Wayne Community College to offer free career test training
By Staff Reports
Published in News on August 8, 2012 1:46 PM
Wayne Community College will offer a course to prepare for non-high school graduates for the Career Readiness Certificate tests, compliments of the North Carolina Community College System.
This academic year, 60 students can take either a hybrid (part classroom, part online) or fully online "Achieving Success and Stability with Educational Technology," course that will prepare them to test for the CRC, a skills credential that many local businesses use for selection, hiring, and advancement. Both the course, taught by the Basic Skills Department, and the tests will be free to students.
The course is the main component of "Project IDEAL" (Improving Distance Education for Adult Learners), a research project that will show the effectiveness of online and hybrid teaching models in Basic Skills/Adult Basic Education.
The $18,977 grant for the project is one of nine awarded by the community college system and funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The projects will participate in national research on distance education being conducted by the University of Michigan.
The ASSET course teaches applied mathematics, reading for information, and locating information, which are the three areas assessed for the CRC, and will work on goal setting and critical thinking as they apply to employability. The course will include field trips to potential business and industry employers.
In addition to improving their employability, the course will also help students gain at least one Educational Functioning Level.
Both the hybrid and online versions will run 12 weeks. The hybrid class will meet twice a week for an hour and a half each session, and those who do not have Internet access at home can use computers in the Basic Skills Department's lab for the online portions. Students in the online class will also have access to instructors.
Only 15 students will be enrolled in each of the classes each semester.
The program is geared to those lacking a high school diploma or General Educational Development certificate and are at least at the intermediate Adult Basic Education level. A test is required to determine their educational level.
Classes will be held in the fall and spring. Interested persons should contact Ms. Williams at (919) 739-6922 or shelly@waynecc.edu by Aug. 15.