Teacher Compensation and IBEST Professional Development

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Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3100] Re: Dual Enrollment and the I-BESTModel at TCC
From: Lynn Pinder ywaction1 at yahoo.com
Date: Wed Feb 25 06:58:29 EST 2009

I would love to get feedback on how community colleges and other community-based adult and family literacy providers use state allocated funds and private foundation dollars to provide (1) paid opportunities for instructors to teach ABE/GED classes to Native English speakers; (2) paid planning/prep time for instructors to teach ABE/GED classes to Native English speakers; and (3) paid professional development to instructors to teach ABE/GED classes to Native English speakers.

Are there industry standards for paying adult/family literacy instructors, providing paid planning and prep time, and providing paid professional development to instructors who teach ABE/GED classes to Native English speakers? If so, please share a resource where I might find more data on this topic. Thanks!

Lynn Pinder
Senior Consultant
The TAKE ACTION! Network
www.thetakeactionnetwork.com

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3107] Re: Dual Enrollment and the I-BESTModel at TCC
From: Tina Bloomer tbloomer at sbctc.edu
Date: Wed Feb 25 12:24:42 EST 2009

Hi Lynn,

I can answer from the state-level perspective. Hopefully, Kim or Leslie can address the campus issues. Perhaps Leslie can chime in here to discuss the Center of Excellence in Education and the team teaching professional development opportunities they have provided and also about the Career Pathways Overview and Mini-Institute.

At the state level, we realized early on that it was key to bring the 10 pilots together to discuss the learning. We provided a couple of opportunities that brought together teams from the colleges representing both workforce and adult basic education. We took a facilitated discussion approach and really tried to give them space to voice what they were experiencing, while still providing technical assistance to the conversations.

The result of those discussions lead to the design of the model we have today including and enhance FTE model/high funded model that we have today. The funding models acknowledge the increased cost it takes to run I-BEST courses, which was a critical element voiced by those early innovators. The participants gave us high marks for these meetings.

As we wanted to move the program across our system, we first held a statewide planning meeting in part funded by our Ford Foundation Bridges to Opportunity Initiative grant. We strongly encouraged participation by all of the system’s 34 colleges (yes, we made phone calls to all the folks who hadn’t signed up). We had all colleges represented. They brought up to five people representing adult basic education, workforce education, student services, faculty and administrators. One of the purposes of the Bridges Initiative was to break down silos and we were definitely doing that here. We had a panel of peers from the demonstration project colleges as well as a presentation from David Prince of Tipping Point fame. SBCTC staff also spoke to the group about the vision and goals of I-BEST. Then there was team planning time to allow them to begin developing their I-BEST programs using a planning document that we provided. SBCTC and demonstration project staff spent time with the teams one-on-one to answer questions and help them along.

A year later, using the same funds, we had another statewide event focused on developing integrated learning outcomes. These are a critical component of the programs and clearly needed some attention. We were fortunate in having people in our system from Pierce college who were officially trained in Ruth Stiehl’s and were able to provide training that day. We also purchased a copy of Ruth Stiehl’s Outcomes Primer for each of the colleges. We had nearly 100% attendance from the colleges. Again they were asked to bring cross-function teams. Additionally, we had a breakout session for the administrators to talk about the challenges they were facing and come up with solutions.

The following year we held a statewide Career Pathways Institute, again using the same funds. The Institute was focused on developing a common vision, definition, and understanding of career pathways; clarifying the understanding of the value, benefits, and key characteristics of career pathways; and strengthening college teams and plan for college action. There were multiple concurrent sessions with a good amount of times for the teams to interact together. We brought in outside speakers for the two-day event. The purpose was to provide professional development for staff to expand their understanding of career pathways and strengthen their teams. Again the same type cross-functional teams were encouraged. Colleges could bring up to 8 team members. This event was very well received by the colleges and we have been asked to hold another one.

Tina

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3121] Professional Development with I-BEST
From: Jackie A. Taylor jackie at jataylor.net
Date: Fri Feb 27 10:02:21 EST 2009

Hi Tina, All,

Tina - thank you for your rich description of Washington State's I-BEST professional development! I can see that integrated education and training doesn't happen unless basic skills teachers, faculty, and administrators are trained.

