This content was published: April 1, 1998. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Light Rail Trainees MAX-imize Learning
Photos and story by Mark Evertz
by Nancy Leon
Photo: Chad Storms at the Controls.
"If I don’t write it down I won’t remember it."
"If I have a question in my head, I start digging through the notebookright then."
"I thought I was a slob, to be honest, but it turns out that I learn better when everything is organized and I have a tidy workspace."
"I study a LOT and use note cards with the exact words because I have to be sure of the terminology."
"I’m an audio learner. I don’t take notes, I just listen. When I study the book, I remember what I’ve heard in class. Taking notes interrupts my listening."
These are the voices of adults who are hitting the books at Tri-Met, training to become light rail operators. All of the students are seasoned bus drivers and all of them are confident in their ability to operate the MAX light rail trains. Their confidence wanes when it comes to memorizing pages of Standard Operating Procedures and terminology. But to the 18 men and women gathered for five weeks of intensive, eight-hour days of learning, school is now a huge part of their life. The training culminates with three major tests requiring an 85 percent to pass. If a student misses more than three questions on a test, the ride is over.
According to Denis Van Dyke, assistant manager of rail transit training at Tri-Met, 66 percent of the students failed when the program began. Carol Sustello, employee relations manager at Tri-Met, was charged with figuring out how to improve the success rate while maintaining strict training standards.
Train operators must know how to solve any problem and keep the train moving in the closed loop system.
"This is about safety," Sustello said. "We’re moving lots of people!" She said that the drivers are bright and capable, but sometimes fearful of returning to school after such a long time. The connection to PCC’s Customized Workforce Training department was both inspired and logical. "We need to look to our public institutions for assistance and I knew that the community colleges have adult education programs in place," she said. "I also knew that the Port of Portland had worked with PCC with good results. There are private consultants, but PCC was remarkably less expensive. Mary Chalkiopoulos (PCC job development specialist) was out here within days of my call with a solid package."
Sustello estimates that PCC’s study skills training curriculum was ready for Tri-Met with 30-45 days.
Instructor Janet Hinrichs spends 17 hours with each group of students, beginning with an eight-hour session designed to help students determine how they learn. Seeing, hearing or doing, with food or without, in groups or independently, quietly or with music, warm room or cool, late into the night or early riser; answers to these questions allow self -discovery to enhance success.
Corey Jimerfield and Julia Mreczko discovered that they are independent studiers, so they go home and study and call each other at the end of the evening to go over the material by phone. According to Mreczko, "I’ve always been an independent learner, I just never had a term for it until Janet explained it."
"I thought I liked noise or music, that’s how I always studied before, but I like the quiet," says Jimerfield. The two spend a few lively moments extolling the merits of various barbecue restaurants before settling on a serious discussion about the light rail braking system.
"I’m amazed at how quickly they figure out how to make it work," says Hinrichs. "I tell them that whatever method helps is perfect as long as it’s working. If they are visual learners and the instructor is talking, then they need to pay careful attention because this is not something that comes easily for them."
Since Tri-Met established the training with PCC, 75 percent of the trainees are passing the course and beginning new careers as light rail operators.
Tri-Met and PCC in partnership have assisted many with the skills and confidence to learn complex information and learn it well enough to apply it in the workplace. Students who were anxious about the class are proud of their ability to succeed.
"You hear horror stories about the operator training," said Nancy Carter. The study skills class is helping decrease her anxiety.
"I was totally surprised!" she added. "I thought I was a video learner, a hands-on person, but I’m really a listener! I shut my eyes and listen. I wish I’d known this when I was in school."