Resource Library

This report summarizes highlights from the 2016–2017 fiscal year.

Communications, General

Portfolio defense is a key component of the curriculum, requiring students to demonstrate their academic achievement by defending their learning to a panel of teachers and students. This step-by-step guide explains how to set up portfolio defense at a school.

Curriculum & Instruction, College & Career Readiness, Going for Gold, Continuous Improvement

Perkins V includes several provisions that support the implementation of Linked Learning and other high-quality college and career pathways initiatives. Linked Learning is an approach to high school redesign that combines (1) rigorous academics, (2) high-quality CTE, (3) work-based learning, and (4) integrated student supports. Increasingly, Linked Learning also provides students with opportunities to earn postsecondary credit while they still are in high school. These components are woven together in industry-themed pathways that provide for a relevant, hands-on learning experience for high school students.

Research, Policy, Getting Started, Continuous Improvement

This report summarizes highlights from the 2017–2018 fiscal year.

Communications, General

Equitable access to high quality career-themed high school pathways requires that school staff and all pathway partners work in concert to address each student’s developmental needs, skills, strengths, interests, and aspirations. To this end, effective student supports are designed to reach beyond the academic domain, to meet all students where they are, scaffold their engagement with a standards-based curriculum, and address their learning and personal youth development needs. This guidebook continues an exploration of integrated student supports for universal college and career readiness that we began in Equitable Access by Design (2016). That report introduced a conceptual framework for implementing a system of comprehensive and integrated student supports that provides equitable access to a coherent, student-centered program of learning via Linked Learning pathways in high schools. This work is intended as a companion to Marisa Saunders’ Linked Learning: A Guide for Making High School Work, published by the University of California, Los Angeles in 2013. The chapters in this guidebook offer seven illustrative profiles of educators and their partners in California high schools who are working collaboratively to develop comprehensive student supports that “link together” a rigorous academic curriculum, technical education, and workplace opportunities into a coherent learning experience for every youth in their school.

Research, Equity, Lessons Learned, Student Supports, Getting Started, Steps to Silver, Going for Gold, Continuous Improvement

This brief presents findings from the Oakland Health Pathways Project (OHPP), a joint initiative of Oakland Unified School District, Alameda Health System, and Alameda County Health Care Services Agency. The initiative is designed to improve educational and long-term employment outcomes for youth of color in Oakland (Alameda County), California, while expanding and diversifying the local health care workforce. It applies Linked Learning, an approach to college and career preparation that combines classroom learning with real-world work experiences. This brief draws on interviews with key personnel from the three partner organizations to distill lessons learned on effective cross-sector partnerships and delivery of authentic work-based learning. These lessons are timely as the health care industry is projected to account for about a third of total U.S. job growth through 2026, and includes 20 of the 30 fastest growing occupations nationally. Findings from this Oakland initiative can help other communities better align K-12 education and student experiences with projected local labor needs.

Research, Lessons Learned, Partnerships, Work-Based Learning, Continuous Improvement

Linked Learning Alliance president Anne Stanton facilitates a panel discussion with Jorge Ruiz de Velasco, Deputy Director of the John Gardner Center at Stanford University, Marisa Saunders, Senior Research Associate at UCLA/IDEA, and Liz Guillen, Public Advocates' Director of Legislative and Community Affairs.

Communications, Student Supports

This case study details how the four communities of the Great Lakes College and Career Pathways Partnership are working to systematically move the needle to ensure that all young people are prepared to not only meet the current and emerging needs of the workplace, but to also find value and meaning in their working lives, and fully realize their best possible futures.

Research, Equity, Partnerships, Workforce Development, Continuous Improvement

This overview presentation provides a general introduction to Linked Learning. It includes speaker notes.

This brief presents findings from the Oakland Health Pathways Project (OHPP), a joint initiative of Oakland Unified School District, Alameda Health System, and Alameda County Health Care Services Agency. The initiative is designed to improve educational and long-term employment outcomes for youth of color in Oakland (Alameda County), California, while expanding and diversifying the local health care workforce. It applies Linked Learning, an approach to college and career preparation that combines classroom learning with real-world work experiences. This brief draws on interviews with key school and pathway personnel, as well as focus groups and surveys of participating students in their senior year, to describe the experiences of being enrolled in health pathways and the perceived impact of participation on college and career readiness.

Research, College & Career Readiness, Lessons Learned, Partnerships, Workforce Development, Continuous Improvement