Job Aid

Design Documentation
Ben Nesbit

Overview

This job aid will coincide with lectures to Korean middle school students studying
for the speaking section of the iBT TOEFL test at a private, after-school academy
called Topia. The job aid will be handed out while lecturing on Question 1 of the
iBT TOEFL Speaking test. This three page document will be made available for
viewing and printing online through the online tool, Scribd. This job aid is the
first of six job aids that will be produced to coincide with all six questions of the
speaking section.

The original job aid that I am revising is in serious need of a makeover for a few
reasons. To begin with it is visually unappealing. The original is an
oversimplified chart that has a lot of text but lacks graphics of any kind. However,
the information presented in the original, is critical to students’ success on this
section of the test. The original was designed as an informational job aid, not as
an instructional one. So, one of my goals was to create a job aid that was
instructional in nature. Lastly, perhaps because the TOEFL test was designed for
high school and university students from all over the world, the original was not
designed with Korean middle school students in mind. Thus the overall design
wasn’t able to command attention from the varying personality types and
learning styles of my audience and an informational chart is simply not enough to
keep most of my students interested.

Audience

The two groups of students I have in mind for this job aid are my first and second
year Korean middle school students. These students attend what’s called a
hagwon, and see me once a week for a class titled, TOEFL Speaking. The
students study in groups of about ten. They are typically exhausted by the time I
get them because they’ve studied all day and are mostly ready to just go home.
This can sometimes make them hard to reach. Many of the students enjoy
coming to hagwon to socialize; thus, they are distracted easily and more so if the
material being presented to them is boring. This makes them good candidates for
a revamping of an outdated and boring, but important job aid.

Learning Objectives

The learning objectives for this job aid are as follows:

 Upon reviewing this job aid students will be able to differentiate between
each question in the speaking section.
  Students will be able to correctly sequence the thinking process needed to
complete this question successfully.
 Students will remember the amount of time given for each part of the
question.

Essentially students will understand what question one is asking, will be exposed
to a sample question, and will be provide students with strategies to successfully
answer question one of the test.

Problem
The problem that most students have in preparing for the TOEFL speaking is that
they focus solely on improving their English speaking ability and don't pay
attention to any test-taking strategies that are invaluable to their success in
answering the questions. This leaves them feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.
They may also be wondering, "How am I supposed to learn to speak English just
two weeks before my test?" It is a foolish goal for students to simply want to
improve their English speaking ability as a goal for studying for the TOEFL test.
As opposed to making huge gains in overall English ability, this job aid is
designed to help students attack the TOEFL test using strategies that they can use
to prepare for and answer question one.

Evidence
The instructional content that will be included in this presentation is essentially
how to successfully approach and answer question one on the iBT TOEFL
speaking section. Please see appendix A6 for more information.

Anecdotes

At this point, students have been introduced to the fictional character, Jin-Su,
who was used in a previous presentation. Thus students are comfortable seeing
him as their online, printable tutor. While the plot in the previous Jin-su
presentation was a comedy, the story line in this piece of work is what Abela calls
“overcoming the monster,” where the monster is Question one and Jin-su serves
as the knight in shining armor (Abela, p. 70). Jin-su’s call to duty requires him to
do battle with question one. Of course he is only the tutor so he is essentially only
instructing the students on how to beat this monster. Still the end of this comic
strip shows Jin-su literally breaking down the question with a powerful kick that
snaps the question in half.

Sequencing
Because Jin-su was previously introduced, the students already know him.
Instead of introducing Jin-su, the question itself is introduced instead. The first
few panels of comics connect with the audience emotionally. These strips are
simple questions asking if students feel weighed down by the burden of studying
for question one. The next set of strips, show Jin-su coming to the rescue. Then
the actual tutorial begins and Jin-su takes the audience on a virtual tour of how to
break down and answer question one of the TOEFL speaking section (Abela,
2008, p. 77). This tutorial moves from explaining the question -and the types of
information that may be asked for on the question, to giving a sample question
and watching as Jin-su breaks it down, to finally watching as Jin-su answers it.
The first complication of the presentation is designed to grab the audience's
attention (Abela, 2008, p. 80). The next sequence is again set up using the
S.Co.R.E Method (Abela, 2008, p. 75) and can be seen below.

 Complication: Question one of the TOEFL speaking section is burdensome

and students struggle with it.
 Resolution: Jin-Su serves as a hero that instructs us on how to go about
answering this type of question.
 Example: Jin-Su is given a sample question and must answer it.

