Resource Library

Slides from the December 9, 2020 webinar Leveraging Your Pathway Advisory Board to Engage Industry Partners And Keep Students Connected To Purpose.

Webinars, Career-Technical Education, General, Lessons Learned, Partnerships, Workforce Development, Work-Based Learning

Recording of Linked Learning Alliance's Empowering Civic Action in Youth Through Linked Learning webinar on October 28, 2020.

Webinars, Equity, Lessons Learned, Partnerships, Rigorous Academics, Work-Based Learning

Survey results from the Spring 2020 survey of juniors and seniors in seven key Linked Learning districts on the impacts of COVID-19 on students.

Research, College & Career Readiness, COVID19, Equity, Lessons Learned, Outcomes, Postsecondary, Student Supports

This webinar brought together 80+ practitioners to discuss how to provide effective and engaging online educational experiences in a virtual Linked Learning environment.

Webinars, Leadership Development, Lessons Learned

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

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

This brief describes the successes and challenges school districts have experienced in fostering access and equity in Linked Learning pathways, examining five groups of students frequently underserved by traditional schools. Findings are drawn from an SRI Education evaluation in nine California school districts over seven years. The report also includes information on promising strategies enacted by the districts today.

Research, Equity, Lessons Learned

An executive summary highlighting key findings from the seventh-year evaluation report.

Research, Lessons Learned, Outcomes

Full realization of the Linked Learning approach requires the support of a coherent set of school district human resource and student enrollment policies as well as infrastructure for work-based learning placements. Leaders in the nine demonstration districts identified the key district-specific implementation strategies below as crucial to establishing and sustaining Linked Learning.

Research, Lessons Learned