This year we debuted a professional development track that addresses the specific needs of educators teaching and administering the GED test in correctional facilities.The sessions and workshops featured in the corrections track were created based on feedback and ongoing work GED Testing Service is doing to meet the needs of corrections educators and students.

Much of the feedback we’re receiving comes directly from the GED Corrections forum group. This panel consists of GED test administrators and educators that have monthly calls with GED Testing Service. During the calls our leadership, assessment and test operations teams, as well as state relationship managers, have the opportunity to get insight from those working in corrections. Participants share information about the challenges they face in the classroom and provide recommendations related to instructional resources and GED test administration.

This increased focus on corrections testing and professional development aligns directly with the improved outcomes we’re seeing across the GED test program and specifically with testers in corrections.

The GED credential is receiving more attention in this space as more national conversations are had about the positive impact education and workforce training has in reducing recidivism among offenders. We encourage you to share student success stories related to the GED and corrections as part of our ongoing effort to showcase the diversity of GED graduates and the life-changing impact of the credential.

In future InSession newsletters we will continue to share updates about corrections testing including national testing numbers.

The GEDWorks program is growing and giving more working students the opportunity to earn their GED diploma at no-cost.The program has grown to reflect a wide variety of employers spanning the US, including our two latest partners, The Cheesecake Factory and Total Wine & More.

This past June The Cheesecake Factory began offering the GEDWorks program to kitchen staff working in all of their 200 restaurants nationwide, including Rock Sugar Southeast Asian Kitchen and Grand Lux Cafe. As the eighth largest restaurant company in the US, this added benefit will help a large population of workers and has already proven promising with Cheesecake Factory celebrating its first GEDWorks graduate within a month of the program’s launch.

Total Wine & More, the country’s largest independent retailer of fine wine, will soon begin offering the GEDWorks program to its employees. The corporate-owned franchise operates 186 stores across 23 states and employs over 4,000 people.

Since the launch of the GEDWorks program in 2015 over 3,000 students have earned their GED credential with the support of their employer. To date we have 13 companies spanning the restaurant, publishing, retail and hotel industries offering the GEDWorks program with several others, including Brinker International (Chili’s and Maggiano’s) and the American Hotel and Lodging Educational Association, offering a GED diploma pathway through Pearson.

We expect additional companies to join the ranks and offer the GEDWorks program, or similar GED education benefits, as more employers make the commitment to helping their workers pursue their professional, academic and personal goals.

More information about the GEDWorks program is available here and additional details about The Cheesecake Factory and Total Wine & More launches will be made public in the near future.

We had a great time in sunny San Diego during this year’s annual conference!

July 25 through July 27 we hosted the 2018 GED Testing Service Annual Conference at the San Diego Westin Gaslamp Quarter with over 500 attendees. During the three-day event we had a full lineup of presentations, networking opportunities, professional development workshops and information sessions.

Train the Trainer: We kicked off our three-day event with our pre-conference Train the Trainer Institute led by the GED Testing Service Professional Development Team—Daphne Atkinson, Debi Faucette, Bonnie Goonen and Susan Pittman. Participants attended sessions that provided GED program information, teaching strategies and the resources they need to conduct in-person training sessions with their local and regional adult education peers.

Keynote Speaker/ Guest Speakers: During our opening session President Randy Trask thanked adult educators for their hard work and dedication to helping learners earn their GED credential. He also shared highlights about the success of the GED program, including the growing success rate of GED graduates entering and remaining in college and career training programs, new employer partners in the GEDWorks program and new study tools created to help both instructors and students succeed with the GED test subjects.

This year our keynote speaker was Erin Gruwell, educator and founder of the Freedom Writers Foundation. Gruwell made a powerful speech about her students, the Freedom Writers, and how she challenged them to change their lives through writing and self-expression. She also shared inspiring stories about the importance of teacher and student relationships.

We were also joined by two guest speakers during the conference. Dr. Carolyn Zachry, State Director and Education Administrator for the Adult Education Office in the Career and College Transition Division at the California Department of Education, welcomed conference attendees during the opening plenary.

Don Killmer, the State Director and Education Administrator for the High School Equivalency and Outreach Office in the Assessment and Administration Division at the California Department of Education, gave an introduction during our awards luncheon.

GED Graduate of the Year/ GED Administrator of the Year/ President’s Award: At this year’s conference we recognized six GED graduates as GED Graduate of the Year award winners. Each recipient was honored for recently earning their GED credential and displaying exceptional dedication and scholarship during the preparation and testing process. This year’s winners, from California and Colorado, are Issiah A. of Concord, Trinh H. of Garden Grove, Elisabeth K. of San Jose, Joshua L. of San Bernardino, Marquita S. of Sacramento and Robert V. of Colorado. The winners shared their emotional stories about their journey to earn the GED credential and how adult educators and other mentors helped them along the way.