Graphics

All of the graphics used for this presentation were developed from the online
program, Pixton. This is an effective method of delivery because this
presentation will be completed using a number of colorful, vibrant, and attention
grabbing comic strips. This presentation is a remake of a previous slide show
presentation that over-utilized text and was void of graphics. It has been found,
however that graphics improve audience recall, persuasion and positive attitudes
toward the material being shown. (Abela, 2008, p. 95). Thus, both graphics -in
the form of comic characters created using the tool, Pixton will play a big role in
this presentation.

Some of the design decisions regarding use of graphics include:

 Within each instructional comic strip, I tried to incorporate emotion in

order to draw reader interest. By changing the body position and facial
expressions of Jin-su, students reading this will be able to connect on a
human level (McCloud, 2006, p. 4).
 Using comic-style graphics created in Pixton. The tool itself allows for a
great deal of flexibility in creating character expression, posture, and
emotion. These graphics provide a great deal of relevance for the
audience since they allow students to relate to a Korean middle school
character throughout the presentation. As is the case in using any
graphics, relevance is key here. Any type of graphic that is not deemed
relevant should be discarded since it actually serves as clutter (Abela,
2008, p. 98).
Text and Color

Design decisions as they pertain to using text color include:

 So as to make sure the purpose for reading is clear, choosing the correct
words is essential (McCloud, 2006, p. 30). This concept drove the story
from start to finish. The words “breaking down” clarify what the main
objective of the comic is, which is to take apart the steps to success when
answering question one. These words also served to drive the story in a
playful way as seen at the end where Jin-su quite literally breaks down
these words with a kick.

 It is important to stay consistent with color choices throughout a

presentation (Duarte, 2008, p. 115). This was done by choosing only two
font choices and staying with them throughout the job aid. Additionally,
only one background color was used throughout, a soothing blue tone that
is now a theme in any comic strip I create with Jin-su. Additionally, when
a presentation stays consistent throughout, it can be effective to use an
inconsistency to make it stand out (Duarte, 2008, p. 115). This was done
once at the beginning and once at the end using an enlarged graphics text
that was created in Supalogo. The text was used as the title of the story
and a gradient of yellow and red helped to break up the very comforting
blue background tone.

 Keeping text to a minimum. Keeping in mind the three second rule

(Duarte, 2008, p. 140), one of the goals of this presentation is to have
students be able to process any message within three seconds of seeing it.

 Keeping fonts playful and friendly, (Duarte, 2008, p. 142,143) the fonts
used in this presentation are a combination of comic font from Pixton and
from the program, Supalogo, which allows users to create text into
graphics offering a variety of user controls. The Pixton, comic style font is
set as the default and serves to keep the text as spoken language-perfect
for an instructional presentation in a comic book style. Note that all of the
Pixton font is used inside of call out boxes and as such is indistinguishably
read as spoken text (Abela, 2008,p. 127).

 Paying attention to the relationships between text and pictures. Because

this presentation design includes laying text on top of graphics, it is
important to make sure that any graphic content is set up in a way that it
draws the observer's eye into the text content (Duarte, 2008, p. 96).

Layout

The overall layout of the job aid was created as a comic strip that incorporates a
total of 26 panels. The main focus of the layout was to make sure the graphics are
all relevant and meaningful. (Abela, 2008, p. 112, 113).

Design decisions as they pertain to the instructional message being created

concisely and effectively within the slides:

 Portraying subjects on the right edge of a panel can make them perceived
as weak. (Duarte, 2008, p. 105). Jin-su got weighed down by Question
one literally in one of the opening slides, demonstrating the effect of this
principal.
 Portraying subjects in the middle of a frame suggest a lot of freedom
(Duarte, 2008, p. 105). I used this when creating a slide of Jin-su openly
challenging the idea that there are only 15 seconds allotted to prepare a
speaking response.
 The use of moment to moment transitions was used between slides to help
create emotion and importance (McCloud, 2006, p. 16). One particular
scene shows a close up of Jin-su, verifying that indeed students only get
15 seconds to prepare for their response to the question. The close up
helps to emphasize how important this is for students to understand and
it simulates what a teacher may do in a classroom if he were to walk up to
a student, pause and then make an important point.
 There was also use of action to action transitions to move the plot along in
a timely manner (McCloud, 2006, p. 16). One example of this is when Jin-
Su is reviewing main points of what was covered during instruction. He is
first holding up one finger and in the next panel he’s holding up two, the
next three and so on.
 Only a small number of angle changes were made so as to minimize
distractions for the reader (McCloud, 2006, p. 21). That said, a few close-
up shots on Jin-su were used to emphasize important point he was
making.
 create at least one panel that prompts students to reflect on information
that was presented (Abela, 2008, p. 115). As mentioned above, there was a
review section of this job aid and it came in the form of four panels in a
row.
 Most text will be included in call out boxes coming from the main
character Jin-Su (Abela, 2008, p. 127).
 It is important to choose a background that helps reflect your company’s
brand (Duarte, 2008, p. 116). My company (me) is reflected by using a
blue background that is extremely non-threatening and also allows for a
variety of other colors to be used in combination with it.

