Karen Craven, lead teacher and site manager for Adult Education in Floyd County, was named Georgia Northwestern Technical College’s (GNTC) Adult Education Teacher of the Year for 2023.

Craven said her approach to education relies on empowering students with the skills and confidence to solve problems for themselves, rather than giving them the answers. This teaching approach has helped her to facilitate class discussions and challenges students to develop the learning processes and mental skills that helps them to plan, monitor and achieve their goals.

“Finding different methods of presenting content—combined with the mindset that there is no student who is incapable of learning—allows every student to excel at their own pace,” Craven said. “It makes a world of difference for an individual student.”

Craven will be recognized as GNTC’s Teacher of the Year at the 2023 Dinah Culbreath Wayne Exceptional Adult Georgian in Literacy Education (EAGLE) Leadership Institute on March 1-2, 2023, in Atlanta. One instructor from Georgia’s 22 technical colleges will be selected as the Technical College System of Georgia’s (TCSG) Office of Adult Education Outstanding Teacher of the Year during a special recognition dinner; the date of the dinner will be announced later.

“Karen is the type of instructor that every Adult Education program needs on their team,” Lisa Shaw, vice president of Adult Education at GNTC, said. “She works hard to ensure she provides quality instruction that meets the individual needs of each student. Teaching is her passion, and every student matters to Karen.”

Craven began teaching Adult Education as a substitute teacher 16 years ago and then moved into a full-time position 11 years later. She said she considers her greatest accomplishment in education to be homeschooling all six of her children.

“It was obvious to me from the first day that Adult Education was very much like homeschooling,” Craven explained. “There were students of different ages studying different subjects with different learning needs together at the same time in the same room.”

The Adult Education program offers instruction in Adult Learning Centers throughout its nine-county service area. Instructional areas include preparation for the Georgia High School Equivalency (the GED® test or the HiSET® exam), Adult Secondary Education, Adult Basic Education and English as a Second Language. Centers have modern computer labs, study materials, resources and professional staff for both day and evening programs. Distance Learning options are also available.

Classes operate year-round and are offered at no cost. GNTC is an official GED® Testing Center and a site for computer-based GED® Testing in partnership with Pearson VUE, GED® Testing Services and the Technical College System of Georgia. For more information, contact GNTC’s Office of Adult Education at 706-295-6976.