Lashallah's I-Best Paper

Lashallah Osborne
ENGLC0831/Adult Language and Literacy
Professor Gleason
April 27, 2010


The I-Best Approach to Teaching Adult Literacy


In the current economic state of our country, a college degree has become necessary to obtain a job that pays a decent salary and offers an opportunity to be considered middle class. This will require earning a technical certificate in a field such as construction, health care, or engineering, and/or an associate or bachelor’s degree that will help people with starting a professional career. While more people are attending college now than in the past, there is only a percentage of about half of Americans who earn a college degree or certificate after high school. As a matter of fact, very few students who begin community colleges graduate due to financial responsibilities and/or family obligations. In addition and very importantly, a huge challenge is that too many students in college are under prepared academically. These are non-traditional students who have specific needs and most colleges have limited resources to support them with issues that make it difficult to successfully complete school such as balancing the demands of work, school, and family.

In 2004, the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (WSBCTC) piloted an integrated approach to serve low-skills adults. The Integrated Basic Education Skills Training (I-BEST) program was designed for English as a Second Language (ESL) and Adult Basic Education (ABE) students. The I-BEST program is comprised of a classroom team of teachers and specialized professional instructors who co-teach an integrated course that consist of language and vocational skills training simultaneously. The approach was motivated by the idea that incorporating basic skills in the context of materials of subjects that are of strong interest to students can enhance their learning as adults. With this concept in mind and also to address students' employment needs, the I-BEST approach is collaborated with a workforce program.
The state of Washington has experienced an enormous number of non-English speaking immigrants, like many other states in the United States. In addition, the high school drop-out rate also similar to other states is very high. For this reason, the WSBCTC designed the I-BEST program to reach students with limited English proficiency and low skill levels STOP HERE. START NEW SENTENCE that will help them to obtain better employment. Research shows that "between 1990 and 2000, the adult population of non-English speakers more than doubled, growing from 117,000 to 261,000." CITE YOUR SOURCE HERE. It has also been revealed that although many ESL and ABE low-skilled students sought education in either ESL or ABE classes, very few of them were able to successfully transition into high skill jobs.
I-BEST was developed by the WSBCTC and 32 community and technical colleges to better support ESL and ABE students in advancing to certificate and degree completion. The goal is to direct students on a path to earning a higher income for themselves by helping them to achieve 45 college-level credits and a vocational certificate in a career field of their choice. I-BEST classes integrate college credit courses with English language and adult basic skills. I-BEST classes include five hours a week of non-credit Adult Basic Education (ABE) and English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction. Students can earn a short term certificate for each of these programs. Certificate credits apply to specific associate degrees. There are a variety of majors offered, they include: Architecture/Engineering, Automotive/Engine Repair, Commercial Driver's License/Transportation, Corrections/Law Enforcement, Early Childhood Education, Healthcare, Manufacturing/Trades and Office and Support Technology. Students can earn a certificate for each of these programs. Certificate credits apply to specific associate degrees.
The I-BEST approach involves contextualized instruction and is not appropriate for students with very low levels of English proficiency. Students are assessed on the Washington State Competency System. The range level is from one to six. The average I-BEST student scores a four. Basic skills teachers and career instructors collaboratively design and teach college level "workforce" courses for the adult basic skills students. "Instruction in basic skills is thereby integrated with instruction in college-level career-technical skills. This model challenges the conventional notion that basic skills instruction should be completed by students prior to starting college-level course." Therefore, the approach offers the potential to facilitate the transition of ABE and ESL into college.
I-BEST affords low-skill adult learners the opportunity to develop their literacy skills as they learn vocational skills. As non-traditional college students they spend just as much time on academics as they do gaining knowledge of specific skills in order to pursue careers in high demand fields. Because they are non-traditional students, they are likely to have outside responsibilities that can conflict with the obligations of being a student. Adult learners often have family and/or employment priorities that make it difficult for them to focus and totally commit to school.
An essential component of the I-BEST approach is the supportive services the students are afforded. In addition to having two instructors in the classroom, the I-BEST staff supports students by advising, tutoring and mentoring them in order to address many of the obstacles that can interfere with them completing the program successfully. Some of these issues may include health issues, childcare or transportation. I-BEST administrators emphasize that substantial and intentional planning take place before, during and after the program in order to decrease the possibility of failing. The colleges provide a high level of student services to these non-traditional students to address their needs accordingly.
Although I-BEST is relatively new, results of the program are remarkable. A study was conducted on students who enrolled between 2006-2007 and for students who persisted into the 2007-2008 academic year. The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of being in I-BEST as it relates to earning college credits and the amount of them that was earned in vocational courses. The study also examined if the students continued for an additional academic year; whether a certificate or an associate degree was earned; and if the students achieved educational gains on basic skills tests. Comparisons were made on I-BEST, non I-BEST and non I-BEST workforce groups.
In total, 896 I-BEST students were enrolled at 24 Washington state community or technical colleges for the 2006-2007 academic year. 30,182 non I-BEST students were studied as well as 1,356 non I-BEST participants who took a workforce course. It should be noted that while the non-I-BEST workforce group took basic skills and vocational classes, it was not contextualized instruction, nor was it designed to "accelerate the transition from basic skills to college-level workforce programs. However, the non I-BEST workforce program is the most comparable to the I-BEST program.

