Verb-Based Agendas

Remember: We are here to practice the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in this course.

The purpose of each agenda is to create the ideal environment for this practice to occur & to drive the progress of the group in this direction.

See creating an agenda for more on how and why we plan to use Agendas to accomplish these goals.

In the classroom, all of the information is coming into you from the Professor, through lecture, the textbook, other readings, etc. This information is all input. _On Test Day though, you will be the one giving all of the information and you will be graded on your ability to produce output._ As such, if you imagine the entire study cycle as a gradual transition from one extreme to the other, you can then see how different types of questions and activities are useful for different stages within the study cycle. The Key Steps in the study cycle are: Preview, Attend class, Review, Create, Self-Test, Test Day.

In PLUS, we will focus on using Verb Based Agendas.

Some key features that make Verb-Based Agendas useful are that they:

Incorporate a variety of both Methods & Course Topics (SEE .... effective questioning? things to try? etc)
Rely on clear "verb phrases" at the beginning of each activity for Agenda to be easily written on board
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When designing agendas it can also be helpful to consider timing, especially since Time Management is one of the things we focus on during Preceptor observations. Be clear though that any timing suggestions are always guidelines to help pace the group and it is totally okay if they actually take longer/shorter than expected. It could be really helpful for SPs to get feedback from their Preceptors about how accurate those timing expectations are but there are a lot of other things to talk about too so it would just depend on each group of preceptors.

In crafting your VBA, we are going to imagine an algorithm for success. What skills and materials do you need to carry out your wonderful plan?

After setting up the backbone for each agenda, you are then ready to write the study group activities. Planning for each study group to last about an hour and a half, you want to include enough items to fill up the time but also leave some buffer room for extra questions, etc. Every class may be a little different, depending on how involved the types of activities need to be but you will probably find that each group can cover an average of 3-5 activities per group.

For each activity, try to include any combination of the following:

- Learning Objective: What lecture topics you need to study. Think about identifying what you want attendees to leave the study group being able to demonstrate; here are a number of suggestions on how to write learning objectives.
- Number of Students: individually, pairs, small groups, whole group, etc
- Facilitation Method:
- Approximate time:
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Remember