Welcome to CLIMBS
CLIMBS (Content and Language Integration as a Means of Bridging Success), is a course designed to raise awareness of the needs of English language learners and foster collaboration among ESL/bilingual and general education/subject-area teachers with the aim of supporting the academic success of ELLs in school and beyond.
The purpose of the course is to help school staff better meet the needs of ELLs by:
- providing a space in which educators can collaborate on classroom instruction and assessment for ELLs;
- helping educators integrate content and language standards; and
- acquainting educators with research-based practices that support the learning of ELLs.
The course is offered in sites across the consortium by facilitators who are nominated by their state or district, then trained and authorized by WIDA. Authorized facilitators offer the course to school teams of ESL/bilingual and general education teachers. The semester-long course includes face-to-face and online workshops. School and district administrators are invited and encouraged to participate in as many of the sessions as possible.
Language acquisition research, a sheltered instruction model, the WIDA ELP Standards, and state content standards are the foundational pieces of the course, along with one textbook. Teachers use student data from the ACCESS for ELLs® test and other assessments, ELP and content standards, and peer observation to inform instruction.