While there has been a recent focus on developing programs to support educational research by community college anatomy and physiology instructors, there is not yet an established long-term community of practice (CoPs) in this particular area. Studies of long-term CoPs, particularly in STEM education, are few and far between. This study examines…

The human dimensions of ecological restoration have been considered with increasing focus over the past several decades. The Earth Partnership program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has presented an evolving model of restoration as education since 1991, with growing awareness of the need for multicultural approaches to learning about and…

The Exploring Making Through Mobile Emergent Technologies (EMMET) program sought to disrupt the trajectory from rural high school to factory floor by introducing STEM and computational thinking (STEM+C) skills through mentorship training and hands-on activities involving creative production--often referred to as "making." The program…

The purpose of this brief is to introduce a developmental framework for states working to systematically integrate evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) with career and workforce development efforts. Career and workforce development is a well-known, nonpartisan strategy for preparing students for postsecondary success in schools.…

This report examines the relationship between students' participation in high-impact practices (HIP) and their perceived learning gains, with special attention paid to the nature of these relationships among Black and Hispanic students and among students 25 years or older. In 2018, with support from Lumina Foundation, the National Association of…

The traditional model of undergraduate research is less effective for engaging students who have little or no previous exposure to research, are unfamiliar with available research opportunities, or face financial or time constraints that prevent them from engaging in co- or extracurricular activities. Given today's changing student demographics,…

Seeking to support graduate student writers, writing centers at research universities have developed highly successful dissertation camps over the past 15 years. Previous research from North American dissertation camps has demonstrated significant benefits from these camps, as dissertation writers developed new writing habits and increased their…

The Dane County New Teacher Project, a consortium of 17 school districts in Wisconsin, believes that new teacher induction is everyone's responsibility. To that end, the group pools resources from member districts to ensure support for new educators as they improve their effectiveness with students, find joy and purpose in their careers, and…

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated teacher collaboration in unprecedented ways, ensuring students continued to learn amid unforeseen obstacles. In this study, I explored how trust relationships were perceived within Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and with building administrators during the COVID-19 pandemic using a theoretical framework…

Utilizing FYE courses to support retention and college success requires a systematic understanding of, and effective tools to support, historically underserved students. Traditional, short-term faculty development programming is unlikely to support faculty needs when teaching FYE courses, especially for experienced instructors. This article…

The purpose of this article is to highlight mentoring as an important piece of leading a learning community. The authors will share a definition of mentoring which is applicable to the learning community experience. Characteristics of mentoring will be described, including types of mentoring and mentor-mentee relationships. The authors will apply…

This brief focuses on how colleges participating in the Career and Technical Education CoLab (CTE CoLab) Community of Practice are implementing student navigation strategies to improve outcomes for students of color. The CTE CoLab aims to reduce disparities in academic and career outcomes for historically marginalized students--especially students…

In this paper, we describe the design for PurpleState, an internship simulation that applies the epistemic game model for informed civic learning. PurpleState places students in the role of interns at a political media firm and asks them to design a media campaign on a state level policy issue. Unlike the use of these models in STEM education,…

Rivers2Lake helps teachers learn to provide watershed educational experiences for students through a summer institute followed by mentoring. Teacher focus groups were conducted to investigate the impact of mentoring, as well as toward understanding what was influential in bringing about those impacts. Mentoring impacted teachers in affective ways…

This paper relates how leaders of a higher education program, the Wisconsin Collaborative Education Research Network, sparked and managed innovation across communities of scholarship, research, and practice. This paper uses a "design narrative" method to describe how leaders orchestrated organizational change by bringing diverse…