I'm hearing some annual PD objectives that were key for Washington State. Could you help break this down for us or fill in the gaps on professional development purposes and/or objectives, from your experience? Do you have annual objectives and sample agendas from your trainings you could share? Here are key elements I'm garnering from your post below:

Pilots:

  • Share team teaching experiences
  • Identify key areas for designing a state model

Going to Scale:

Year 1: Purpose: how to plan and develop an I-BEST program and the necessary elements to bring about a cultural shift:

  • Bringing together silos (Basic Skills and

Professional/Technical)

  • Training across teams (faculty, admin, Work Force, ABE)
  • Administrative training

Year 2: Integrated Learning Outcomes Training Purpose:

  • Included all team members
  • break-out for administrators

Year 3: Career Pathways Institute Purpose: expand staff understanding of career pathways and strengthen teams

  • Develop a common vision, mission, definition and understanding

for career pathways

  • Clarify the understanding of the value, benefits, and key

characteristics of career pathways

  • Strengthen college teams and plan for college action

Year 4: ?

As you can see my understanding's still a bit vague. Any specifics you can offer would be great, including more about what integrated learning outcomes are, what one looks like, what the current PD need is and what you envision for next steps with PD for Washington State.

Thanks so much, Jackie

Jackie Taylor, PD List Facilitator, jackie at jataylor.net

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3147] Re: Professional Development with I-BEST
From: Tina Bloomer tbloomer at sbctc.edu
Date: Mon Mar 2 19:28:50 EST 2009

Hi Jackie, All,

You asked for an example of a professional development agenda (file attached) and what integrated learning outcomes look like. Colleges take the outcomes for the vocational course and integrate them with the adult basic education learning standards (or vice versa). The adult basic education learning standards are available on SBCTC's website at http://www.sbctc.ctc.edu/college/_e-abe_learningstandards.aspx). I am including a file developed by Jon Kerr, Lower Columbia College, that describes the process.

So for example integrated outcomes for Early Childhood Education could ( we don't prescribe what they should be, so there isn't a standard) look like the following:

1) Read with understanding to perform competently as a child care professional:

  • Recognize specialized, and abbreviated words related to Early Childhood Education.
  • Demonstrate confidence and familiarity with specialized content knowledge and vocabulary within authentic ECE materials.
  • Ability to locate important information in early learning specific text using a variety of strategies.
  • Monitor and enhance early learning for young children using a variety of strategies (i.e. problem solving, language development, literacy development).
  • Demonstrate recall, simple sequencing, categorization, paraphrasing, and graphs and charts to organize information and materials.
  • Demonstrate confidence in applying prior knowledge to assisting in understanding child and family education information, documents, and procedures.

2) Convey ideas in writing to perform competently as a child care professional:

  • Determine the purpose and audience for communicating in writing in order to perform required duties as a child care provider.
  • Use pre-writing and writing strategies to identify and organize ideas to support a single focus (i.e. reporting a safety incident, child progress report to staff and/or family members, provide instructions) and prepare a legible and comprehensible document.
  • Appropriate use of familiar and specialized early childhood education vocabulary to monitor child's behavior and progress.
  • Demonstrate ability to make simple revisions in writing with these revisions based upon review and feedback from others.
  • Produce lesson plans and activity reports related to early childhood education.

3) Speak so others can understand in order to perform competently as a child care professional:

  • Appropriate use and recall of vocabulary and grammar in order to communicate effectively with children and parents within an early childhood education work setting.
  • Demonstrated ability to elaborate ECE concepts with detail and examples, as well as select, organize, and relay information related to child development progress and learning as needed.
  • Application of a variety of verbal and non-verbal language skills to monitor and enhance communication effectiveness with staff, children, and parents within an early childhood education work setting.

4) Listen actively in order to perform competently as a child care professional:

  • Adapt response to diverse speakers and contexts when language is not specifically for English language learners in order to understand and respond appropriately to extensive discussion regarding children and family contexts.
  • Effectively use a variety of strategies to discern gaps in understanding as well as give feedback regarding procedures and processes necessary to maintain the safety and well-being of young children in the child care or early learning work environment.
  • Apply linguistic, socio-cultural and other knowledge to understand literal as well as implied intent of the speaker and to respond appropriately.

5) Use math to solve problems in order to communicate competently as an early childhood professional:

  • Use mathematical procedures appropriately to record data relating to the development of children. This includes providing accurate information on reports, plans, and charts.
  • Ability to communicate solutions to problems with visual representations on tables, charts, or graph, or elementary statistics.
  • Define, select, and organize common mathematical data.
  • Ability to measure with appropriate tools, orally describe patterns, and use procedures to develop mathematical lesson plans and activities appropriate in a child care or early learning setting.

Jackie, I think you've captured what we've done so far very well. We still have work to do on the professional development front ourselves. We are currently working on our next learning opportunity. What I would say is that I-BEST or anything that requires a significant cultural change needs reinforcement in as many ways as possible to keep the system moving forward. The development needs will be different based on system structure and the issues that arise. For example the current economic situation was unanticipated, so that was not built into any previous training. The key is having a system where people feel they can share their concerns as well as their successes and then being flexible enough to design opportunities that will keep the effort moving forward.

