Tips for GED Teachers

Our goal as GED instructors is to provide students with opportunities to become active, critical thinkers who move beyond learning as merely memorization of facts to learning that is knowledge-building.  Whether we are teaching a GED course in writing, mathematics, science, social studies or language arts, we must involve learners in synthesizing, evaluating and accommodating new information into their field of knowledge.  There are numerous effective teaching strategies to use in the GED classroom. 

Tips for Writing

It is important to provide opportunities for your students to write.  Writing should occur during each classroom session and should be integrated into the learning process.  Students can be writing on topics dealing with the entire GED curricula. The following is a simple step-by-step approach to the writing process.  Teach students to:

1. Plan

Planning is the first step in the writing process.  Have your students respond to these three planning questions:

1. What is the topic of our writing?
2. Who is our audience?  What will be interesting to them?
3. What do we want to accomplish by writing about this topic (e.g., convey information, persuade policy makers, etc.)?

• Memory searches
• Graphic organizers, listing, charting, webbing or clustering raw ideas
• Group brainstorming
• Freewriting
• Large and small group discussion and partner interviews
• Reading and research on questions generated through class discussion

Drafting is the process of writing down ideas, organizing them into a sequence and providing the reader with a frame for understanding these ideas.  The end result is a composition or "first draft" of the ideas.  The following questions might be helpful to students as they compose their first drafts:

1. What ideas or thoughts will we include?
2. How will we organize the material?
3. How will we introduce, develop and conclude our first draft?
4. What will the title of our paper be?

3. Polish

Polishing refers to the process of editing and revising based on an evaluation of the writing.  It is the hard work that a writer devotes to a piece of writing that is likely to reach a wide audience and serves as a reflection of oneself.  Response or feedback on students' writing can significantly improve the quality of their work. 

The questions that students should ask themselves as they proceed through the polishing stage are:

1. How can the responses from others improve my paper?
2. What new ideas do I have for the paper?
3. What information should I add or delete?
4. Have I corrected all spelling and grammatical errors?

As the GED Tests are timed, students should experience longer timed writings as they near the skill level required to successfully complete the tests.  Instructors should provide lined paper similar to that used on the exam as well as a pencil for writing.  Initially, timed writings should be short.   Provide topics that are easily handled by the student.  Remember that all writings do not need to be "graded."  As the student’s writing proficiency increases, increase both the time provided and the length of the writing sample.  Prior to taking the GED Tests the student should be able to write a five paragraph essay on any given topic in a 45 minute period. 

Reading Journals

Students should be encouraged to keep journals to document and enhance their understanding of materials that are read for class.  Teach students to write entries that reflect the main idea, major points or questions that they may have after reading a selection.  To increase critical thinking skills, instructors may request that students write about possible applications of ideas.  Journals can also assist students to better understand what has been taught. 

Summaries

Instructors can ask students to write a brief summary of the major points of a reading assignment.  This summary can be as brief as 25 words or extend to several paragraphs based on student writing performance level.  This not only checks reading comprehension but can also be graded quickly.  Summarizing is a very important skill for students to learn.

Tips for Mathematics

Most GED teachers would say that the Mathematics Test is the hardest for their students to pass. Students enrolling in a GED Math course generally have basic computation skills such as operations with whole numbers, fractions, decimals and percentages. However, most students also do not have the application or critical thinking skills required in the mathematics area.  They are unable to identify what computation skills or steps are required to solve the problems presented.  The teaching of mathematical problem solving skills requires a different approach than that of teaching calculation skills.

Address and evaluate attitudes and beliefs regarding both learning math and using math.

Students are often fearful regarding mathematics.  Prior to any true learning taking place, the instructor must discuss with students how traditional methods of teaching math may have caused them to develop a negative attitude.

Develop understanding by providing opportunities to explore mathematical ideas with concrete or visual representations and hands-on activities.

Students in GED programs will learn more effectively if they can visualize concretely an abstract concept.   Use manipulatives such as cuisennaire rods, fraction circles, geoboards or everyday objects such as coins, toothpicks, etc. to help students explain how mathematical rules and concepts work.

Encourage the development and practice of estimation skills.

During everyday life, one does not always use "exact" math.  Teach students how to estimate.  Strategies to use can include rounding to whole numbers, multiplying by 10 rather than 9 or dividing by whole numbers rather than multiplying by fractions.  Use test examples to show students that good estimation can result in correct answers.  Have the students work out the problem using computation skills to support their estimations.

