Due to local, state, and national accountability measures, school reform efforts have become critical of many legislative agendas. Local community members are getting off the sidelines and becoming part of the game to support local schools districts to become part of the solution. Across the United States, Collective Impact models, which propose…

Extension professionals are increasingly encouraged to engage in practices that can advance the public value movement. It is unclear, however, whether recommended practices related to public value are being adopted. In 2014, 235 Extension professionals at Mississippi State University responded to an organizational capacity survey that included…

The Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program approach has been suggested to provide students with additional opportunities for physical activity (PA) outside of traditional physical education (PE). Although research suggests that this program is successful at increasing children's levels of PA, research on implementing pedagogical models to…

This study was designed to explore medical students' and primary school teachers' experiences of a new community teaching project. Academic staff and students from the School of Medicine Dundee, National Health Service partners, local education department, and primary school teachers engaged in a collaborative project which has embedded community…

Creativity is a human right for all people, including adults with physical, mental, and/or developmental disabilities. Yet this population has "little opportunity for thoughtful and creative engagement with artworks or with personal meaning making" (Guay, 2010, p. 113), and compared to K-12 learning environments, are less likely to…

The project review as outlined in this article explores the questions: What is transformative research and what is transformation as far as the community stakeholders are concerned? To what extent has the transformative research achieved its intended outcomes? The Bokamoso project (founded by Lesego Serolong as facilitator and investor) is an…

Background/Purpose: Autism spectrum disorders encompass a group of neurodevelopmental disorders whose defining features include deficits in social communication across multiple contexts (American Psychological Association, 2011). The prevalence of autism has been increasing at an alarming rate stemming from changes in diagnostic criteria, genetic…

Cognitive gains in science content linked to single zoo visits are well evidenced; zoos are unique educational settings. Not only do they foster learning about the natural world, but they also help young people to connect with wildlife (Jensen, 2014; Pearson et al., 2014). Even out-of-classroom experiences of short duration can evoke strong…

This report summarizes the first year of the prekindergarten partnership between AISD, United Way for Greater Austin, and participating child development centers that served 417 students. Classrooms and students displayed high quality of instruction and academic performance, and teacher professional development opportunities are summarized.

Sexual and reproductive health and well-being plays a central role in the lives of young adults. Having the ability to plan whether and when to become pregnant, to protect against sexually transmitted infections, and to receive essential medical care during pregnancy, for example, have important effects on young people's lives--including their…

Recognizing the special relationship that exists between neighbors, communities across the nation are spearheading innovative programs to build, amplify, and leverage social networks in distressed communities to reach residents not yet enrolled in higher education. Grounded in existing relationships and established trust, the Chamber of Commerce…

Undergraduate research (UR) experiences continue to proliferate across all higher education settings. Yet community-based research (CBR) experiences account for a small percentage of UR opportunities. This paper describes the pilot study results of a summer program that is intentionally expanding the paradigm for UR at a public research university…

While social justice models of service-learning improve on volunteerism that ignores structural inequality, they often neglect the critical role of local environments in which the service occurs. I argue that a place-based model of service-learning enables a diverse student body to move beyond compassionate service to social justice activism. In…

"The Beat Within" is a writing and art program and publication based in San Francisco that gives a voice to incarcerated youth in various locations across the country. This article recounts the experience of the partnership between a community-based learning course at Portland State University and juvenile detention in Multnomah County,…

This article describes a class titled Art and Human Rights: Western Sahara which provides an example of how to enact pedagogy that is "critical, democratic, moral and ethical--as much as it is about 'key skills' or 'deep' individual learning" (Walker, 2004, p. 131). The Arts and Human Rights: Western Sahara course and others like it are…