During the winter of 2009, I had the distinct opportunity of being selected to prepare and teach a GED math workshop for a group of young students from Detroit. This opportunity arose out of a Michigan Compact Campus Grant at Eastern Michigan University with the Young Detroit Builders group. I created the workshop's curriculum and taught the students from a period beginning in February 2009 and ending in June of 2009. Each cycle of students meet twice a week for 4 weeks to learn math.

I taught this class in a computer lab and created a web-based class that centered on the needs of each group of students. On the first session, the students took a GED pre-assessment and then I based the rest of the sessions on the needs of the students. Every day after the lesson of the day, students work online on areas they needed the most practice in. The students’ progress during this short amount of time was remarkable, far exceeding my goals for this program. For the first cycle of students, 20% of the students passed the practice test on day one and 100% of the students passed the same test at the end of the workshop! The second cycle of students also had success with only 40% passing the test initially and 80% passing the test at the end.

As part of the program, I created a website to facilitate the online instruction. It was truly a wonderful opportunity and I felt honored to have the experience. The students are a remarkable group of young men and women. Click here to read what the students said about the workshop.