We were honored to meet and get to know so many of you at this year’s Linked Learning Alliance Convention in Anaheim, and to learn from colleagues new and old. In the spirit of sharing lessons across our field so that every student can be better prepared for college, career and life, please find links to all of ConnectED’s presentations from this year’s convention below. As always, please get in touch if you have any questions or want to learn more.

Linked Learning pathways teachers know that the goal of schooling isn’t to finish assignments, pass the exam, or make the grade point cut-off—but rather to become competent, critical, life-long communicators, critical thinkers and problem-solvers. To get students there requires attention to “transfer of learning.” While Linked Learning pathways represent a perfectly designed environment for transfer of learning, years of attention to standardized testing, top-down accountability, and district-to-site relationships built on compliance may have left relational and cultural residues throughout the district system that make transfer more challenging.

In this dynamic, workshop-style session, participants learned about a professional development method—cross-role inquiry projects for instructional improvement—that can help strengthen professional relationships, while deepening instructional leadership and practice. From this collaborative, hands-on session, participants took away a clearer understanding of what transfer of learning looks like, as well as what role you can play to help pathways students effectively transfer their learning—no matter how close or far your job might be from the classroom.

ConnectED has partnered with Inland Empire districts to scale instructional innovation through improvement science, networked improvement communities, and approaches learned from the Billions Institute Skid Row School for Large-Scale Change. ConnectED and Colton Unified shared lessons from their partnership and the processes used to scale innovation within and between school districts

In the last few years, community colleges, high schools, adult schools, four-year colleges, industry, and other stakeholders across California have increasingly collaborated in designing and implementing 9-16 pathways in order to increase post-secondary completion and the likelihood of employment.

In this presentation, staff from ConnectED and Career Ladders Project shared what it takes to develop pathways that extend the boundaries of high school and college. Dig in to learn about the evidence-based elements needed to support schools in mapping successful K16 pathways and building cross-organizational communities of practice for continuous improvement

In this session, participants explored a case study about Fresno Unified School District to learn how to build leadership capacity and reciprocal accountability systems to support implementation of Linked Learning. This session highlighted the strategies and practices that were developed for a cross-role team using inquiry projects as a main driver for reciprocal accountability and adult learning. Participants had the opportunity to share their own leadership challenges, strategies and lessons related to building capacity and reciprocal accountability systems