Measurement

Measuring the degree at which students learned from a comic strip like
this should be quite straightforward. The students will either take the
advice given and change their behaviors, or they won’t. And it is important
to assess student behaviors (Abela, 2006, p. 142-143). The best way I know
 for measuring the change in behaviors of my students speaking is to have
students record themselves answering sample TOEFL iBT questions and
then evaluate the student responses using the official TOEFL iBT rubric.
While is not a new technique for me to assess their learning this way, it is
by far the most effective that I’ve used. In addition to this formal method
of assessment, I will also be periodically speaking with each student to ask
some questions and make sure they are using the techniques discusses in
the job aid.

Peer Review Results

The guiding questions that were posed to garner review from my peers were as
follows:
 Do my pictures work with my ideas? I tried to use pictures that help
explain what I was saying.
 Being that I have six questions listed one after the other, I felt like my
sequencing was pretty simple. I set up the text surrounding my main
character in order from right to left and then it moves down. And
actually, the order in which the text comes out doesn't really matter so
much since the information being given is all related to question one
(its own page). Question two will be the same and so on. Is this clear?
 I was considering using a trail similar to the one used in the appendix
about aging. But I felt like this was a more clear way to present my
information. Thoughts on changing to a trail/map sequence?
 Are the colors I chose okay?
 I chose to do a combination of rich content display and comic style.
Does this work?
The peer review drastically changed the outcome of this project for me.
Originally, I was hoping to create a rich content display that also included my
main comic character, Jin-su. And, while I worked tirelessly to gather pictures
that I felt represented what I wanted to say, and to create graphics using
Supaloga and Pixton, ultimately, I ended up trashing nearly everything I started.
The quality of what I originally produced was not up to par with what I was
hoping for and as such, I went back to the drawing board quite literally, using
Pixton to assist me.

Two comments in particular that really made me want to go with just the comic
panels rather than a combination of dense content display and comics read as
follows:
 “I’m not sure that using both would work here. I think the comic style
establishes the right mood for what you want to do. What about adding
one or two more panels per page for your narrator figure to establish a
 guide that takes the audience through the questions? Instead of all
callouts, you could even put the text in separate comic panels and have it
read more like a comic book. I guess I really like your idea of using the
comics format here. Keep each page the same style. Keep it up!”
 “I don't see the dense content display in your example.”
In addition to these two extremely valuable pieces of feedback, I looked around at
some of my classmate’s work on their projects. The work that was being
produced was at a much higher quality than what I put out and simply put, it
bothered me. One in particular that strongly motivated me to go back to the
comics was done by one of the peers I respect the most, Jesse Elam. He had
worked in Pixton and Supalogo and done work that looked really good to me.
That bothered me some because I introduced both of those programs to him and
he was using them while I was producing work much less than stellar.

Ultimately, the final product that was produced is far from perfect. There is a lot I
could do to improve this. One such improvement is to perhaps break down the
text even more, creating more slides with less text. Still, this project feels like one
that was saved by the valuable feedback given to me by classmates and the high
quality of work being produced by them as well.
Appendix A. List of Evidence

1. Koreans are in the lower 30th percentile of all TOEFL iBT test takers
2. Students must learn how much time they are allotted per question
3. Students should not write sentences when taking notes
4. Students should use transition words
5. Students are scored on Delivery, Language Use and Topic Development
6. Students should know what’s coming next on the test at all times
7. Students should prepare for the iBT TOEFL test because it can help them
get into the school of their choice, it can help them speak English better,
and it can develop their understanding of American universities.
 References

Abela, A. (2008). Advanced Presentations by Design: Creating Communication

that Drives Action. Washington D.C.: Pfeiffer.

Duarte, N. (2008). slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great

Presentations. Sebastopol: O'Reilly Media, Inc..

McCloud, S. (2006. Making Comics. New York, London, Toronto, Syndey:

Harper.