VGCC Hosts Regional Workshop For Instructors Of New GED 2002

Instructors from six area community colleges gathered for a regional workshop at Vance-Granville Community College’s South Campus April 4 to learn more about the new General Educational Development tests that will be administered beginning next year.

They also received instruction on how to teach GED students to prepare for the calculator section of the new math test.

Successful completion of five tests – in writing, reading, social studies, science and math – is required to earn a GED, a certificate considered the equivalent of a high school diploma. Persons who have passed some of the current tests have until the end of this year to complete the remaining tests. Beginning on Jan. 1, 2002, GED students’ records will be wiped clean, and they will have to start over with the new series of tests.

Dr. Delane Boyer, GED and adult high school diploma coordinator for the North Carolina Community College System, was at South Campus April 4 to give an overview of the new tests to instructors and program coordinators from Nash, Halifax, Piedmont, Durham Technical, Wake Technical and Vance-Granville community colleges.

The new series of GED tests will be effective nationwide and around the world. Dr. Boyer said the testing is moving toward more real life applications

and will include more problem solving and questions reflecting practical situations, more in keeping with how high school curriculums have changed in recent years. The current GED was last revised in 1988.

For the first time in 2002, use of calculators will be part of the math tests. Dianne Barber, a math instructor at Appalachian State University and a literacy training specialist with the Adult Basic Skills Professional Development Project at ASU, taught the GED instructors how to teach the new calculator phase of the math test section. She said the introduction of calculators and more problem solving are the major changes to the GED math test.

Vance-Granville Community College conducts GED instruction and testing at all four of its campuses, and at community sites in Vance, Granville, Warren and Franklin counties. George Henderson, VGCC’s director of Adult Basic Skills, said there are more than 1,500 GED candidates at VGCC who have not completed the five tests.

“There are people in these four counties who need only one more section to earn their certificates, and it would be a real shame for them not to complete the tests before the end of this year and have to start all over,” Henderson said.

Persons who are interested in enrolling in a GED class or in taking one or more of the tests should call the main campus at (252) 492-2061, South Campus in Granville County at 919-528-4737, Warren County Campus at (252) 257-1900, or Franklin County Campus at 919-496-2567.

CALCULATING

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In the photo above, 

Dianne Barber, standing at right, teaches Vance-Granville Community College GED instructors how to incorporate calculators into the new GED program that will begin in January 2002. At front are Ruth Duncan, GED instructor at Polk Youth Center in Butner, and Rasheed Chabwera, Adult Learning Center coordinator, Warren County Campus. Behind them are Sue Grissom, VGCC director of Workplace Literacy, and Talmadge Edwards, GED instructor at Franklin County Library.