This paper reports on a year-long citizen science project that focused on improving learning for students identified as most at risk of not succeeding at school. This project was one element of a broader university-based aspirations Initiative which aimed to engage students from low socio-economic schools in rigorous learning in order to increase…

Student success in transfer from a community college to a university is dependent on several key characteristics of any articulation and transfer system: structure, policies and processes, and the accessibility of the system design. The public institutions of higher education in Arizona have designed and implemented a transfer and articulation…

In an attempt to analyse more closely the training experiences of pre-service teachers, the author conducted an exploratory quasi-experimental study at a university located in the Rocky Mountain region of the USA. All students who were enrolled in the same reading methods course (but enrolled in different sections) were invited to participate in…

The completion agenda seeks significant increases in educational attainment, and its goals are quite laudable. The United States is lagging behind other industrialized nations in terms of the proportion of adults holding postsecondary degrees, and states have been challenged to implement policies that ensure improvements in degree completion…

This paper makes the claim that student teachers' learning depends a great deal on the individual school department where they are working, its social practices and the relationships of the teachers involved in initial teacher education (ITE). The paper considers how using a Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) lens to view data generated on…

In an effort to teach students the basic knowledge of research methods and the realities of conducting research in the context of agencies in the community, faculty developed and implemented a service learning model for teaching research and program evaluation to foundation-year MSW students. A year-long foundation course was designed in which one…

This paper reports the progress of a pilot project exploring the integration of a collaborative virtual learning environment (Second Life) with the instruction of English courses at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. An educational partnership was developed with two TESOL teacher-training courses at Texas A&M University in the US. The project…

In 2005, the Hildago (Texas) Independent School District, in partnership with the University of Texas-Pan American, the University of Texas System, the Communities Foundation of Texas/Texas High School Project, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, promised that all of its students would earn college credits before graduating from high…

At a time when "trust" is argued by many to be on the wane within post-industrial societies this article examines a case study of pupil voice brought about through collaboration between a secondary school (for pupils aged 11-16) and a university located in a large conurbation in southern England. Building on data from focus groups and…

We explore the benefits and limitations of traditional academic research, collaboration, and knowledge dissemination, and discuss the potential of blogs towards better meeting the higher education research community's needs. We present possible parameters of use, reward structures, and how the field can model this innovative means of academic…

School-university partnerships (SUPs) are considered a way of improving teacher education. For the successful implementation of such partnerships, cooperation between the different stakeholders is of crucial importance. Therefore, most partnerships are organised in short- and long-term teams, which are usually composed of teachers, student…

This study, authored by Dominic Griffiths and Rachel Dubsky, both of Manchester Metropolitan University, considers the impact of the new National Award for Special Educational Needs Coordinators (NASENCo) in one English local authority. Data on the impacts upon both SENCos' personal professional development and upon their schools are drawn from…

This study examines the mentoring relationships of student instructors who provide supplemental instruction for undergraduate science courses. Specifically, we examined the relationships negotiated between mentor and protege student instructors during the first year of the mentoring program. The undergraduate student instructors in this study are…

Mounted on the walls, windows, and bookcases of Ms. Cati de los Rios's Pomona High School classroom are a multitude of faces, mainly heroes, martyrs, and leaders of Latina/o and African descent. These faces are a symbol of the countercultural and student-centered approach to education that occurs in her classroom. The mere presence of these…

This study focusses on a group of student teachers who were participants on the Post Graduate Diploma in Education at a Scottish university and assesses their engagement with cooperative learning as a result of their training. The participants were experientially trained in cooperative learning approaches through modelling by their tutor for the…