Tuesday, May 06, 2008

GED diploma fulfills dream of graduate, 73


It’s taken 57 years but Drusilla Chilton, 93, will finally see her son David, 73, receive his high school diploma.


Tuesday night, Chilton along with more than 300 students will receive their GED’s (high school equivalency diploma) from Rio Salado College. The graduation celebration, the biggest GED ceremony in the state, will be held at the Orpheum Theater in Phoenix.


It’s been a long road for Chilton. The son of a traveling minister, Chilton was always changing schools as his family traveled from town to town. After graduating from the 8th grade, Chilton left school and began working for Western Union delivering telegrams on his bicycle.
“I dreamed for years of going back to school. It was always haunting me,” said Chilton.
But facing a 21st century classroom after more than five decades away was a daunting task.
“The first day of school I was really nervous. They gave me an evaluation test that I got half through. I left in my car and cried all the way home,” said Chilton.


Chilton spent 18 months working four or five hours a day in class.
“I didn’t realize how long it would take me or how difficult it would be,” said Chilton.
Chilton admits the well-earned slip of paper has made a big difference in his life including boosting his self-confidence enough to tackle college classes at Gateway where he has earned a caregiver certificate. Currently he’s in the process of finding a job with his newly found skills.
“I am really happy I did it,” said Chilton.


A boost in self-confidence is typical of those earning their GED, said Miranda L. Lopez, Director of Adult Education.
They get so much confidence out of this. It motivates them and makes them think Oh yes, I can do this,” said Lopez.


Students are told the program is the first step in their educational future. Along with learning to read and do math, GED students, through the transition program, receive information and awareness for those who want to continue their education. Information on college degrees, classes, financial aid and tours of the college campus are included in the transition program workshops.
While many students continue on into college from the program others taking GED classes focus on improving their workforce skills and still others use the classes to improve career prospects, said Lopez.


Classes are self-paced. Instructors work with students to identify their individual learning goals and to develop plans to reach those goals.
Rio Salado began offering GED classes in 1979 with just 700 students. Today, as the state’s largest provider of Adult Basic Education classes nearly 10,000 students are enrolled annually. For more information about free GED or ABE classes call (480) 517-8110 or (480) 377-4050 or visit www.riosalado.edu/registration



Locations for ABE enrollment:

Rio East Valley: 1455 South Stapley Drive, Suite 15Mesa, AZ 85204(just north of the Superstition Freeway)
Rio North - Paradise Valley: 4550 East Cactus RoadPhoenix, AZ 85032(above the food court at Paradise Valley Mall)
Rio 7th Avenue: 619 North 7th AvenuePhoenix, AZ 85007(just south of I-10)
Scottsdale Adult Learning Center: 1170 North 86th WayScottsdale, AZ 85257(old Apache Park School)
Rio Salado College Lifelong Learning Center12535 Smokey DriveSurprise, AZ 85374(just south of Bell Road)
Orangewood Nazarene Church: 2804 W. Orangewood
Phoenix AZ 85051
Rio Ann Ott Learning Center
1801 S. 12th Street
Phoenix AZ
(south of Mojave, at Apache and 12th St)






# posted by Rio Salado College : 1:21 PM

Graduation set for May 7



This week Fountain Hills resident Dawn Beck will be one step closer to fulfilling her dream of becoming a marriage and family therapist.


A high school dropout, Beck will graduate from Rio Salado College May 7 after being out of school for 12 years. So driven to succeed, the determined stay-at-home mom of two managed to rack up 53 credits in just nine months to complete her Associate of Arts degree. She is now attending Grand Canyon University as a psychology major and plans to earn a Master’s degree in order to become a family therapist.


A member of Phi Theta Kappa (the international honor society for two-year colleges) and the Dean’s Honor Roll, Beck is one of two student speakers chosen to address Rio Salado graduates Wednesday night. The ceremony will take place at the Orpheum Theater, 203 W. Adams St. in Phoenix, and begins at 7:00 p.m. Students earning their G.E.D. (high school equivalency diploma) will be honored in a ceremony on May 6.


This year there will be 377 Rio Salado students earning their associate degrees, as well as 3,580 students receiving certificates of completion for a variety of programs.


