$3.5 million grant aims to increase digital, career, and college-readiness skills of adult English learners
10 community and technical colleges grantee recipients
OLYMPIA, Wash. – Seattle Central students with low-level English skills will have access to new, technology-enhanced educational resources thanks to sharing in a $3.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) announced the Integrated Digital English Acceleration (I-DEA) project grant earlier this month, and Seattle Central was one of 10 community and technical colleges tapped to benefit in the first year.
The program, which builds on the success of the nationally recognized Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) initiative, targets adult learners in the lowest three levels of English as a Second Language. By the end of the project pilot, I-DEA students will increase their English language, digital and career-readiness skills with fewer hours of instruction than those in traditional programs.
For the next three years, Seattle Central will offer ESL learners a combination of face-to-face and online instruction. Lauren DiZazzo, dean of Basic and Transitional Studies, said educators planned to use the funds to develop curricula. “We will also be able to invest in a laptop lending library so that students can access the online learning materials,” she said. “We are excited to be part of this first round of implementation and we think this will have a great impact on our students.”
Among other goals, college and partnering community-based organizations (CBOs) will identify best practices of technology-enhanced instruction that allows more students to be served with less in-class instruction. Courses and techniques developed through this grant will be open sourced, allowing colleges and CBOs around the state to replicate I-DEA.
“This generous grant means our colleges can develop innovative, technology-based tools to tap the potential of a growing and under-served population,” said Marty Brown, SBCTC executive director. “Not only will it lead to better skills and better jobs for the students; their success increases the economic vitality of the state.”
In its first year, the project will support 10 college and CBO learning hubs across the state, adding 10 additional sites in the second year, and the remaining 14 college-CBO partnerships in the third year. Eventually, I-DEA will serve about 1,600 adult learners at all 34 Washington state community and technical colleges and partner CBOs.
The first 10 grantees were named today during the State Board business meeting: Big Bend Community College, Institute for Extended Learning (Spokane Falls CC), Lake Washington Institute of Technology, North Seattle Community College, Pierce College Puyallup, Renton Technical College, Seattle Central Community College, Shoreline Community College, Tacoma Community College, and Walla Walla Community College.
The project lays a foundation to prepare students to enter I-BEST and other programs aimed at boosting job-specific skills. I-BEST challenges the traditional notion that students must complete basic education before beginning a job-training program, an approach many students find discouraging. Instead, I-BEST places two instructors in each classroom – one to teach technical content, the other to teach basic skills in reading, math, writing or English – enabling to move faster through school and into jobs. I-BEST students also start earning college credits immediately.
The U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Martha Kanter recently recognized I-BEST as the only program proven to move this population of adults further and faster to postsecondary education credentials.