Building a College-Going Culture
Rather than having METRO staff lead indefinitely, the LEAD professional learning model builds local capacity by gradually shifting responsibility to this group of people, ensuring the college-going culture outlasts the grant period.
Who are school-based professionals?
The ADEPT Live yearlong professional learning experience follows a repeated cycle with three specific phases that educators complete each quarter with their instructional coach
What are goal-setting, LEARN lesson implementation, and reflection?
The Check & Connect model assigns each school site one of these full-time positions, whose role is to serve as a stable, supportive presence and monitor indicators of disengagement like attendance and academic performance.
What is a coach (Adult Advocate)?
Before each campus visit, the College Team uses a pre-visit curriculum kit covering four specific topics to prepare students. Name at least three of the four.
What are student life, degree path, entrance requirements, and cost?
The Counselor Academy focuses on building three specific professional capacities in school counselors. Name at least two.
What are building partnerships, providing valuable information, and facilitating college readiness for students and families?
The six-stage action plan process on the PLANS platform culminates in defining two types of outcomes. Name both.
What are intermediate and long-term outcomes?
Parsons et al. (2021) documented significant student gains through high levels of authentic pedagogy. The METRO project applies this by pairing schools with master teachers who serve in this coaching role rather than delivering direct instruction to students.
What are instructional coaches?
METRO’s career mentoring program has three distinct formats that vary by setting, group size, and level of immersion. The most informal happens during lunch; the most immersive takes place at postsecondary institutions. Name all three.
What are Career Expos (virtual classroom visits), Career Cafés (lunch discussions), and College2Career Forums (on-campus immersive experiences)?
METRO’s campus visits are designed to expose students to PSE institutions of three different types, ensuring students see a range of environments. Name all three.
What are community colleges, regional institutions, and research institutions?
The Parent Academy goes beyond passive information delivery. Parents actively participate in four specific activities as part of the initiative. Name at least three.
What are data analysis, research, collaboration, and project development?
Research indicates that CCR-PLCs should leverage expertise from outside the school to address a specific category of barriers, and that these PLCs boost achievement through cycles of instructional improvement, data analysis, and this collaborative activity.
What are non-academic barriers and collaborative reflection
Micro-credential courses require educators to demonstrate applied knowledge in two ways: completing self-paced online modules and then using a specific brand of camera to record classroom implementation.
What are Swivl cameras?
Dual Credit mentoring deliberately emphasizes remote learning access for a specific equity-related reason, rather than requiring students to physically attend a partner college.
What is broadening access and flexibility so students can choose the best-fit college without the burden of travel?
Each campus visit delivers activities aligned with recommended timelines and milestones from two levels of guidance. The visits also specifically highlight two concepts that help students find the right institution for them.
What are federal and state recommended timelines, and college match and fit?
Parent Just-in-Time Learning differs from the Parent Academy in format, delivery, and purpose. Describe two ways it is structurally different from the Academy model.
What is: It is micro-learning (short-form), accessible on mobile devices, uses various media formats, and is designed for on-demand/just-in-time access rather than structured academy sessions?
School leaders in the CCR-PLC are expected to cultivate two conditions—one interpersonal, one methodological—that allow safe decision-making environments. The CCR-PLC then uses a named framework to design evidence-based interventions.
What are trust, data-driven decision-making, and the IDEALS framework?
LEARN lessons are designed to work across three different delivery modalities, making them adaptable regardless of whether students are physically present. Name all three.
What are in-person instruction, hybrid learning, and remote learning?
The SBMT initiative does not prescribe a single mentoring model. Instead, the selection process involves collaboration between METRO and this school-level body, which chooses the most suitable model based on each school’s unique needs and resources.
200 pt bonus: SBMT is an acronym for...
What is the CCR-PLC (College and Career Readiness Professional Learning Community)?
School-Based Mentoring and Tutoring
Schaller et al.’s 2023 meta-analysis found mostly positive dual enrollment effects across four specific outcome categories. Name all four.
What are postsecondary enrollment, persistence, performance, and degree completion?
Both the Counselor Academy and Parent Academy share a common underlying goal related to school governance. This goal involves distributing decision-making authority rather than concentrating it in administrators.
What is shared leadership and capacity-building in school-parent partnerships?
Explain the relationship between the Leadership Institute, the CCR-PLC, the PLANS platform, and site-based action plans as a sequence of implementation steps in building a school’s college-going culture.
What is: Leaders attend the Institute to learn K20’s framework and change theory; they then form CCR-PLCs that use data and the IDEALS framework; the CCR-PLC uses PLANS to create site-based action plans through the six-stage process.
Learning ADEPT Lessons have a dual alignment purpose: they connect to one testing organization’s CCR curriculum standards while also doing this second thing, which challenges students to build transferable competencies.
What is introducing students to specific careers and building real-world skills applicable to those careers?
The DC Mentoring program pairs each student with a site-based coordinator for an 18-week program, but it also develops a second support structure using fellow students. Explain how this peer element connects to the program’s goal of giving students a ‘taste of college life.’
What is a peer-mentoring structure that supports students through dual credit coursework while they remain in the familiar context of high school, simulating the collaborative and social aspects of college?
The Summer Bridge program targets a very specific population at a very specific transition point. Explain who they serve, the timing, and at least four of the concrete steps mentors help navigate.
What is recent high school graduates transitioning to college, with mentors helping them enroll, secure housing, sign up for orientation, manage financial aid, and address other barriers before postsecondary begins?
Wallace (2021) makes a specific argument about the relationship between teaching quality and student outcomes that METRO uses to justify its investment in professional learning. Explain the chain of reasoning from teacher knowledge to sustained college-going culture.
What is: Effective educators must understand and apply sound pedagogical practices; teacher knowledge, actions, and values shape learning; continuous reflection deepens understanding; METRO therefore invests in PL to build content expertise and CCR structures, then transitions leadership to school staff for sustainability?