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We're going to take another question from the audience: Irene Challek.
Okay, so, Irene says,
Please define the difference between bridge programs and transition to college programs.
I'm going to our Christopher Coro
to define this for us and explain the difference. Well, first of all I would say
that 'bridge programs' is a term that appears in Department of Education publications.
'Transition to college programs' as a term isn't one that we use sort of in 'department speak'.
What I take from the question, though,
is that transition to college programs probably involved... are a type of bridge program
leading specifically to some form of postsecondary education.
Whereas the way the Department is using bridge programs,
it isn't,
the other side of the bridge isn't necessarily
postsecondary education. It could be some kind of occupational training.
It could be the occupation itself and some kind of on-the-job training.
It's the whole notion
of the person not only learning the basic skills: the reading, the writing, the math,
but also the learning-to-learn part
and being ready for whatever's on the other side of that bridge.
I could add, I think it's true a bridge program has two outcomes: one is the educational advancement;
the other is the employment advancement, and some of our students do one or the other.
They don't necessarily advance educationally. They might opt out,
you know, the off ramp,
for a while before they come back on the on ramp.
But it's very important for us to provide
for our bridge students that do want to advance educationally the support, the transition-to-college services
that they need, and believe me they need them.
You know, to be able to navigate a financial aid system, you know we found out that's critical.
We almost have to start with students when they start our bridge program, you know, sixteen weeks ahead
of it to start that process.
So those support services, I think to make that transition is very important.
We do in our partnership with the community colleges.
We do a technical specialty course at the community college.
So they're going, you know, for their CNC machining
as part of the program, where we do the other transition.
You know they're more comfortable with us really. It's a smaller
safe environment and they're a little intimidated by the big community college and,
you know, the security and everything so
so to make that transition I think it is important
to be able to take them as a group to the college.
Okay
From our Twitter: @azzano tweets
How did you develop bridge programs for those with limited English proficiency?
I think this must be for Tom, yeah.
Sure uh... Okay
Yeah, thank you.
I mean, given our organization, Instituto Del Progreso Latino, this is part of our mission
to do it ... it was critical. Our board decided
early on - fifteen or twenty years ago - that it was important
uh... for people learning English to learn English for work.
So we started developing, you know, how can we start doing that?
It was part of a big project. We had a company that wanted to hire a lot of people.
There was a skills gap between the skills they needed
and where they were at, and we started trying to bridge that gap.
And Dr. Davis Jenkins, you know, one of the,
you know, came down to visit and said, "Tom you got a bridge program?"
I said, "A what?"
Oh, a bridge, oh oh, you're bridging into employment, you're bridging onto
working with the resources in the community college,
so that's how we, I think, got started and we of course
based it a lot on what had gone before in terms of contextualizing learning,
you know, for career paths.
And
so it's been a process I guess overtime, really, that it's continued to
develop based on what we learned, based on what we learned from others.
And to learn that it's also important, I think, to connect our lower level language learners, you know
into the next level. We start people at about a fourth grade level
as measured on a TABE Test
so that can be sixteen weeks for them to advance two grade levels; they can go then to
the next level for
you know uh... another uh... you know two years and and they're reading.
So hopefully by the time they go into our pre college bridge program
they're at at least an eighth grade level and begin to advance more to the
point where they can enter college.
And that's been an important element also.
As you know we like say manufacturing is another way to go to college,
and I think that it's very motivational for our students and their families.
And I think it makes sense, in terms of
their employability in the future, but it takes a lot of work I think to
support students as they move
along this pathway, so those wrap-around services and everything
are also critical.
Did you integrate math and technology into those programs for your limited
English proficient adults?
Yes, definitely we learned that those were critical elements for both outcomes
both for employment and for advancing further. They'd need computer skills
in college; they'd need computer skills on the job, so we needed to start at a very early level.
A lot of our English-language learners, when they come in they're really
have a fear of those computers.
They almost don't want to touch them. I might break something.
And so it takes a while, and we really have a bilingual approach, you know,
with our instructors where they're learning the technical terminology in English,
but they're able to get more support, you know, for their questions and concepts in Spanish.
So as they progress along the content in English, knowing increases.
I think that also raises or resurrects again that earlier complex question about developing the teachers
because perhaps in some cases the regular ESL teacher
isn't the one to be doing the bridge program if there is some math of some level involved.
And I'm not saying ESL teachers don't know math, but I'm just saying
not all of them may know math well enough to be able to teach it
at the level that they have to teach it if it's a bridge program for English Language Learners
in which case there's got to be an alternative for the sake of the student.
Is it a co-teaching model? Do you bring in a specialist?
But you've got to figure that piece out.
It looks like we have another question from the live audience here, Kathleen writes
and asks: You talked about measurements.
Could you elaborate on what type of measurements and outcomes that might be expected?
I think we're gonna...
I think that was you who talked a little bit about performance metrics and things like that, so...