We also recognized Tara Goodman, GED Administrator for the Florida Department of Education, with the GED Administrator of the Year Award. Bonnie Goonen and Susan Pittman, GED Testing Service Professional Development trainers, were honored with the President’s Award.

Professional Development/ Information Sessions: Professional development and information sessions were the main focus of this year’s conference. Over three days we conducted 23 information sessions and professional development workshops for conference attendees.

We want to send a huge thank you to all that attended the conference, followed along using the hashtag #GEDTS18 and posted in our conference app!

Here are some photos from the event:

Providing adult educators and administrators with the latest updates on the GED test program and related teaching strategies is top priority at each annual conference.

Here is the full list of workshops and presentations:

Professional Development Presentations

GED 101: An Introduction to the GED Program & the GED Test

Writing- Basics

Score Report Insights to Drive Instruction, Part 1: Focus on RLA and Social Studies

From the Headlines – Science – 5Es

Introduction to Higher-Order Algebra for Level 1 and Level 2 Students

Score Report Insights to Drive Instruction, Part 2: Focus on Mathematical Reasoning and Science

Social Studies – Enduring Issues

Inquiring Minds Want To Know: Go Behind the GED Test

Writing – What We Know: Using Extended Response Scoring to Improve Student Performance

Math Grab Bag

General GED Program Presentations

Practice Makes Passers

Accommodations Update

Administering the GED Program – Learn from the Experts (You!)

Behind the Badge: How Digital Credentials Unlock Career Opportunities

Marketing Strategies to Grow Student Enrollment

Ask GED: Tackling Your Top Test Administration Questions

The Power of User Experience in Behavioral Science in Moving More Students to Graduates

Finding Program Insights Through GED Analytics and Improving Program Outcomes Using Data

The GED Test after 5 Years: What’s on the Horizon?

Mastering GEDPrep Connect™ and Other Educator Resources

Corrections Track Presentations

Addressing the Unique Needs of Instruction in Corrections

Leveraging Technology to Improve Outcomes in Corrections

How to Handle the Special Circumstances that Test Administrators in Corrections Face

Each year GED Testing Service recognizes several recent GED graduates for outstanding achievement with the GED Graduate of the Year award.

The new GED.com is easier than ever for students to navigate and find the resources they need to succeed with the GED test program.

During a recent webinar, I shared how GED Testing Service used student and teacher data to make navigating GED.com accounts easier, more helpful and better aligned to meet students’ needs.

This new, student-centered design gives students more test prep options—including GED resources grouped by test subject area, easier access to scheduling tests, and locating local GED preparation classes based on geographic location.

These changes, as well as GED’s ongoing student research, are focused on identifying valuable and effective prep resources, presented in a way that is engaging (and not intimidating)!

A full walk-through of this new user experience is shared in the webinar recording and a pdf with screenshots of the account experience is available here.

–Sarita Parikh, Senior Director of Student Engagement and Strategy for GED Testing Service

The countdown to the end of summer has started but there’s still time for students to get ahead using live, interactive classes for all the GED test subjects.August 13, 2018 through August 31, 2018, students can use the promotion code “LIVE25” to receive 25% off the regular purchase price of any GED Live™ product offered through the GED.com website.

GED Live™ is a flexible learning option for busy students in need of online classes with the support of a live instructor. Other benefits include:

• Available on computer, tablet and mobile
• Live online classes that last 60-90 minutes each
• Recorded course materials to review anytime
• Experts ready to answer your questions by email

This promotion is a limited-time offer and valid only for GED Live™ subjects purchased on the GED.com website during the promotion period.

More information about this offer will be available August 13th at KapTest.com.

We’re six weeks away from the 2018 GED Testing Service Annual Conference in San Diego and we can’t wait to see all of you and share the latest updates about the GED program.The pre-conference starts Tuesday, July 24th with our 2018 Train the Trainer cohort at the Westin San Diego Gaslamp. The two-day Train the Trainer Institute will consist of workshops and training led by the GED Testing Service Professional Development team to prepare educators to lead training sessions in their states.

The official conference kicks off Wednesday, July 25th with an evening welcome reception for all conference attendees. This an opportunity for everyone to unwind from travel and join us for drinks, hors d’oeuvres and networking on the garden terrace.