Earning a college degree has been a long and challenging road for Beck. Dropping out of high school at 17, Beck worked at a series of low paying, dead end jobs before realizing she needed to do something good with her life that she could be proud of. In the spring of 2007 she registered at Rio Salado College and began taking as many online classes as she could handle while being a wife and mother to an active four year old and one-year old. In the fall she petitioned the college to take a whopping 23 credits eager to begin work on her bachelor’s degree. (Anything above 12 credits is considered full-time).
She calls her graduation one her life’s biggest achievements.


“I am still amazed that this high school dropout was able to turn her life around. I refused to allow anything to hold me back from my goals,” said Beck.


Rio Salado’s commencement theme, ‘Sustain Your Momentum’, encourages students to continue to pursue their dreams after college. With her focus on earning a Master’s degree, Beck says family support was a crucial component to her sustaining her momentum and reaching her goal.
“I would never have been able to reach my goal of graduation without the loving and positive support from my family. My wonderful husband of ten years Brian was the main reason I was able to accomplish so much at Rio Salado,” she said.


For more information about Rio Salado Commencement or the G.E.D. graduation, visit www.riosalado.edu/graduation.Rio Salado College offers more than 450 online courses. One of the ten Maricopa Community Colleges, tuition at Rio Salado College is $65 a credit. The college offers degrees and certificates in business, education, healthcare, law enforcement and more.

# posted by Rio Salado College : 1:15 PM

Math classes include online tutoring lab

MyMathLab part of Rio Salado math classes.


“Remember sitting in math class completely lost wishing your instructor would slow down or start over.

Imagine if your instructor came with a pause or rewind button.

Guess what, at Rio Salado College online math classes do. The classes include a state-of-art program called MyMathLab. In MyMathLab, students stymied by an abstract concept can hear the video explanation again and again and even pause the program to improve understanding.
The program includes numerous ways to get help, said Rio Salado Math Faculty Chair John Jensen. The resources are very complete, as they contain thousands of videos, sample exercises and many different ways to review and practice.

Donna Hazlewood, 47, hadn’t taken a math class for more than 20 years when she started back to school taking her prerequisites for nursing. Since that time she’s taken three online math classes using MyMathLab and has become a fan of the online tutoring program.
“I have learned a lot. It walks me through the steps so I can learn how to do the problems. So far I am doing pretty well,” said Hazlewood.

At Rio Salado all math classes from the very basic arithmetic to the challenging calculus include an online textbook complete with MyMathLab, the online tutoring lab.
Intriguing lectures captured on video, and concise and clear demonstrations and appealing practice tests make solving equations painless.

Initially Rio Salado college algebra student Mary Echtinaw called her instructor to drop the class. But with a few pointers from the instructor on how to use MyMathLab she’s sailing through quadratic equations, logarithms and rational exponents.
“MyMathLab was excellent. It taught me more than I would have ever learned in class,” said Echtinaw, who is working on earning a business degree.

“I really liked the problem simulation and you know immediately if you got it right,” said Echtinaw.

Need help with the concept of real numbers? Click on a short video clip. Still fuzzy about the concept? Click on the demonstration and watch the online computer screen flash through the problem. Ready to solve the problem? Click on a practice problem and get immediate feedback.
With the online format unlike the in-person class, students set the pace, not the teacher.
“You can control what’s going on in the lecture environment. Students can really solidify and review the content before taking an exam,” said Jensen.

One of the biggest advantages of taking the online math classes is the convenience and flexibility.
Hazlewood, a paramedic in Camp Verde, wouldn’t be in college without the online format.
“One of the main reasons I take online is there is no school near me. The closest school is Prescott plus I have a family and I work quite a lot. This is the only way to do it on my schedule,” said Hazelwood.

Echtinaw works full-time and has two daughters, 12 and nine months. Online classes have worked out well.

Rio Salado offers 15 math classes from basic arithmetic MAT082 to MAT241 –Calculus III. More than 5,000 students are enrolled in the classes. Classes start every Monday. For registration or more information call 480-517-8540 or go to www.riosalado.edu/registration

# posted by Rio Salado College : 1:12 PM