The growth in the tech industry in recent years has increased business major students' interest in software programming and app development. However, the traditional way of teaching these courses involves intensive coding exercises and little interaction among students. These methods often discourage the students due to the slow learning curve and…

The CORE Districts, a nonprofit formed by large urban districts in California, received a Networks for School Improvement grant from the Gates Foundation to launch a network focused on improving ninth-grade on-track rates. CORE based its approach on the Institute for Healthcare Improvement's Breakthrough Collaborative model, where a hub identifies…

A customized guide about liberatory design thinking processes that have been tested within college settings to support changes that enhance equity in policies and practices within institutions. This research is based on case studies of several institutions, including focus group interviews with the campus design teams and an analysis of artifacts.…

Project With is an innovative, literary-based curriculum designed for justice-involved youth. The curriculum has 12 lessons in which youth read a literary selection, such as a short story or poem; discuss the literary work with their peers and a facilitator; and participate in an activity aligned with the lesson's main idea. Project With can be…

The COVID-19 pandemic, along with historical inequities, resulted in a widening of the achievement gap between underserved populations and more advantaged students. In response to this issue, California took action by allocating additional funds to public school districts for out-of-school-time services through the Expanded Learning Opportunities…

Communities in California and around the country are implementing learning hubs to provide in-person education supports to students who are distance learning. In this brief, we explore a prevalent learning hub model and raise considerations for local policymakers, schools, and expanded learning partners. We include guidance for the design and…

In 2014, researchers at the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California (USC) received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement in Postsecondary Education's First in the World program to do research aimed at understanding how games can be used to cultivate college knowledge and…

Sharing the journey of developing an ePortfolio assignment, this article focuses on the design process, implementation, and benefits of the ePortfolio as a capstone project for a bachelor's degree program using a constructivist approach. Integrating constructivist educational practices (e.g., student-centered learning, autonomy, self-regulation,…

During the global pandemic of the 2020-21 school year, school districts rapidly transitioned from the traditional in-person structure of school to distance learning. This research study sought to understand how superintendents envisioned virtual learning as an option within their school district portfolio, exploring the barriers faced in its…

This second brief on learnings from career education (CE) opportunities in the California Community Colleges (CCC) focuses on what college personnel described as barriers to designing and implementing programs with features that students find helpful, as described in the first brief of this series (ED610768) (e.g., cohorts, consistent course…

More than 5 years after the passage of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), California school districts continue to develop and refine strategies to act on the opportunities and expectations associated with the state's school finance system. A new project called the LCFF Test Kitchen has enabled three school districts to make progress by…

Over the last decade, The California Endowment (TCE) has invested in 14 communities that have historically been marginalized and denied opportunities for their residents to thrive. The initiative, known as Building Healthy Communities (BHC), focuses on creating places where children are healthy, safe, and ready to learn. Del Norte and Tribal Lands…

Community partnerships empower charter schools by strengthening their capacity to serve the needs of students, families, and staff through deliberate partnerships with community-based entities. The autonomy that charter schools are afforded uniquely equips them with the flexibility to engage partners and even design schools for which one or more…

Community colleges play a critical role in providing access to higher education for over two million Californians seeking an educational foundation that will prepare them to transfer to a four-year university or to participate in the workforce. However, community colleges have not always delivered on that promise--fewer than half of students who…

Immigrant adults in the United States often have limited opportunities to learn English. To address this issue and to strengthen the preparation of future English language teachers, a practicum course offered in a Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA TESOL) program in California was modified to engage student…