Publications + Resources
The Lab proactively identifies gaps in the learn + work ecosystem that require next-generation solutions. We put together partners, funders, and institutions to tackle the path from problem definition through solution finding to adoption and evaluation.
We hope you find these tools and resources helpful in your efforts to redesign education.
Publications + Briefs
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How to see your college through learner eyes: A Photovoice guide
Photovoice is a fun and engaging tool to make learner experiences more visible. Imagine you work at a community college and you want to tell learners’ stories in their own voices, authentically and powerfully. Photovoice…Read More - Publication
Designing the Future of Learn + Work: Education Design Lab’s 2025 Impact Report
In the Lab's 2025 Annual Impact Report, we highlight the design insights and partners who are helping us build an inclusive, skills-based, learn-and-work system.Read More - Publication
Growing Opportunities
How to Design for Rural Transformation A college practitioner's guidebookRead More - Publication
Why Non-Degree Data Needs a Redesign
7 (Hard-Earned) Insights on the Challenges of Collecting Short-Term, Non-Degree Program Data Part of the Impact by Design series Authored by: Education Design Lab Tait Kellogg, PhD, Senior Director of Impact Mary Ann M. DeMario,…Read More - Publication
Building Capacity for Innovation Across Montana’s Community College System
Montana’s Year-to-Career (Y2C) initiative, a collaborative effort between Education Design Lab, the Montana University System, Montana's Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, and community colleges, represents a significant undertaking to address the state's evolving…Read More - Publication
Building a New Stackable Pathway into the Behavioral Health Workforce: Colorado’s Community College Innovation
The Colorado Community College System (CCCS) partnered with Education Design Lab to center learners and employers in designing a statewide, stackable, skills-based education model in behavioral health. In this Impact by Design Brief, we dive…Read More - Publication
Impact by Design publication series by Education Design Lab
The Impact by Design publication series is part of an ongoing effort to share Education Design Lab's impact across the learn + work ecosystem.Read More - Publication
Transforming the Future Together: Education Design Lab’s 2024 Impact Report
In the Lab's 2024 Impact Report, we highlight the partners, big wins, and tools that are helping us all reshape education-to-workforce pathways.Read More - Publication
Stakeholder Insights on Skills Validation
Stakeholder Insights on Skills Validation is a three-part series from Education Design Lab’s Center for Skills Validation. Each brief highlights actionable insights for all stakeholders, including policymakers, educators, and technology providers.Read More - Publication
Toward a Leveled Durable Skills Competency Framework
Durable skills — including critical thinking, collaboration, and resilience — are key to professional success. But how do they grow over time? In Toward a Leveled Durable Skills Competency Framework, the Lab proposes a flexible…Read More - Publication
Accelerating Pathways: Dual Enrollment Design Insights from Designers in Residence 2.0
A year into the Designers in Residence 2.0: Accelerating Pathways project, Education Design Lab has identified five insights that can help community college leaders reimagine dual enrollment pathways to promote equitable access and economic mobility.Read More - Publication
Stories of Validation: Empowering New Majority Learners and STARs Through Skills Validation
Skills validation fosters confidence, hones communication skills, and increases visibility. In this September 2024 report, we share the stories of three XCredit participants whose journeys illustrate the profound impact of validating durable skills earned through…Read More - Publication
Designing the Future Together: The Lab’s 2023 Year in Review
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Rural Revival: BRIDGES Rural College Transformation Insights
This November 2023 Design Insights Brief spotlights the transformation that five rural community colleges experienced as they listened deeply and designed for learners in the furthest reaches of their service areas.Read More - Publication
Empowered by Experience: How AI Can Generate LERs at Scale for the Current Workforce
This October 2023 Experience You Phase 1 Demonstration Report overviews the promising start to scaling creation and adoption of LERs so employers can find the talent they need, and individuals can find the opportunities they…Read More - Publication
Transforming into a Competency-based Education (CBE) Institution: 12 Lessons from Prince George’s Community College
Prince George’s Community College in Maryland co-designed four CBE micro-pathways – called Pathways to Employment – with Education Design Lab. This brief features lessons learned from the learner journey, from enrollment to completion.Read More - Publication
Design Insights: Early Lessons in Validating Skills and Lived Experiences
The September 2023 publication from Education Design Lab's XCredit project shares insights that are applicable to a broad spectrum of skills-based initiatives.Read More - Publication
Accelerating Pathways: Early Process Insights from Designers in Residence 2.0
The Designers in Residence 2.0 project's first brief offers three insights into the design choices for the planning process and how program success will be evaluated.Read More - Publication
Designing Next-Generation Skills Assessments: A Multi-Stakeholder, Iterative Approach
Our interactive publication highlights both the people and the process behind the XCredit skills assessments.Read More - Publication
Transforming Community Colleges: 5 Design Questions to Shape the Future of Learning
This June 2023 thought paper focuses on five key design questions, examples, and resources to support community colleges through this transformative moment.Read More - PublicationTool
A New Role for Higher Education: An Actionable Framework to Drive Regional Ecosystem Alignment
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Skills Visibility: Why and How a Skills-Based Economy can be More Equitable
How might we reinvent the talent ecosystem to include the (l)earner perspective? This March 2022 thought paper offers a vision and urgent call to action.Read More - Publication
BRIDGES Rural Design Insights Part 2: Designing + Piloting a New Approach to Economic Agility in Rural Communities
