Weblog: May 2007
GED Career Bridge to Hospitality Curriculum
The Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center was contracted by the Virginia Department of Education, Office of Adult Education & Literacy, to produce this teacher-friendly, career-focused GED instruction guide based on WIN's GED Learning in the Workplace Curriculum Guide for Hospitality. The guide includes GED as Project Inquiry Activities adapted to hospitality contexts, current hospitality industry vocabulary lists, a variety of career briefs in the hospitality field, hospitality-related reading material and lesson plans, guidelines for implementation, and a complete student handbook.
Graph Paper Provided - All Sorts!
This site "Mathematics Help Central" has a fun and friendly approach to math from a doctorate who loves the subject and wants to answer questions that puzzle us. I needed graph paper in centimeters and found it (and any type you could want!) for free on this site. See what you think, and help our students with that area that so many struggle with on the GED: Graphs and Charts. See http://www.mathematicshelpcentral.com/graph_paper.htm.
Authentic Instruction...or Not?
We like to say we are using "Authentic Instruction" and "Real Materials" to teach our adults. But are we really? NCSALL (the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning & Literacy) says that our instruction and the materials we use are only authentic and contextualized IF the learner has first identified them as a need or goal, to use in his/her life. If we assume our learner needs to learn how to write a check, and never find out that indeed he has no checking account nor wishes to, we have not done him a service. On the other hand, if our student identifies a need to register her child for school, and we bring in a form to teach her just that, it is authentic and contextualized instruction, using real materials. This is being truly learner centered, while it provides writing and reading instruction that will transfer to other tasks. For more depth on authentic instruction, see NCSALL's publication at >http://www.ncsall.net/fileadmin/resources/teach/jacobson.pdf
COABE 2007: The Colonial Institute
The Colonial Institute, Virginia's regional COABE conference, is scheduled for October 10-12, 2007 in Williamsburg, Virginia. The featured speaker is Stephen D. Brookfield, internationally acclaimed scholar in adult education. Dr. Brookfield has written ten books on adult learning, teaching, critical thinking, discussion methods and critical theory. In addition, there will be strands by Barbara Given, Rosemary Caffarella, Lennox McLendon and many others. A Williamsburg Tavern Style dinner is included in the cost of registration. Please visit the VAACE website for conference information.