Develop students' calculator skills and foster familiarity with computer technology.

Calculators will be used on the GED 2002 Series Tests for certain segments of the math subtest.  It is important for students to know what a math procedure does and why it works.  They should also be able to evaluate the results.  The usage of computers allows students to use simulations not easily provided in written form.  Since most jobs in the workplace require familiarity with technology, the usage of computers helps students to become computer literate and develop necessary workforce skills.  Since calculators will be used on the new GED exam, set aside time to teach students how to correctly use calculators to perform single and multi-tasked problems.  Calculators can be used by students to check their work, to solve tedious computations and as a problem-solving tool. 

Provide problem-solving tasks within a meaningful, realistic context in order to facilitate transfer of learning.

Students need to view math as a necessary skill in their lives.  Students can assist transference of mathematical skills to real life experiences through the sharing of experiences.  These experiences can be used as problem solving projects for the class.  Projects can be as simple as comparing the price of cereals to as complex as finding the best mortgage deal.  Discuss how students use math in their daily lives and set up problems based upon these scenarios.

Develop students' skills in interpreting numerical or graphical information appearing within documents and text.

Math does not always take the form of computation.  Graphs, tables, text, payment schedules, and contracts are just a few of the ways in which text is filled with mathematical concepts.  Strategies to use in teaching students how to accurately interpret such documents can include having students graph information from their lives for the last 24 hours.  Pictorial, circle, line or any type of graph can be used to visually document numerical information.  Another activity would be to have students critique and discuss an article filled with numerical information such as an employee benefit statement.

Tips for Reading in the Content Area

Engaging learners in a greater variety of experiences combining reading and writing instruction leads to a higher level of thinking. Research has begun to show that writing leads to improved reading achievement and reading leads to better writing performance.  Combined instruction in reading and writing leads to improvement in both areas. 

• End every lecture or discussion with questions that have been left unanswered.
• Ask "why" something should be accepted. 
• Use a think, solve and explain method so that students analyze the problem presented, determine a way to solve the problem and write an answer in their own words.  Techniques for using the think-solve-explain method are:

1. Think -- Read the question carefully.  Think about and analyze what you are being asked to do.  Make sure you understand what you are supposed to do before you begin answering the question.
2. Solve -- Begin solving the question using the strategy you know best.  Ensure that you use all of the information provided to determine what information is necessary to the problem and what information is irrelevant.
3. Explain -- Follow the directions for solving the problem and writing the solution.

The fluent reader is able to quickly review an article with understanding.  Many GED students read in a slow and methodical fashion decreasing their ability to comprehend.  Use timed readings to increase a student's reading speed and comprehension.  There are many commercial materials for timed reading; however, any type of fiction or non-fiction reading material can be used.

Problem Solving

Students need to develop the ability to work with problems and various levels of knowledge.  Generally, teaching problem solving consists of three steps.  Getting started is the most difficult step.  Students must learn to comprehend the problem and then state it in more formal terms.  Whether the discipline is Writing Skills, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies or Literature, the problem solver must go through the same basic steps:

1. State the problem

• Ask the student to restate the problem in his or her own words.
• Analyze what the student has told you and quiz the student about the thought process used.  e.g. What were they being asked to find?
• Ask the student to organize the facts or assumptions and categorize them.
• Help students separate relevant and irrelevant information. 
• Assist students to represent the problem in another form.

• Set mini-goals.  (What information do you need to answer this question?)
• Identify necessary operations.  (What steps do you need to take to solve this problem?)
• Describe the steps and draw conclusions.  (If a bell curve represents a way of graphing grades, what does this graph tell you?)

• Outline the steps required to obtain a solution. 
• Implement the solution. 
• Evaluate how the solution fits the original problem. 

• Use questions that require students to explain their answer.
• Use open-ended question formats in classroom activities and in your assessment instruments that are similar to the GED Tests. 
• Use and develop questions for class discussions and tests that are on the same academic level as those on the GED Tests.
• Prepare students for the GED Tests; familiarize them with the testing format, usage of bubble sheets, gridded sheets, essay formats and GED-type questions.
• Encourage teaching that requires students to explain their thinking and describe their procedures both orally and in writing.
• Provide practice for students in judging the "reasonableness" of their answers.