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I-BEST

Product or Programme · All products and programmes
Evidence · 4 claims (3 for, 1 against) · 6 studies (5 quant-synthesis, 1 causal), q3–q4 · 3 of 6 report an effect size · 2 claims rest on one study

Description

A Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges programme that integrates adult basic education with occupational training through team teaching and learner support services.

Components

  • I-BEST (Integrated Basic Education Skills and Training) program: I-BEST is Washington State's program integrating adult basic education and occupational skills training so students can, as the report states, "learn literacy, math, work, and college-readiness skills and move into living wage jobs faster." Its signature feature is team teaching by a basic skills instructor and an occupational instructor, plus a dedicated navigator providing career counseling and "fill-the-gap" financial support, tutoring, advising, and emergency child care and transportation. It was developed by SBCTC, first implemented in 2006–2007, and replicated as Accelerating Opportunity and ACE. (Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST))
  • Contextualized integrated basic skills and occupational training model: I-BEST rests on an instructional model that integrates adult basic education with occupational skills training instead of the traditional sequence in which basic skills courses must be completed before college-level occupational training. The report states I-BEST "uses a contextualized instruction approach, where students learn basic skills in the context of their course of study" — for example, emphasizing medical terms in a nursing program. This model "aims to improve the motivation and achievement of students by providing them experiences where they can see the usefulness of basic skills instruction in their chosen field," offering an alternative to a traditional track that generally resu (Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST))
  • Six team teaching models for integrating basic skills and occupational instruction: I-BEST's signature feature is team teaching, in which a basic skills instructor and an occupational instructor are both present for at least half of instructional time. The report enumerates six forms: "Traditional team teaching", "Collaborative teaching", "Complementary-supportive teaching", "Parallel instruction", "Differentiated split class", and "Monitoring teacher". In the Accelerating Opportunity evaluation all six types were used, with complementary-supportive most popular; in ACE the complementary-supportive model was typical; in the Washington I-BEST study collaborative teaching and two variants of traditional team teaching were implemented. (page:designs/ibest-team-teaching-models)

Claims

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Key Sources

  • What Works Clearinghouse, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. (2020, September). Integrated Basic Education Skills and Training (I-BEST). https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/InterventionReport/706
  • What Works Clearinghouse, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. (2020, September). Integrated Basic Education Skills and Training (I-BEST). https://whatworks.ed.gov
Page metadata
Field Value
type product
id i-best
title I-BEST
description A Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges programme that integrates adult basic education with occupational training through team teaching and learner support services.
status review
moved_from design/ibest-team-teaching-models, element/ibest-program-element, theory/ibest-integrated-contextualized-instruction-model
product_kind programme
generated by process:sweep-kinds on 2026-10-10
trust unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources 1 — what-works-clearinghouse-institute-of

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