The Lab’s Designers in Residence Cohort 2 is being launched to build sustainable, regional ecosystems designed to support students from low-income backgrounds to complete an associate degree by the 13th year of education, one year after high school graduation.

What is a regional ecosystem?

At the Lab, we define regional ecosystems as regionally-focused, inter-industry partnerships with centralized infrastructure, a shared agenda, consistent communication, and alignment across participating partners (adapted from Stanford Social Innovation Review on Collective Impact). They may take the form of establishing an intermediary nonprofit to a cross-system coalition to a government funded initiative or a philanthropically-driven partnership.

The Lab is seeking senior leaders from up to 11 postsecondary institutions to participate in the Designers in Residence 2.0: Accelerating Pathways to build and enhance their regional ecosystem teams to design and activate K12-to-Career accelerated guided pathways. Designers will provide rich user testing learnings and recommendations to improve and iterate ecosystem tools available (developed by the Lab and others) and surface the need for new tools to meet accelerated guided pathways.

Over 18 months (June 2023–November 2024), Designers in Residence 2.0 will work with the Lab to:

• Build their capacity to serve as regional transformation agents to align K-12, postsecondary, and workforce ecosystems;
• Establish ongoing teams representing all regional stakeholders;
• Learn human-centered design
• Co-lead design sessions with regional teams to build a sustainable, effective education to workforce ecosystem;
• Provide rich user testing feedback on ecosystem alignment and other transformation tools.

This community will leverage design principles, blueprint for scale, and other elements designed to support learners from low-income backgrounds to complete an associate degree by one year after high school graduation.

For questions, please contact Jessica Lauritsen, Ed.D., Senior Education designer at designersinresidence@eddesignlab.org.

• Senior higher education leader with direct management responsibility and/or expertise for dual enrollment, guided learning pathways, career-connected learning, or similar.
• From a higher education institution that demonstrate:
  • Commitment to Racial Equity – Has publicly committed to a set of racial equity goals.
  • Implemented Guided Learning Pathways – Have implemented and understand the importance of Guided Pathways, which include streamlining the student journey to and through the college by providing structured choice, proactive student support, and clear learning outcomes.
  • Commitment to Expanding Dual Enrollment Accelerated Pathways – Have a demonstrated commitment to expanding dual enrollment and accelerated pathways from K-12 into college, using a guided pathways approach or similar.
  • Strong Partnerships with K-12 and Workforce – Have demonstrated strong partnerships with employers to organize demand-driven pathways and embed career-connected learning alongside K12 and postsecondary partners.
  • Commitment to Guiding Principles – Are committed to incorporating the following guiding principles into their pathways:
    • Principle 1. Goal: Designed to enable young people to attain an associate degree through an additional year of formal education – year 13 – leading directly to good jobs and/or further education towards a bachelor’s degree.
    • Principle 2. Program: Designed around an intentional, integrated curricular experience and integrated student support.
    • Principle 3. Delivery Model: Designed to minimize transitions for students and ensure opportunities are available and equitably accessible for all students across the region and/or state.
    • Principle 4. Funding Model & Cost: Designed to ultimately be sustainable via public funding and affordable for students.

Timeline:

• Applications were accepted until March 17, 2023.
• Applicants will be notified of their status by the end of April.
• The new Designers in Residence cohort will be announced in May.