GEN Y

Hello, all.

So, beginning in February, I began teacher a GEN Y (Generation Y) Pre-GED class.  Over the past couple of years we’ve noticed that one of the largest growing groups of students has been those between the ages of 16-26.  These were also the students who dropped out of the program the quickest before getting their GED.  Therefore, to better serve these students, we created a class that would focus on their interests and learning styles. 

Needless to say, the road hasn’t been the easiest.  We tried starting it last fall but scheduled it in the afternoon and had a hard time recruiting students.  If you compound the fact that all the students that we did recruit were multiple appointment missers, you have a perfect recipe for a poorly attended class.  Once we changed the time to Tuesday and Thursday mornings, the attendance has gotten a lot better. 

While there are some snags working with this age group–my students definitely have their angsty days (more to come on this later)–the class has given me the opportunity to really interact and get to know my students in a way that the language and time culture barrier prohibits me from interacting with some of my ESOL students.  My GEN Y class has also given me another avenue from which to help make the sort of impact I want to in our country, working with a different set of underprivileged individuals. 

Anyway, even though there have been a few snags along the way, our experiment is turning out to be well attended and in the end, I hope, successful for my students.   They seem to be enjoying it.

Test Taking Strategies III

Here are just a couple more strategies that I’ve thought of to improve your test taking abilities.

7.  Skip some of the reading.  If you are a slower reader, you can skip some of the reading associated with the writing multiple choice test.  You are given a story, then asked various questions about it.  However, each question rewrites the portion of the story that the question is about.  For every six questions, about five of them can be answered without reading the entire story.  Save the questions that you need to read the story in order to answer, until last.  (The ones like: where should you move the sentence to, or rearrange the paragraphs.)

8.  Use the calculator!!!  For the first half of the math test you may use the Casio calculator.  Use it!  The numbers that are given in this half of the test are difficult (and time consuming) to work with by hand.  That’s why the calculators are provided to you.  You need to work with the calculator before the test to become comfortable and knowledgeable about it.  Be sure to practice the fraction, %, backspace, (, ), x^2, square-root, and +/- keys.  Do several problems using the order of operations to get used to the various keys, and the order in which you must hit them.  Each calculator has a different way of inputting the data, so practice with the specified Casio Scientific GED series calculator.

9.  Graphs, Charts,and Maps.  On many parts of the GED you are given graphs, charts, and maps to analyze.  Be sure to read the title, axises, and any keys first.  Understand what the graphic is showing you before you move on to the question.  I tell my students to imagine that they have to explain the graph to their child.  This helps you to analyze the data.  Then answering the question won’t be near as difficult.

Good luck on your next test.