Support community-connected project-based learning through PBL champions, collaboration time, and experience-tiered professional learning¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

LAUSD's CSI made community-connected PBL a cornerstone of its classroom-practice vision and supported it with a layered structure: professional development from several providers, a school-based PBL champion role at every community school, and funded teacher collaboration time. Critically, the CSI "tailored professional learning on community-connected PBL to schools’ experience levels, placing greater emphasis on those new to PBL—an approach that proved effective for both schools in this study, one just beginning and the other more advanced." The report notes the CSI plans more advanced PBL opportunities for experienced schools while honoring school-level strengths and needs.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• A school-based PBL champion at each community school
• Funding for teacher collaboration time
• Professional learning differentiated by schools' PBL experience level

Constraints¶

Target Learners¶

• Elementary and secondary students in LAUSD community schools

Target Learning Goals¶

• Community-connected, student-centered project-based learning across subjects

Related Strategies¶

• Engage educators and classified staff districtwide in shared professional learning on welcoming, inclusive practices
• Integrate the community schools initiative with Linked Learning and CTE through joint planning, cofunded positions, and instructional-department placement
• Curate and connect open education resources for making, re-formatted and linked to standards, to meet champions' demand for student project guides
• Racial Equity in PBL - Create Space for Students to Reflect
• Analyzing Projects for ELL Support

Examples¶

-

Key Sources¶

• Klevan, S., Spitzer, N., Hernández, L., Rubinstein, C., & Swain, W. (2026). Community schools in Los Angeles Unified: Transforming teaching and learning. Learning Policy Institute. https://doi.org/10.54300/677.130