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unrelated to the main points of the text. After this study, the youngest children for
which SERT or iSTART has been used is grade 8 (e.g., McNamara, O'Reilly, Best,
& Ozuru, 2006).
SERT: Group Training
SERT one-on-one provided encouraging results; yet it required extensive one-on-
one tutoring with a human expert. This time and personnel intensive training had
little hope of scaling up. Thus, the next iteration of SERT was revised such that it
could be delivered in a classroom setting to groups of students. The group SERT
training is similar to the one-on-one SERT tutoring, with the primary differences
being the delivery/interaction method, pedagogical ordering of training components,
and the use of collaborative learning sessions.
Group SERT Introduction
The group version of SERT incorporates the same lecture style introduction.
However, the introduction section was adapted into a classroom-style lecture that
could accommodate up to 20-30 students at a time. This introduction phase presents
information and examples for the same set of six reading strategies and follows a
similar script as was followed in SERT one-on-one. The examples are projected on
a screen to the group, and each individual is provided with a handout containing the
examples. This approach allows for discussion of the material as a group, though in
fact, there are generally few questions and little discussion at this stage of training.
Group SERT Demonstration
The training components in group SERT were reconceptualized to more accurately
implement modeling, scaffolding, fading and to implement an additional pedagogi-
cal principle of collaborative learning (McNamara, 2000b). In one-on-one SERT,
students self-explain a text and then observe another student explain the same
text. By contrast, in group SERT, the demonstration of the strategies in the video
is presented before students attempt to apply the strategies to texts. As such, the
demonstration section is used to scaffold the students as they advance their under-
standing from simple strategy descriptions to observing how they can apply these
strategies in real contexts. During the demonstration phase of group training, stu-
dents watch one of the videos used in one-on-one SERT. The video is paused at
six specified points and the students are asked to write down the strategies being
used by the student in the video (students are also provided with a transcript of the
video). After the video is completed, all students engage in a group discussion of
the strategies being used by the student in the video.
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