just an "exercise in flipping."
Be prepared during your session for special circumstances to alter your course slightly. The following are two common circumstances that you might encounter:
Jerri recommends the following sequence for the strategy overview portion of the session:
At this point in the presentation, Jerri pauses until the manuals have been distributed.
During this part of the conference session, Jerri shared many ideas for presenting the Stages of Acquisition and Generalization. She did not provide details for each stage at this time. However, she did make a training outline available to participants.
During this portion of the professional development session, administer the Test-Taking Strategy pretest to participants. Then, tell them to set it aside to be graded later. Jerri said she and her colleagues have found that the sessions are much more effective if the group studies the scoring guidelines before grading the pretest.
Direct participants to look at the manual. Talk about Stage 1 as it is presented in the manual. Review the layout of the first page of Stage 1 instructions. Point out that the first page lists goals, all of the materials a teacher needs during this stage of instruction, how to prepare, and how much time to allow. This pattern repeats throughout the manual for each stage of instruction.
Describe is a very thorough, long stage to present, Jerri said. It is the teaching stage, and every participant needs to understand it before leaving the session. If the only thing a participant takes away from the whole day is an understanding of this stage, that's fine, she said. As a trainer, you will need to spend much more time on the Describe stage than on any other, because teachers must be comfortable with the information in this stage. You will not be able to spend the same amount of time on every stage, Jerri said.
During the Describe Stage, indeed during the entire session, Jerri integrates lots of participant involvement.
"Why would you the trainer stand up and present the entire Describe Stage when you already know it and your goal is to get teachers comfortable with it?" she asks.
So at the very beginning of the discussion of the first step of the Test-Taking Strategy, Jerri uses an activity to introduce the first substrategy, PASS. Jerri repeats the Test-Taking Strategy Activity to introduce the second substrategy, RUN.
At this point, participants have already done the first two steps, Jerri said, so now you do the next step (Step 3: Read, Remember, Reduce). Direct participants to the page in the manual, then talk about it. Explain the two kinds of reduction: matching and multiple choice. Distinguish between matching, in which you mark out the letters of answers you know to be correct as you write them in the blank, and multiple choice, in which you mark out answers you know to be wrong. As the trainer, you also talk about the next two steps of PIRATES, then for Step 6: Estimate, return to the activity. By this point, participants know what you are doing and they are ready for you, Jerri said. Briefly explain the ACE substrategy as a guessing technique and explain how to do it. Then let participants complete the activity in their groups as before.
While they are studying and talking in their groups, display the Absolute Words and Non-Absolute Words transparency. You do not have to talk about this transparency, Jerri said.
Hint: Jerri and her colleagues use "A-ONE," the first letters of the absolute words, to help students remember them.
In the Model Stage of Test-Taking Strategy workshops, Jerri advises beginning by modeling how to use the strategy for a couple of sections of a test, but then involve participants. After the first few sections, they won't be listening, she said.
Controlled practice is a very good segment to start after lunch, Jerri said, because it forces participants to really concentrate and gets them involved in the session again.
Begin training in this stage by reviewing the evaluation guidelines: "Get out the books and the highlighters," Jerri said.
Have participants read the section of the manual that explains what scoring means.
"It's very clear in the book," Jerri said, "but you have to give them time to read it."
After they have looked at the evaluation guidelines, distribute copies of Scott Strong's test from the training packet and the corresponding completed example score sheet. Give participants time to go over these items with a partner. (Always have participants work with a partner during this segment.)
During this portion of the session, participants must practice scoring. "That drives them crazy," Jerri said. "But if you don't practice scoring, they have no way of assessing students when they leave."
Have participants grade their own pretests. Be prepared for a lot of excitement in the room, Jerri said, because they will know by now that they have missed the first 10 or 12 items required by the Test-Taking Strategy. Jerri reminded conference participants that the key to grading the pretest is in the back of the book, but she does not tell that to teacher groups while they are working on this exercise.
After participants have graded their pretests, uncover the score sheet transparency a little at a time, rather than revealing the whole sheet at once. Explain each piece as you uncover it. The reason for this piece-by-piece approach is that the score sheet as a whole is too visually distracting for participants. They won't be able to grasp what you are trying to convey to them.
One issue that comes up frequently during Test-Taking Strategy professional development sessions is how to adapt the strategy to fit standardized testing situations. When participants ask whether students can use this strategy for standardized tests, Jerri advises that you be honest in your answer: "It can be very helpful in taking tests, as long as the strategy is taught the correct way."
In standardized testing situations, Jerri said, rules and regulations likely will prevent students from performing all of the PIRATES steps. As a result, SIM Trainers and teachers need to help students look at the strategy and determine what steps they can use.
Caution: Before attempting to help students modify the strategy in this way, teachers must master all of the steps of the Test-Taking Strategy first. Students, too, must learn PIRATES to mastery first.
"You can't modify something you don't know," Jerri said. "What we're heading for here is automatic levels. You would not ever tell them these modifications in the process of teaching the initial strategy."
Jerri offered the following example of modifications that may need to be made by students using the Test-Taking Strategy for standardized tests.
In most standardized testing, students are not allowed to turn back to completed sections (the T step). Often, students aren't allowed to write on the test page. However, they can bring a piece of notepaper on which they can write PIRATES. They can still use the P step, the PASS substrategy, and the I step.
"Even if they can't underline when they inspect the instructions, they can still look for the what and the where," Jerri said.
Students still can use the R and A steps, but the A step will have to be performed page by page. So after students have finished questions on one page, they have to look back and try to answer any they have skipped at that point. They will not be able to perform the T step, and they will not be able to do the S step unless they do it page by page.
Even though under this scenario students are not able to perform all PIRATES steps, they will be able to perform four more steps than they could have without the strategy.
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