Our conference agenda starts Thursday, July 26th with an opening session featuring our keynote speaker, Erin Gruwell. Gruwell is the founder of the Freedom Writers Foundation where she teaches educators around the world how to implement her innovative classroom instruction. The New York Times bestseller she authored with her high school students inspired the 2007 movie Freedom Writers starring Oscar winner Hilary Swank.

Our morning session is followed by a full day of workshops and presentations focused on a number of topics including: accommodations, corrections, GED test administration, adult education program marketing strategies, behavioral science research and student success, digital badging and teaching tips for all the GED test subjects.

The lineup on Friday, July 27th will include additional presentations and workshops covering the GED test subjects and other topics including: using GED analytics and data to improve program outcomes, updates coming to the GED test and how to use the GEDPrep Connect tool and other resources to benefit your classroom.

In your down time we encourage you to explore the many attractions San Diego has to offer. Here’s a list of top tourist recommendations in historic Gaslamp Quarter and the surrounding city.

The official agenda will be released in the coming weeks and will be available here. If you haven’t registered for the conference—hurry and reserve your spot before it’s sold out!

See you in San Diego!

We’re now in the fifth year of the “new” GED® test. What a long way we have come since we first introduced the idea back in 2009 of a new test edition aligned with college and career readiness content! Since 2014, we’ve continued to enhance the GED program, introducing many new features to our MyGED portal, new products to help students prepare, and our GED College Ready and College Ready+Credit performance designations to help students take advantage of postsecondary education opportunities, just to name a few.

Although our test content and item types will remain unchanged in 2019, we will be enhancing the format of the Reasoning Through Language Arts (RLA) Extended Response (ER) item next year. The format change is something you will hear more detail about in the coming months (and at our GEDTS Annual Conference in July), and it is based on research with students that we have conducted over the past several years. This particular research has focused on what format changes we might consider making to the ER item that would provide clearer instructions and make it easier for students to respond to the item. As a result, we’ll be introducing some format changes that we think both teachers and students will find helpful – here’s a brief summary of them:

• Enlarging the ER response box. Since we launched the test, the response box for the ER has always been visually small, with most of the screen “real estate” taken up by the stimulus material on the left hand side of the screen, and the prompt itself on the top right-hand side of the screen. Even though we’ve always stressed the important of a response of 300-500 words, the small response box has given a strong visual cue that has subliminally encouraged students to write shorter, not longer, responses. Next year, we’ll expand the response space to take up about half of the total screen space – the entire right-hand half of the screen. In our research, students that had this format wrote significantly longer and better responses than students with the current small response box format.
• Enhancing the instructions. In the current ER format, the instructions are located in two different places – some of the instructions are part of the prompt on the right-hand side of the screen, but the rest of the instructions are in an exhibit called “Answer Guidelines” that students need to click on separately to view. Our research has shown that very few students actually click on the Answer Guidelines, and as a result, their responses often don’t meet the expectations we have for performance. In 2019, we will get rid of the answer guidelines and place all of the instructions on the left-hand side of the screen in a more clearly formatted presentation, that will help students understand how to best plan, write, and edit their response.
• Removing the tabs from the stimulus material. When we first introduced our new test, our usability research showed that students had a great deal of difficulty with scrolling up and down to see the reading material that accompanies the ER item. Because of this, we distributed the readings across several “tabs” on the left-hand side of the screen in order to minimize scrolling. However, our students’ use of technology has greatly increased over the past several years, and our current research has found that today’s examinees are more comfortable with scrolling (possibly due to the increased use of smartphones in which scrolling is a common activity). In 2019 our reformatting will present all of the instructions on an initial tab, but the entire reading passage or passages will be contained on a second tab that students will scroll up and down to read. Our studies have shown that students not only liked the scrolling format better, but the revised format also made it easier for them to locate specific evidence or details in the passage as they develop their argument in their response to the item.

This is just a brief overview of the changes, and we’ll provide you with examples of how the screens will look later this year as we get closer to implementation. It’s important to remember that these are only formatting changes, and the none of the requirements have changed, so teachers should continue to do the same type of instruction as has been in place. Watch this column for more details!

–Martin Kehe, Vice President of Assessment Services for GED Testing Service

Thanks to all of you for making the third annual GED Grad Day celebration a huge success!This year’s virtual event was held on May 16th with GED graduates, current students, adult educators and friends and family members of grads, celebrating the endless possibilities that come with a GED credential.

Many of you shared photos on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with a message for graduates and current students using the “Start” poster. Adult education centers and prep programs had a great presence this year with 75 of you sharing photos with the “Start” poster on our event page.