Mine again.
Anybody here work with the Workforce Investment Act?
You know about outcome measurement!
Then, so we're measuring enrollments, completions, and unlike most community colleges in the past we also have to measure
placements and retention on the job so those are all important indicators.
We also now, the workforce boards in the city of Chicago have embraced bridge programs; they have a separate
funding of WIA dollars for bridge contracts.
And then they also include a measurement about did they increase their learning?
Did they advance?
You know, you do a pre- and post test and look at the, you know, the learning gains
so learning gains has become another measure.
I think too that as we build these courses and these pathways
there's an opportunity for the teacher and the student to really
use what I would call nontraditional kinds of metrics but more formative assessment kinds of things.
And maybe we have to take a little time in that bridge course design
to think about what they might be because
the best ones might not be the post tests that we're going to administer as a part of the grant obligation.
But what are the things that that student can demonstrate along the way that
tell both the teacher and the student that we're making progress here?
And how can we describe those to somebody who doesn't speak
necessarily our "edu-speak" kinds of language?
And
also
how
how can we
build those in so that they're a part of instruction? I think sometimes when we talk about formative assessment
folks assume, "Oh no! We already do NRS testing! Now they want us to give them another one!"
Assessment and test are not synonymous, you know,
and you can do lots of things that are instructional activities that are actually learning
that are also assessing at the same time if you can deconstruct them right.
Like looking at welds...
...or I'm sure that there are things in IT that you could look at it, or in engineering,
right, that
would give you
an indication of how they're doing. Exactly.
Okay it looks like we have time for one more question, and this comes from our audience.
Can locally initiated bridge programs succeed without state-level inter-agency leadership?
Wow, okay.
I'm just gonna toss that up and see who speaks first!
I think we did for quite a while, but now that we have inter-agency,
state-level leadership, it's a big help.
In the state of Illinois now they've determined that
adult education programs must connect with career programs
at least to a significant extent.
And so I think that's
voluntary this year and is about to become mandatory next year so that took a lot of
cooperation and coordination and it's great to have that support from the state level.
Chris?
I think (and I'm going to answer metaphorically)
okay, and therefore hypothetically
I think that an island that wants to be excellent can always be excellent
if it wants to badly enough.
I think if the people on that island or somebody else have any desires to colonize
and go elsewhere
it's much easier to do
with policy-level support
be it at the state level, at federal level, whatever it happens to be.
Did you have something there, too, Tom?
I just personally think
there is risk
when you want to operate in a silo
because you don't always take in
the benefits of collaboration and that partnership
and so often
you may miss the mark.
And all of a sudden you've made a lot of investment in time and other resources
and people looking at your program say it will be nice but why didn't you include these
level of requirements that the state is asking, my common grant
grantees are asking for and the like.
So I just get a little concerned when we want to be within ourselves,
when we don't have to be. Kind of in that global
mentality, sooner or later you're going to come into contact with somebody else.
Yes!
No matter how hard you try, you can't stay a silo forever.
Yeah, but you may be in a situation to where you don't have the state level interagency leadership,
and I'd say, hey, go for it anyway.
You know, it's out of our control at the local level so
you know it's too important
to just throw up our hands and say, Well the state doesn't have it together, so...
But once you gain that traction it seems like the people
do get on the... Well and I think the way I understand
their history, too, in their case
my island metaphor doesn't really work too well because
if there's one thing I get
from Ricardo Estrada's presentations about what Instituto did
they were constantly
reaching out
to everybody around them, maybe not to the state level at particular points in history, but
certainly out into the community in doing exactly what you were suggesting.
They were making sure that they were hooked up.
And this is a strategic way to get your brand out there -
your expertise, known.
Don't take, don't lose that.
That's intellectual property that you have earned.
Well, thank you! Thank you so much for
your comments and all your questions.
This concludes the webcast for Developing Effective Bridge Programs
I'd like to invite you, those of you here and virtually participating to continue
the conversation and learn what's happening in the field online at the ACP
in the ACP community at our website. You can register for free on the ACP
Training and support website to be among the first to receive information
about the launch of the Developing Effective Bridge Programs course in December.
And, finally, this webcast and the previous webcast on Building Strategic Partnerships
are archived and will be archived and available on our site at, only to
registered members of the Adult Career Pathways Training and Support Center,
so we ask you to join us there.
Again, I'd like you to join me in thanking Chris, Tom, and Donald for their participation today.
It was really a great discussion.
And I welcome you to join us virtually again in the community where if there
were questions that you had that weren't answered we've got them in the queue.
We will post them to the ACP Online Community, and you can join us there.
Donald, Tom, and Chris will also be available to answer questions in the online community.
And again we appreciate the National College Transition Network for hosting the conference,
and are grateful to the US Department of Education for sponsoring and
participating and in the webcast series. Thank you all.
Have a good afternoon!