Tina

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3109] Re: professional development and compensation for instructors
From: Ward, Kim kward at tacomacc.edu
Date: Wed Feb 25 15:11:14 EST 2009

Hi Lynn, I will also chime in here and hopefully respond to your question about how we were able to pay instructors to participate. As you can see, professional development has been well supported at the state level which I think sends a clear message to the colleges about its importance to the success of I-BEST.

Our basic skills instructors are all part of our collective bargaining agreement, so they are paid in the same way any other academic or professional/technical instructor would be paid. In our collective bargaining agreement, we have a defined rate for “non instructional activities” and professional development can fall under this category. I set aside funds to provide stipends for faculty participating in these activities and pay instructors at that defined rate.

One thing that we have done on our campus is developed some “guidelines” for I-BEST instructors that outline expectations. Included in these guidelines is the expectation that instructors will meet on a regular basis to coordinate curriculum etc. We pay instructors for this time as well at that same “non instructional activities” rate.

I hope that helps to answer your question.

Kim Ward

Tacoma Community College
kward at tacomacc.edu
253.566.6048

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3111] Re: professional development and compensation for instructors
From: Leslie Heizer Newquist LHeizer at greenriver.edu
Date: Wed Feb 25 19:19:42 EST 2009

Chiming in on professional development at the state level for I-BEST instructors.

Washington is fortunate to have 11 Centers of Excellence, housed at community and technical colleges across the state. Each center provides statewide leadership within an industry that is critical to state economic growth. In collaboration with industry, each Center provides statewide education and training. (more at: http://www.sbctc.ctc.edu/college/_e-wkforcecentersofexcellence.aspx)

The Center of Excellence for Careers in Education has provided professional development for I-BEST instructors based on expressed needs of instructors and colleges. Topics have included: 1-day overview of I-BEST, intensive 3-day team teaching and shared outcomes development institute, and additional training for more experienced instructors. As Tina Bloomer noted, the Career Pathways Institute sponsored by the state board was very well received. The Center of Excellence for Careers in Education worked with SBCTC to provide a follow-up to this institute, which included education and career pathway information and dedicated work time for college teams to apply new learning.

Leslie HN

Leslie Heizer Newquist
Green River Community College
lheizer at greenriver.edu<mailto:lheizer at greenriver.edu>

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3113] Re: professional development andcompensation for instructors
From: Jackie A. Taylor jackie at jataylor.net
Date: Thu Feb 26 12:47:45 EST 2009

Hi Kim, All,

Kim: I'm very interested in the document you mentioned on setting expectations with instructors to implement professional development. Do you have a copy you could share?

Also, you mentioned that teachers are paid to attend professional development, have paid planning time and time to collaborate with one another to coordinate curriculum. Are there any challenges you face in implementing I-BEST? If so, what are they?

I'd like to hear from others on these points, too! Keep it coming.

Thanks...Jackie

Jackie Taylor, jackie at jataylor.net

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 3119] Re: Instructor guidelines and challenges
From: Ward, Kim kward at tacomacc.edu
Date: Fri Feb 27 00:36:33 EST 2009

Hi All, attached are the guidelines we developed. Notice the document is still in draft form as this is something we are trying out this year. it seems like we are constantly learning, changing, and exploring new ways to approach all of this. It is definitely a work in progress. Jackie asked if there are challenges in implementing I-BEST. For us the answer is definitely yes. I'll start with just a couple of challenges we faced, but please feel free to ask about others:

#1 Finding the right match: We joke on our campus that I-BEST is like an arranged marriage. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. A team teaching environment can be a difficult place to be, especially if one person or the other sees the endeavor as the other program's initiative. You have to find teams who are equally invested in the program. The team members also have to be open to constructive criticism, feedback, and open to completely changing the way they are used to doing things. This isn't the place for the instructor who is reluctant to speak up when something isn't working nor is it for the instructor who likes routine and "the predictable".

#2 coordination: Coordination at every level and in every way can be a challenge. We have I-BEST programs in three different divisions. Getting instructors together for professional development activities has been very difficult for us, especially when departments or divisions are doing last minute hires or folks are still working in industry or have obligations to teach at another colleges in the area. The state board has done a great job of providing opportunities for professional development, and they have been very good. Unfortunately, the workshops aren't always available when you need them. We have discussed developing something in-house, but have not been able to coordinate the time to do it.

At TCC we integrate our I-BEST and traditional college level students. So, coordinating schedules with the professional technical departments, arranging for "slots" in certain classes, finding times when you can get instructors together to meet, etc. etc.

Thanks,

Kim Ward
Tacoma Community College
kward at tacomacc.edu

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