Design Insights: An Education Design Lab publication series.Read More - Publication
Design Insights Brief: Community College Growth Engine Micro-pathways: A Gateway to Community College Transformation
Design Insights: An Education Design Lab publication series.Read More - Publication
Design Insights: Single Moms Success Design Challenge
Education Design Lab shares six design insights after developing four pilot programs through the Single Moms Success Design Challenge (2021).Read More - Publication
Innovation Snapshots: Ideas in Action
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BRIDGES Rural Design Insights, Part 1: Understanding the Potential of Rural Community College Learners
Design Insights: An Education Design Lab publication series.Read More - Publication
Design Insights: Early Impact from UNCF’s Career Pathways Initiative
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“Walk in My Shoes”: An Actionable Learner Engagement Framework to Foster Growth, Belonging, and Agency
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Impact by Design briefs
The Impact by Design publication series is part of an ongoing effort to share Education Design Lab's impact across the learn+work ecosystem.Read More - Publication
The Learner Revolution: How Colleges Can Thrive in a New Skills and Competencies Marketplace
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Seamless Transfer Pathways: Student-Centered Solutions to Improve Transfer Success
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Tee Up the Skills: Year One Summary
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The Ed Tech Revolution is About to Become the Learner Revolution (2014)
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Resources, Guides, and How-tos
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A Community College’s Guide to Building Strong Partnerships
This November 2024 guidebook offers higher education practitioners actionable strategies for building and sustaining partnerships that both meet regional needs and support students, families, and communities. This work was based on the design and delivery…Read More - Resource
Skills Validation Guidebook: 10 Steps to Design a High-Quality Skills Validator
The Skills Validation Guidebook (October 2024) aims to inform + empower designers of skill validators, such as educators, instructional designers, and hiring managers, to support stakeholders in the skills-based ecosystem.Read More - Resource
A Community College’s Guide to Engaging Employers
Education Design Lab’s updated and revised employer engagement guidebook offers practical ideas for building stronger relationships between employers and community colleges.Read More - Resource
Employer Engagement Guidebook for the Design + Delivery of Micro-pathways
Note: An updated and revised guidebook — A Community College's Guide to Engaging Employers — was released in March 2024.Read More - Resource
How-to: Journey Mapping the Resume
Through #TeeUpTheSkills, we set out to find answers to the question everyone in digital badging is trying to figure out: do badges have market value for employers? Can digital badges level the playing field for…Read More - Resource
Future Proof: An Upskilling Primer
As part of our “Future Proof” series, we’re covering the future of work landscape and the tools, pathways, and trends for designing educational programs that equip learners for an evolving workforce—past issues covered skills mapping…Read More - Resource
Resources During COVID-19: Supporting Single Mother Learners + Other High-need Students
COVID-19 has thrown communities across the whole world into chaos and uncertainty. As colleges and universities nationwide grapple with this unfolding reality, we want to highlight resources that may help respond to the heightened needs…Read More - Resource
Engaging Learners Online in COVID-19: An Actionable Framework
A year ago, the Lab had just released The Learner Revolution, a whitepaper sharing learnings from five years of work with 125+ institutions on how higher ed leaders must position their institutions to improve learner…Read More
The Future of Learn-to-Work Explained
View Story
View StoryHow to Map Your Curriculum to Durable Skills
We find skills and curriculum mapping fascinating, and after our dive into the basics of skills mapping and a conversation with an excited group of…
View StoryThe Future of Learning will be Built on Skills Maps
Skills mapping is coming into focus as the holy grail for translating employer needs to learner pathways. It was a hot topic at the SXSW…
View StoryDesigning for the Open Digital Credential Marketplace
participants share out user needs from the perspective of employers, learners, and learning providers Can you imagine the day when your degree will be based…
View StoryFuture Proof: An Upskilling Primer
Retail workers at Goodwill San Antonio. As part of our “Future Proof” series, we’re covering the future of work landscape and the tools, pathways,…
View StorySix “College Hacking” Trends to Watch in 2020
By Kathleen deLaski and Tara Lifland When we first predicted the “Learner Revolution” in 2014, we talked about it as a trend that might take…
Digging into Our Process + Tools
- View Story
View StoryTwo Pathways, One Purpose
The first cohort for Skills Booster—every participant in the cohort successfully earned the Lab’s 21st Century Skills Resilience Micro-credential. Over the past 15 months,…
View StoryHow to Get it Done: A 2-Day Sprint to Redesign an HBCU’s Curriculum
Faculty from Florida Memorial University moved from big problems facing their students and their university to tangible solutions in two days’ time. Increased financial…
View Story4 Ways to Design a Better Workshop: Notes from the Lab
Featured Image: The Lab team posing during Home Week with our favorite design tool ever...Post Its! At the Lab, we take great care in designing…
View StoryA New College Model? Design it with Students.
Local high school students in Tucson, Arizona, participate in the early stages of program design for the new Catholic University model. When I got…
View StoryAdults Students Co-Design A Hospitality Bootcamp
Students weigh in on aspects of hospitality ‘bootcamp’ most enticing to them through a dot voting exercise In Washington DC, the fastest growing industry…
View StoryDesigning for Motivations and Barriers: Preparing learners for “what they don’t know they don’t know”
Participants from Goodwill SA, Palo Alto College, and Alamo Colleges Online select design criteria In our human-centered design work, we’re often faced with the conundrum…
