knowledge Defining Integrated

brief
Student Supports
for Linked Learning
Pathways

This document outlines how effectively integrated student PROMOTING EQUITABLE ACCESS
supports build or scaffold student competencies in five broad AND STUDENT SUCCESS BY DESIGN
Integrated student supports are
domains of learning for college, career, and civic readiness.
conceived as an approach to
Relevant supports are not limited to “services” or “programs” identifying and addressing persistent
but extend to enabling resources and social conditions, disparities in student achievement in
including, for example, attention to school culture and climate secondary schools. This approach
depends upon the coordination of a
issues, access to physical and behavioral health interventions,
seamless system of expanded learning
and the communicated beliefs and mindsets of all adults
opportunities and personalized
who work with youth. We begin to specify from the relevant interventions that address each
reform literature, as well as from the experience of key Linked student’s academic and non-academic
Learning intermediaries, an emerging definition of “integrated barriers to learning. Within Linked
Learning settings, integrated student
student supports” that (a) captures critical elements of
supports aim to ensure that all
effective implementation, (b) contributes to instructional students have an opportunity to
capacity in schools, and (c) advances equitable access to master the learning demands of a
learning opportunities within Linked Learning pathways. rigorous academic curriculum, as
well as the technical and workplace
learning requirements of specific
Linked Learning pathways.

John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities

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 What is Linked Learning? What are the relevant domains of learning and support for
Linked Learning Pathways?
Linked Learning joins together
rigorous academics, a challenging
career or profession-themed
curriculum, and an opportunity for
students to apply classroom learning
Technical
through work-based experiences Learning
or other real-world involvement
in their communities. Additionally,
Linked Learning incorporates a Workplace
dual commitment to challenge Learning
prevailing patterns of stratification
through universal access to a
rigorous, standards-based curriculum
Academic
Learning
5 DOMAINS OF
and to graduate all students fully LEARNING
prepared for college, career, and civic & SUPPORT
engagement. This dual commitment
to equal access and gap-closing
implicates a fourth critical dimension College and
of the Linked Learning approach: Career
comprehensive and integrated student Social and Knowledge
supports that meet all students where Emotional
they are, scaffold their engagement Learning
with a standards-based curriculum,
and address their learning and
personal youth development needs.

High quality implementation encompass competencies that students

and equitable access to Linked may need to be supported to achieve.
Learning opportunities begins with
consideration of student learning goals. Supports for Academic Learning:
This is a critical step because a fruitful ensure that all students, regardless
discussion about appropriate student of their prior academic background,
supports—and about how to integrate possess the content knowledge and
them into the school experience— cognitive skills to graduate from
follows an understanding of what we high school with a level of academic
expect these supports to achieve. We competence that prepares them for
identified five domains of learning and postsecondary education.
support that are likely very familiar
to educators who have been working Supports for Technical Learning:
steadily on the elaboration of Linked ensure that students master and
Learning pathways. In effect, we have can demonstrate the technical
focused on learning domains that competencies and knowledge

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necessary to successfully complete integration across Linked Learning or with initiatives for enhancing
work-related tasks. components. social and emotional learning
among students across schools.
Supports for Workplace Learning: Equally important, vertical
provide students with tools to integration involves the alignment Why is integration
successfully engage in work- of student supports within a important?
based learning experiences by curricular pathway with school and
advancing their knowledge of career district (or regional) strategies for Many practitioners observe
opportunities, workplace etiquette, achieving college, career, and civic that horizontal integration of
and job site expectations. readiness among all students. At the student supports with the other
school level, this might relate to the components of Linked Learning
Supports to advance College and integration of student supports with helps to make the educational
Career Knowledge: enable students schoolwide efforts to connect with experience coherent from the
and their families to develop realistic community-based resources, as for student perspective. Instead of a
expectations and an understanding of example through community school day characterized by unconnected
the long-term benefits associated with approaches, promise neighborhood experiences as students move
the completion of a college education strategies, or expanded learning from classroom to workplace
and the demands of a specific career, partnerships. At the district level, to support services, students
as well as the college application this could relate to the alignment of instead experience each of these
process and financial aid opportunities. student supports with districtwide components as logically and
strategies for the implementation coherently designed to reinforce
Supports for Social and Emotional of the Common Core curriculum, and advance the others.
Learning: foster the development of
mindsets, social and emotional skills,
and adaptive (virtuous) behaviors.
These encompass intrapersonal
TWO TYPES OF INTEGRATION
qualities, such as self-management
and growth mindset, as well as
interpersonal qualities such as social
awareness.

What do we mean by
Integrated Student Supports?
District
Two kinds of integration appear,
both in the relevant literature and
from practitioner experience, to
be associated with positive student
learning outcomes. The first
type of integration addresses the
extent to which student supports School
are conceived, designed, and
implemented to enable effective
student engagement with the other
three Linked Learning pathway
PATHWAYS
components: academic mastery,
Academic Technical Workplace Student
technical knowledge, and workplace Mastery Knowledge Learning Support
learning. We call this horizontal

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 Likewise, the vertical integration of
student supports with school and
districtwide strategies for college,
career, and civic readiness helps to
build instructional capacity within the
pathway by making the environment
more coherent for teachers and other
adults who work with students and
by fostering the conditions necessary
for adult collaboration, teamwork,
and professional capacity building
that are so essential to the Linked
Learning approach.

Toward a Framework for

implementing effective
Integrated Student Supports

Our initial review of the relevant

literature and practitioner experience Learning intermediary organizations information gathered, and to keep
suggests that there is no “silver bullet” and practitioners in emerging model learning and redesigning their
for the effective implementation settings, we hope to describe and approaches continually. We hope that
of high quality integrated student define a generalizable set of processes such a framework can guide further
supports. Instead, practitioners and norms that help model sites to inquiry and adaptive implementation
emphasize the need to adapt identify the unique needs of their in early adoption sites and serve
research-based practices to the needs students, adapt best practices from as a basis for the development of
and conditions of diverse settings other sites to meet local needs, use actionable guidebooks or tools for
and changing student populations. data to gauge effectiveness, adjust the broader implementation of high
Drawing on the work of Linked their interventions to respond to quality integrated student supports.

Stanford Graduate School of Education

365 Lasuen Street, Third Floor
Stanford, CA 94305-2068
Phone: (650) 723-3099
[Link]

This brief was made possible by a public interest grant

from the James Irvine Foundation.

4 February, 2016