On Tuesday, July 6th, 2010, I attended the PCAP GED class at 6:00 pm. A few students have arrived already before the class started and Linda Chin, the (main) teacher of this class, told the class that she will only be starting 5 minutes late today because it's the first day and she wants to give more time for everyone to find the room and etc. However, in general, she starts the class promptly at 6 so that she could use time as efficiently as possible. I should say I immediately liked this idea best because in this way, students will know that this is a serious class and even if things come up and they are late for any reason, the class will start without them. In this way, they will try their best to make it on time.
Before getting into the format of the GED and how it actually looks like, she started with becoming familiarizing herself with the students first and having them relax in a way and becoming acquainted with one another. For this, she had them go around the room and find out the career goals of one another along with their names. Then, they were asked to share it with the class so that all the career goals of the students were on the board. Afterward, she asked me to put up the big papers on the board so that she could, along with the help of the students, categorize the career goals. For instance, in the "Medical Field" category, there was Nursing, Medical Billing, ER Technician, etc. In my opinion, the students were able to see how there was this dynamic going on and how so many people just sitting next to them perhaps that was going through the same thing, coming back to school after such a long time to get their GED. In this way, students feel that they're a part of something, and that to me I think is quiet important.
In this class, students also had to do a short essay about a "Lesson Learner" i.e. a skill they acquired whether in school or elsewhere. They were given 30 minutes for the essay. The reason for this was that Linda wanted to better assess the students to see what level they are at. After the 30 minutes was up, she asked the students to volunteer to share some of their writings which one or two students did.
Interestingly, she introduced herself, the class, and I by giving the syllabus way into the class period after the students got to relax a bit and get to know the teacher and the others around them. I found this, as I mentioned before, very fascinating because most teachers do not do that. In fact, students are always given a syllabus in the very beginning of the class and immediately a 'structure' of the class is formed in their minds, which may do them no good in the long run.
For homework, they were asked to finish the reading "Follow Your Passions" and do the Reading Comprehension questions.
On the second class, on July 8, 2010, more people showed up and more were on time. Indeed, Linda started the class promptly at 6 pm. Although on Tuesday I was starting to lose my voice, on this day, I was in a worse condition because I was coughing a lot in a way. For this reason, Linda let me out a little earlier than usual (at 8 pm).
Linda started the class by giving the students a 'free writing exercise'. For it, they had to select a quote from "Follow Your Passion", paraphrase, and then give their opinion on it. Before starting it though, she asked students if they knew what paraphrasing meant and etc. She had them complete this exercise in 7 minutes. If some were done more quickly than others, she asked would ask them to find another quote that they liked. Next, they were to share it with the person sitting next to them.
Since everybody seemed to be agreeing with this whole theory that one must follow his/her passion no matter what it may be, Linda said that she is actually a bit skeptical about that because one must also be realistic living in this country, especially with the economic situation now. I also mentioned to the class that this is very true because I did my undergraduate study in French but after I received my B.A., I was left without a job. Thus, I had to come back to school to do a degree in something more tangible and 'realistic' that will help me build a career. Interestingly enough, a couple of more students began to agree with this basis that being realistic should also be important and considered when trying to follow one's passions.
After collecting the homework, at 6:40 pm, she moved on to Math. First, she did a 'predictions exercise' and asked students to guess what Math areas the GED test will cover. After getting an idea about what the students think will be in the GED Math section and putting it on the board, she actually distributed a statistic that showed how 95-97% of the Math section will actually contain word problems. Thus, this is a real reading comprehension-based test, and this is why the GED class is structured the way it is.
I was not very surprised about the reaction most students had about the Math portion of the GED. Many started making comments like "I know I will definitely be failing this part" or "I haven't done Math in years so..." and etc. This sounded familiar to me because even I still have a low confidence when it comes to Math. I just really hope the students will soon enough realize just how practical Math could be and how they could indeed use it in their real lives, especially because the word problems used in the GED are very practical situations, so it is easy to imagine the situation.
At around 7:15 pm, she handed out the Math assessment and gave the students about 45 minutes to 1 hour to complete it. I worked on the test as well while everyone else was doing it and had difficulty with the formula-based questions since I have always had the formulas in front of me. The teacher asked the students to NOT use their calculators for this time because she did not want them to get distracted in any way and just focus on the assessment.
At about 8 pm, she collected the work and gave a 5-minute break to everyone. For those who did finish it, they gladly handed it in for those who did not, they took 5-10 more minutes to finish it.
Although I left after students went on their breaks, I know that the students then had another reading given to them "Bricklayer's Son" and just as the previous reading, they had to first make predictions about what the reading will be about and read part of it. Then, however, they were asked to finish the rest of the reading along with the questions at home for the weekend.
Overall, I'm very pleased with my first week at the internship. I'm still learning about the GED test and this program and the class curriculum along with the students of the class. I feel like all the students, each and everyone of them have a very rich background and are extremely intelligent people who have so much courage that are willing to come back to school after so many years and starting all over again.
It is also very exciting to me because I feel like all the work I did last semester in those theory classes in Adult Lanugage & Literacy, I'm seeing it now in the flesh! Now, they are not just simply stories and statistics I learned about in a book somewhere, it's real.
You make some great observations about the structure of the first day. I will be interested to read how this formatting contributes to the success of the rest of the class.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you shared your own career exploration experiences with the students; I think those stories are another way to establish a shared purpose with your students.
Did you get a chance to read over or look at any of the math and writing assessments that Linda collected during this first week? Have you asked her about how she will use these materials to develop lessons for the particular students in this class? You may want to ask students about their reactions to the first week of class in your survey: you can ask them whether their expectations match the actual class.
Good luck in the coming weeks.
Mahla,
ReplyDeleteI've really enjoyed reading your descriptive narrative of this class meeting. You provide so much information about what Linda Chin did that I feel that I have a good sense of what went on during this class.
I would love to read more about the layout and look of the classroom, the configuration of chairs and uses of classroom space, and the students. I hope you'll add information on these topics in your later comments.
I appreciate your reference to your learning in our Adult Language and Literacy graduate course. I am glad that you are doing this internship right after you completed our Adult Language and Literacy course: this sequencing of course + internship gives you a significant advantage as a graduate student. I hope you will review some of the texts that we read in Spring 2010 about teaching adults and about adult literacy education. Not only might this prove useful to you as a team teacher, but you can use these texts as secondary sources when you write your final report for this internship.
I am interested to learn that most of the math test questions are word questions. This suggests a need for reading and writing even in math classes. I'll be eager to learn how these test questions are formulated and what the presence of word questions means for students as learners and test-takers.