Table 3. Educational Outcomes of Basic Skills Students Over Two Academic Years, 2006-2008
Student Type
Earned any college credits
Mean # of college credits
Earned any vocational credits
Mean # of vocational credits
Earned a certificate
Earned an associate degree
Earned a certificate or associate degree
I-BEST
90.0%
48.7
87.8%
41.5
54.1%
0.2%
54.2%
Non I-BEST
7.0%
2.3
5.3%
1.4
0.8%
0.0%
0.8%
Non I-BEST Workforce group
64.2%
35.7
59.6%
24.8
17.8%
0.2%
18.0%
Community College Research Center, 2009

According to Table 3, shown above, over the course of two years I-BEST students were much more likely than non I-BEST students to advance to college-level work and to earn college and vocational credits. The non I-BEST workforce students earned more credits than the non I-BEST students but neither earned more than the I-BEST students. In addition, 54 percent of I-BEST students earned a certificate or a degree as opposed to less than one percent of the non I-BEST students and 18 percent of non I-BEST Workforce students.
The I-BEST program is a not only great for the students but has incentives for the community colleges as well. WSBCTC’s Student Achievement Initiative rewards colleges n for enrolling students as well as for supporting them through key milestones that ultimately lead to graduation. The Initiative offers the colleges financial incentives when their students reach certain academic milestones such as completing five credits in college-level math or moving from remedial to college-level courses. These factors have proved to be imperative in successfully completing college.

The State Board of Community and Technical Colleges is planning to extend I-BEST to other colleges in Washington State. This strategy relates to economic development, with I-BEST courses at individual colleges aligning with high-wage, high-demand jobs within their communities. Unemployment and literacy issues will be addressed as a result of these programs in Washington State. However, doing so requires a great deal of funding, planning and training. Running such a program can become costly due to the need for two instructors in every classroom and hiring counselors and job developers to assist in creating pathways from low level jobs to higher skilled and better paying careers. Also, when planning, research teams must be sure that local employment will be in high demand to provide positions for students upon completing the program. However, data on the students' accomplishments is evidence that such a program is highly necessary. In the future, Community College Research Center researchers plan to conduct fieldwork to better understand the process of how students are selected for the program. They will also extend this study by examining degree attainment and workforce outcomes of I-BEST students over a longer period of time, by collecting budget and financial data to estimate program how cost-effective the program is, and by evaluating the practices of I-BEST programs that produce better outcomes.








Works Cited


http://www.ccrc.tc.edu Community College Research Center

http://www.sbct.edu Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, December 2005

http://www.highereducation.org/reports/policy_practice/IBEST.pdf