Higher education reporter Katherine Long previews her story on Washington state's renowned I-BEST program.
Remedial courses can be a costly endeavor for a community college student. The majority of students at two-year schools aren’t prepared to enter right into college-level math when they arrive, and, in the time it takes to catch up, many end up exhausting their financial aid or dropping out from sheer discouragement.
Nationwide, only about a quarter of community-college students earn a degree or credential within eight years.
Enter I-BEST, a teaching method that started at Washington’s community and technical colleges and has been replicated in 29 other states. In I-BEST, which stands for Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training, two instructors teach in the same classroom, with one offering lessons in basic math or language arts skills and the other teaching a technical subject like anesthesiology or machinery.
Reporter Katherine Long examined I-BEST for our latest Education Lab story. Check out the video below to hear her describe what I-BEST looks like in action and why it’s been effective.
[kjr2014 url=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hwv8WsdNFe0″ height=”400″ /]