Literacy Assistance Center

Literacy Assistance Center
32 Broadway, 10th fl.
New York, NY 10004
Phone (212)803-3300
Fax (212)785-3685

Contact Us

GED Institute 2002

Notes, Days 1 & 2

Key Components of Positive Learning Experiences

  • Hands-on Activities
  • Authentic Materials
  • Encouragement of Creativity
  • Best Practices (based on underlying understanding of learning)
  • Scaffolding
  • Student Choice
  • Opportunities to Demonstrate Learning
  • Validation
  • Mutual Respect
  • Humor
  • Aesthetically Pleasing Environments
  • “Structure”

Characteristics of Positive Learning Experiences

  • Constructivist
  • Dialogical
  • Collaborative
  • Relevant
  • Student-centered
  • Participatory
  • Experiential
  • Purposeful
  • Transparent
  • Immediate & Transferable

The New GED: Implications for Instruction

  • Incorporate everyday information and materials on environment and health.
  • Incorporate “kitchen table” experiments.
  • Incorporate business texts, as well as “community” texts such as flyers.
  • Focus more on graphics/visuals.
  • Demonstrate interdisciplinary connections.
  • Encourage students to watch the news.
  • Familiarize students with world maps, geographic terminology, and political geography.
  • Go deeper into thinking – use the “Socratic Approach.”
  • Focus on “organized” thinking.
  • Use “realia” (e.g. ballots, voter registration forms).
  • Connect popular culture to GED content.
  • Focus on identified needs of students.
  • Familiarize students with the calculator and give them lots of practice.
  • Familiarize students with the answer grid.
  • Focus more on prior/content knowledge.
  • Familiarize students with poetry and short stories: literal and interpretive understandings; reading between the lines.
  • Focus on current events, global issues, and cultural differences.
  • Build on prior knowledge.
  • Include more hands-on work.
  • Incorporate research.
  • Use the web to find sites that cover the current and the specific.
  • Familiarize students with technology and use as a teaching resource.

Implications of the SCANS Report (the 21st Century Workplace) for Adolescent and Adult Education

  • Emphasize public speaking.
  • Include more extended/intensive instruction that goes into greater depth.
  • Include a greater emphasis on technology.
  • Model accountability/responsibility.
  • Focus on time management and project management.
  • Provide tasks that require organizational skills and problem-solving skills.
  • Familiarize students with workplace documents.
  • Develop interpersonal skills through exercises, group activities, and teamwork – encourage accountability to the group.
  • Foster creative thinking and decision-making skills.
  • Demonstrate the relationship between student goals and the enforcement of high standards.

How We Promote Critical Thinking

  • Have students draw conclusions from, analyze, and evaluate graphics and texts to try to understand deeper meaning.
  • Distinguish fact from opinion.
  • Make connections to other material; prior knowledge.
  • Have students compare different texts, and develop criteria for evaluating validity of sources and assertions.
  • Have students make predictions about current events based on prior knowledge and information.
  • Have students become conscious of prejudices and preconceptions through discussion and reading.
  • Have students appreciate diverse points of view by writing from different perspectives and role-playing.
  • Have students generate questions (to promote “inquiring minds”).
  • Have students use their comprehension of text to draw inferences about author’s point of view and views beyond their own.
  • Use other “intelligences” to represent an idea or point of view.
  • “Deconstruct” text: analyze subtext and context to reveal underlying agendas, biases. (Evaluate – Question – Reevaluate)
  • Require students to find ways to support their opinions/theses.
  • Identify which editorial positions are closest to students own (i.e., have students reflect on their own thinking).

Our Effective Instructional Practices

  • Creative, hands-on activities.
  • Collaborative work that promotes socialization.
  • Integrating skills/content areas.
  • Choosing topics that encourage critical thinking.
  • Integrating technology – video as well as computer.
  • Connecting academic content to real life.
  • Using the Internet as a research resource.
  • Using newspaper articles/current events.
  • Using real world/relevant materials.
  • Providing clear guidelines/directions/explanations.
  • Using maps – connecting to real life.
  • Incorporating experiments.
  • Providing opportunities for small group problem solving.
  • Having students’ identify/create questions.
  • Including both silent and group reading.
  • Providing opportunities for public speaking – sharing of learning.
  • Developing note-taking skills.
  • Analyzing sub-text to identify bias/point of view.
  • Playing games – using engaging, fun materials.
  • Incorporating movement.
  • Connecting history/primary sources to current events.
  • Analyzing multiple-choice answers.
  • Using provocative materials.
  • Building vocabulary skill.
  • Incorporating News for You and The Change Agent
  • Developing interdisciplinary materials/topics/themes.
  • Incorporating jigsaw reading to promote deeper thinking and accountability.
  • Using GED texts for diagnostic purposes, drills, self-study (assessment/question analysis), and targeted instruction.
  • Connecting “realia” to GED, current events, civics, and broader content knowledge.
  • Using manipulatives both to enhance instruction and to promote focus and concentration.
  • Using assessment to develop curriculum and instruction.
  • Using the Internet to study writers.
  • Connecting reading, research, and writing.
  • Integrating math, economics, geography, and culture.
  • Connecting reading/text to student experience.
  • Using tables, charts, and maps to integrate subject areas.
  • Using calculators as a tool.
  • Comparing uses of charts vs. words.
  • Using props to reinforce a concept.
  • Using CDs/music to introduce subject matter (particularly poetry), to encourage writing, and to study genres and culture.
  • Encouraging peer tutoring.
  • Providing students with choice (in writing and in demonstration of learning).
  • Incorporating political cartoons.
  • Using videos (not just instructional).

GED Lesson Planning Institute Table of Contents


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