Transparency is a fundamental trait that teachers must exhibit in their district and on their campus in order to understand the mission and goals of the district and campus. Educators need proper training and guidance from district and campus leaders to establish a collective efficacy for the benefit of student success. As school districts find…

In "America's Hidden Economic Engines," editors Robert B. Schwartz and Rachel Lipson spotlight community and technical colleges as institutions uniquely equipped to foster more equitable economic growth across America's regions. As Schwartz and Lipson show, these colleges are the best-placed institutions to reverse the decades-long rise…

In this book, Carrie B. Kisker illustrates how community colleges can utilize design thinking to identify and evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities, and experiment with the internal changes necessary to optimize outcomes for stakeholders. Kisker outlines a process whereby college leaders can empower faculty and staff to think creatively about how…

This study characterises the ombuds office in higher education as an innovative practice of handling employee, staff, and student grievances. Though ombuds offices have had a place on many higher education campuses for some time, their function has evolved in response to a changing environment. Drawing on Open-Systems theory, this study views the…

This is the technical appendix for the report "From Insights to Impact: Fostering Innovation through Texas" which examines the current national landscape of higher education research and development to help gauge Texas' current position and identify opportunities to drive further innovations into the future. This appendix includes the…

Third Mission (TM) drives universities to a purpose beyond their traditional role, especially in local socioeconomic and innovation ecosystems. To investigate the issue, we consider an exploratory and comparative study of two different governance systems of public universities (Southeast Brazil-region 1 and Texas-US-region 2). The comparison took…

A significant movement is underway across the nation to design K-12 assessment systems that better equip stakeholders to provide an equitable and excellent education to each child. While some of these innovations emerged before the pandemic, the massive disruption to instruction fueled a new urgency to rethink the potential of assessments to drive…

This study draws upon faculty interviews conducted in 2019 and 2021 to document dramatic shifts in primary source instruction of undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Synthesizing these data, it analyzes how faculty cultivated pedagogical practice, developed practical approaches to teaching with primary sources, and adjusted goals…

As it is a common practice in Dual Language Education (DLE) classrooms throughout the United States, language separation tends to be a planning policy that is usually enforced by curriculum designers, school administrators, and bilingual teachers. However, research has shown that DLE teachers and students have the potential of teaching and…

For the technologies, curriculum, skills, and subsequent successes to be realized, higher education must first rethink and rebuild its culture. Yet the foundation of this necessary transformation may come as a surprise. Instead of "higher edding" solutions (wrapping innovation in cumbersome bureaucracy and complex procedures and…

Most school districts lack a coherent, actionable strategy for improving teaching and learning across the system. Current instructional improvement strategies enacted in many districts could best be described as hire and hope, where districts focus on hiring great teachers and then hope those teachers will develop themselves. During the 2021-22…

Jobs for the Future's (JFF) vision for the Big Blur calls for entirely new educational institutions and systems to better prepare 16-to-20-year-olds for college and careers. This paper examines the new type of governance needed to help states create more effective grade 11-14 schools and systems by erasing the arbitrary dividing line between high…

Higher education institutions play an essential role in Texas' global economic competitiveness. They provide the talent and innovation that gives the state its competitive edge. The COVID-19 vaccine, ethernet, plasma screens, and e-readers are just a few of the thousands of ideas that were born out of U.S. universities. These innovations have…

As a result of seeing 100% of the student population, elementary music teachers host more students with disabilities than a general classroom teacher would in his or her class. Depending on the severity of students' disabilities, some require general music lesson alterations. To create the least restrictive environment for students with…

We use frame analysis to analyze the first iteration of the Texas District of Innovation policy, which allows districts to take exemption from state education requirements mandating the hiring of a state certified teacher. We analyzed 451 district policies and find the plans use very similar, and sometimes identical, language to frame both the…