We had 7,743 RSVPs on the GED Grad Day Facebook event page and almost 1,000 posts on our event and company pages!

On Twitter and Instagram we had 254 mentions of GED Grad Day through the hashtags #GEDGradDay, #GED, #timetostart and #adultedu.

Thank you for sharing your inspirational stories and encouraging advice during this year’s event.

We look forward to continuing the celebration for years to come!

Here are some photos from this year’s event:

The list of tools students can use to prepare for the GED test subjects continues to grow and we’re here to help you determine what new study tools, created by GED Testing Service and partners, may be best for your students and classroom.

GED Flash for Individuals™

Details: Online, interactive tool that functions similar to traditional flashcards, giving users the option to test their knowledge of GED test subjects with instant feedback. It offers thousands of practice questions in each of the four GED test subjects, and it was created to be easily used on students’ mobile devices.
Target test subjects: All (Math, Science, RLA, Social Studies)
Benefits: Provides instant feedback on which questions students got right or wrong, giving the information they need to develop study plans and identify the skills they need to improve to pass the test. Questions are randomized and students have access to more than 6,000 practice items.
Cost: Available in a 30-day subscription per subject, subscriptions can be renewed.
Special promotion: Now through July 15, students can purchase access to GED Flash for $3 off per 30-day subscription of individual subjects using the promo code SUMMERFLASH.
How to buy: Students can purchase subscriptions to GED Flash through their GED.com accounts

GED Flash for Organizations™

Details: Similar to the GED Flash for Individuals product. Allows programs and instructors access to the same questions and answers available to individual students, with the addition of tracking and interpretive tools.
Target test subjects: All (Math, Science, RLA, Social Studies)
Benefits: Features include reports that show students’ time on task; data related to individual, class and organizational progress; the ability to assign content areas based upon individual or class needs and administrative dashboards that provide quick and easy access to information and tools. Educators can assign multiple students to purchased “seats” as long as students are not using the product at the same time.
Cost: Cost varies according to number of seats purchased
Special promotion: Now through August 31st educators can purchase GED Flash “seats” for 14 months at the 12-month price and get GED Ready practice tests for $2 each per GED Flash “seat.”
How to buy: Adult education and GED prep programs can purchase by contacting their state relationship manager or Aztec Software.

GED Live

Details: Live teacher-led, interactive learning and GED preparation for students studying for the GED test.
Target test subjects: All (Math, Science, RLA, Social Studies)
Benefits: Offers students convenient access to a live instructor through a computer, tablet or smartphone. Adult education programs can use it to incorporate online instruction into their curriculums. This is also helpful for independent learners, working adults or adults in more rural communities.
Cost: $59 each for 45-day subscription to individual Math or RLA classes. $129 for 90-day access to Math, RLA, Science and Social Studies classes. Program subscriptions are also available with 10 or 20-seat options.
Special promotion: GED “Start to Finish” bundle includes GED Live classes for 90 days for all four subjects, four GED Ready practice tests and a Pre-Paid Voucher for all 4 subject areas of the GED Test. Price varies and can be found here.
How to buy: Students can purchase GED Live access through the GED Marketplace.

Still thinking about whether or not to join Cohort 3 of Train the Trainer at the Annual Conference in San Diego? Are you interested in making a difference—not only in your program for your students—but also in your state? Looking for your next professional achievement that contributes to student success? If you’ve been considering any of these questions, then Train the Trainer is for you!

Did you know that:

• Our “veteran” trainers (Cohorts 1 and 2) come from 18 states from coast to coast.
• More than half of them have provided face-to-face professional development within their states.
• On average, our veteran trainers provided an average of three to five professional development sessions for their colleagues during the last year.
• Looking across selected states, our trainers have reached more than 1,000 instructors in the last year alone.

What to do next: If you’re interested, you will need to register for the GED Testing Service Annual Conference and select ‘Train the Trainer’ as your Registration Type. Plan to arrive in San Diego by Monday evening, July 23rd. Training for Cohort 3 will kick off Tuesday morning July 24th. Already registered for the Conference but not for Train the Trainer? Contact Mimi Abdulkadir at mimi.abdulkadir@ged.com to update your registration. Participation in Train the Trainer costs $50 in addition to the regular conference fee.

Please note that no cohort group will be recruited for the upcoming year (2019). Of course, GED Testing Service will continue to support Cohorts 1, 2, and 3 with professional development—program updates and new workshop material.

We hope to see you in San Diego!

–Daphne Atkinson, Senior Director of State Relationships for GED Testing Service