PUBLICATIONS

In this EdSource Commentary, UCLA Community School high school students document their learning experiences during remote learning and highlight the power of student research. Expand this description to mention Leyda’s dissertation. 

This brief sheds light on a translanguaging case study produced as part of a research-practice partnership between a bilingual education researcher and a 9th grade Geography teacher. This collaborative inquiry highlights translanguaging practices and processes, as well as the lessons learned from this collective work.

This report documents the experiences of seven cohorts of students from the UCLA Community School and track their pathways to and through college using four measures: (1) postsecondary plans, (2) immediate college enrollment, (3) college persistence (first to second year, and four-year pathways), (4) college completion (within six years). While the school is preparing almost all graduates to enter college and college enrollment and initial persistence rates are higher than the national average, alumni experience challenges persisting through college. This report asks questions about how the school can better prepare students to persist and analyzes the role of K-12 alumni support programs. This report is supplemented by a series of portraits of persistence, and infographic.

Published in UCLA ED&IS Magazine, this article describes the efforts of Mann UCLA Community School teacher, Darlene Tieu, to develop a science-based curriculum that relates to the lives of students and impacts the community.

This report provides an interactive roadmap that documents how educators and researchers partnered to pilot and design a community-based self-assessment system composed of self-assessment instruments (i.e. tools, assessment measures) and classroom routines (i.e., instructional practices that promote self-assessment skills) across grade-levels (grades 2 –12). This report highlights how the design process informed instruction and curriculum development.

A large body of research demonstrates the immense benefits of play for children’s academic learning and development. However, “playful learning,” a teaching approach that uses free-play as well as guided-play activities, is disappearing from many school settings, especially in schools located in underserved communities. This brief discusses the value of play, highlights playful learning approaches at the UCLA Community School, and introduces organizations that advocate for play-based learning policies. 

This article, published in The High School Journal, describes the collective problem-solving process that unfolded over a decade, from 2007 to 2017, as researchers and practitioners in a new K-12 urban public school worked together to expand access to college for traditionally underrepresented students. The authors describe three practical problems—how to frame, support, and track a college-for-all reform effort—and detail how grappling with these problems locally provides unique insight into the larger college-for-all policy context.

This data report is a companion to a research paper entitled, Framing, Supporting, and Tracking College-For-All Reform: A Local Case of Public Scholarship. This paper describes the collective problem-solving process that unfolded over a decade, from 2007 to 2017, as researchers and practitioners worked together to expand access to college for traditionally underrepresented students. The paper describe three practical problems—how to frame, support, and track a college-for-all reform effort—and details how grappling with these problems locally provides unique insight into the larger college-for-all policy context. In particular, the paper explores the role of learning supports, status hierarchies, and resources in realizing the college-for-all ideal. It also articulates a fundamental framing tension between social justice as redistribution and recognition and suggest that the notion of parity of participation guide policy and action.

This brief describes the efforts of the UCLA Community School to address and meet the needs of undocumented students.  The authors describe the school context as well as the symbiotic relationship between research and practice. Authors conclude by providing resources and considerations for practitioners to better support undocumented students on their campus.

This article, published in the Journal of Education Placed at High Risk investigates the experience of 229 low-income students of color who participated in an innovative high school internship program between 2011 and 2015. Using mixed methods (interviews, observations, and survey), the authors aim to understand the types of knowledge, information, and supports these students develop and expand in relation to careers and the college-going process. The authors draw on students’ community cultural wealth to highlight the way the internship program supports students’ aspirational, navigational, linguistic, resistant, and social capital.