DICP Resources: Developing Effective Bridge Programs

Developing Effective Bridge Programs, an online course, can help you develop and implement effective Adult Career Pathways bridge programs designed to help your adult learners master the basic skills they need to advance to the next level of education, training, or entry-level employment in career fields that are in local or regional demand. The course is self-paced and features three modules: (1) Understanding Bridge Programs; (2) Laying the Foundation; and (3) Developing the Curriculum. The course should take about 2 hours and 30 mins to complete.

As you take this course, you will become familiar with the key elements of a Bridge program, review some case studies about Bridge program design and implementation with reflection questions to deepen learning. You will have a chance to consider potential institutional and community partners to strengthen the program that you will be designing or improving, and examine regional factors that might influence and impact your program and your target student population etc.  The course then progresses into curriculum design, and contextualization.

Please share your comments if you have already taken this course.

You can access this course and other career pathway related-courses at the LINCS Learning Portal at http://courses.lincs.ed.gov. If this is your first time taking a course on the Portal then the system will ask you to register with a new userid and password. You could choose your existing LINCS userid and password for simplicity purposes.

Best,

Priyanka Sharma  

 

Comments

The topic of bridge programs is covered in many of the ACP newsletters. I've pulled out a couple highlights for those who are interested (for your early morning reading or lunch/mid-afternoon break):

  • June 2012 (Volume 2 Issue 3): State Spotlight on MN FastTrac - This article provides a good summary of how the state has created a policy environment that supports the development of bridge programs: http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/html/acp-newsletters/vol2issue3.htmlThere are also some really great bridge curriculum that teachers can adapt and use in their own classrooms that has come out of MN from the Hubbs Center. These resources were featured on the Adult Career Pathways Training and Support Center and has since moved over to LINCS. To find these resources, I encourage you to go to http://lincs.ed.gov/ and enter in the search term "Hubbs Center" and you will pull up about 16 bridge curriculum in a variety of career clusters such as education and training, human services, hospitality and tourism, construction, and health.
  • February 2013 (Volume 3 Issue 1): The Featured ACP Resource section highlights: "Creating a Successful Bridge Program: A "How To" Guide developed as part of the Illinois Shifting Gears initiative. To find out more, read the short summary here: http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/html/acp-newsletters/vol3issue1.html and follow the link to the resource.
  • December 2011 (Volume 1 Issue 4): Building Bridges Program Offers Recipe for Student Success with Blend of ESL and Food Handler's Curriculum - In this article, the director of ESL program at Kingsborough Community College (KCC) of the City University of New York, provides a detailed inside look at how their Culinary Arts program is set up and the challenges they faced while implementing the bridge program. Read more about the program here: http://lincs.ed.gov/publications/html/acp-newsletters/vol1issue4.html

For a complete list of ACP Newsletters, visit: http://lincs.ed.gov/programs/acp

 

To find more resources about bridge program on LINCS, you can also simply go to http://lincs.ed.gov/ and search the term "bridge". You'll generate a number of search results to keep you busy reading for a long time!