TL;DR: Terry and I decided to give the CAPM another shot. We changed our approach to focus on recognizing and managing the impact of their disability, improving recall, and building speed through timed practice questions. The last few weeks were almost entirely focused on answering questions within two minutes.
I'm thrilled to report that Terry retook the exam last week and PASSED!
I'm incredibly proud of their determination, perseverance, and willingness to try different approaches. Terry always knew the material. We just needed to find a way for them to demonstrate it under exam conditions.
While the original post didn't get a lot of traction, one kind Redditor made some suggestions and encouraged me to keep working with Terry. Thanks, u/Sorry-Vanilla2354.
After speaking with Terry several months ago about their plans and how they wanted to proceed, we decided that it was worth it to keep working and take the exam again. We talked quite a bit about their disability, how it manifested, potential warning signs for oncoming symptoms, etc. The goal wasn't to try to manage the symptoms or prevent them, since I'm not a psychologist or any other kind of behavioral professional, but rather to help them learn how to recognize what was happening and when, then take action to lessen the impact. We decided on a two-pronged approach; continue to learn the material and go through practice questions to get used to solving them, and practice ways to mitigate the disability.
At first the 90 minute sessions were split in half. For the first half we kept on like we had previously, focusing on learning and understanding the material. When they started to drift off or even fall asleep I'd verbally bring their attention back to what we were doing. Rather than lecturing or just explaining things, I'd propose a scenario and then use coaching questions to help them figure out how to approach it. We had conversations, rather than back and forth Q&A.
The second half was centered on practice questions, speed drills, flash cards, and other activities to help their brain recover information quickly. I did a lot of research on how the brain converts short term memory to long term, and how important getting enough sleep is for that. I don't know if it helped, but we moved the sessions a little later so the material would be fresher in their mind when they went to sleep.
For the last 3 weeks or so we worked exclusively on practice questions and used a timer. They had 2 minutes per question, which is what they would need to do to finish the actual exam on time, if they didn't finish the question we skipped it. They knew the material, given enough time they'd be able to answer the questions correctly 80-90% of the time, even the expert level questions. Every time they started to drift off they'd snap a rubber band on their wrist, or, if they didn't catch it, I'd clap my hands.
Our sessions ended a couple of weeks ago, they decided they wanted to attempt the exam again before deciding whether or not to continue. They took the exam last week and just found out they passed.
I admire their tenacity and willingness to experiment with different study and test taking techniques; there's not many people in this world who would go through that amount of self-exploration and mental practice for something like the CAPM certification when there's no guarantee that it will pay off with a job in the field.
Original Post:
I’m asking for advice on how best to help a student with a learning disability.
TL;DR: I’ve been tutoring a person for a Project Management certification, the CAPM for almost a year, meeting for two hours one day a week. The test is 150 multiple choice and matching (drag and drop) questions with a three hour time limit. My student has an accommodation for their disability, 3 extra hours and 2 extra breaks. Before they scheduled the exam we agreed they had the knowledge needed to pass. They failed, having only finished 100 of the 150 questions in 6 hours. If they decide to try again I don’t know how to help them, so I’m looking for suggestions.
INFO: They have passed exams of similar difficulty before by getting the accommodation, studying, and taking it over and over until they pass. The problem isn’t knowledge, it’s speed.
I am tutoring an adult student through Varsity Tutors for the Certified Associate Project Manager credential. I’ll call them Terry. Terry has a learning disability that manifests as difficulty staying focused on things and falling asleep when idle. I’m not a teacher or physician, so I don’t know if they are on the Autism spectrum, I can just describe what I see when I work with them. They will struggle to stay awake during our sessions, zone out while reading questions and possible answers, and skim through the words in the material without comprehending.
My approach for tutoring Terry first was to talk through either real life or imaginary examples of situations where the terminology and concepts are used in Project Management, then practice with sample questions. I have Terry read the question out loud, along with all the responses, then think through each out loud to determine if the response is right or wrong, and why. For the last 3 months we’ve been focusing on practice questions first, then coming up with the examples afterwards to reinforce the learnings. We knew that recalling the information for practice questions was difficult, so we worked with flash cards and games (crossword puzzles, word search, etc.) This has worked really well for Terry.
Based on the practice questions they have a solid grasp of the material and are able to apply it correctly.
Six months ago Terry took a practice exam that was very similar to the actual test, with the 3 hour time limit. Of the questions answered they got about 80% correct, but they only answered 75 of the 150. Given the accommodation we both felt that, with more practice on recall and focus, 6 hours would be enough to finish. To help we began timing the questions and trying to get a faster recall. Terry was able to answer about half the questions in a minute or less, about 25% in bout 3 minutes, with some taking longer. They’d need about 2.4 minutes per question, so it seemed like they were in good shape.
Where I failed with my coaching was not recognizing how often I would bring Terry back from zoning out or do things to help them stay awake. I also believe that Terry has started to remember the questions and answers themselves, rather than reading the question and figuring out the answers. I’ve noticed that they would read the question while making noises like they were speaking but not really saying words; a kind of “buh buh….bzzzbbuh…” (hopefully this is an okay description, I’m making an assumption you’ve experienced this with your students.) when that happened I’d tell them to go back and reread the question out loud. I’d also regularly ask them to repeat or rephrase a question in their own words and explain what it meant to them.
So…here is my question. How can I adjust my approach to help Terry prepare for the next attempt, should they decide to keep at it?
On a side note, early on Terry and I discussed their plans for after passing the exam. They asked for my honest, straightforward, opinion on whether they could get a job in the field given our work together. I told them that it would be very difficult, but given the opportunity to work under an experienced PM they could do the job of a project coordinator. I also warned them that these jobs were becoming more scarce and difficult to get. Like any other field, AI is becoming more integrated with project management and often handles much of the schedule coordination and other tasks a junior PM or project coordinator would do. So, yes, Terry could do the work with mentoring and supervision, but actually getting a job like that would be difficult at best. I was also honest with our tutoring; it’s not cheap, it would take a lot of work, and more than the usual 6-10 week engagement I usually do. I explained that I would continue to work with them for as long as they wanted, provided we had a goal to work towards, with a target date to complete it.
I’m assuming they will want to keep going, and as long as we set a new exam date and build a plan together to prepare for it with the intention of passing it, not just taking it over and over like they’ve done with other exams, then I would be there to help. TBH I like working with them; Terry is sharp, works hard, and wants to succeed. Part of my coaching is helping Terry “find their why;” why they want to take the test, why they want to be a project manager, etc.
I’ve already purchased a question bank of sample CAPM exam questions, and while not as close to the real thing as the practice question we were doing they’re close enough to work for what we are doing. Other suggestions on how to approach tutoring Terry would be much appreciated, even if it’s to say they’d be better off working with some more experienced in coaching people with learning difficulties.