Background: Policies call on after-school programs (ASPs) to serve more nutritious snacks. A major barrier for improving snack quality is cost. This study describes the impact on snack quality and expenditures from a community partnership between ASPs and local grocery stores. Methods: Four large-scale ASPs (serving ~500 children, aged 6-12?years,…

In the spirit of the Steven Stahl 600 Book Kid Challenge, 90 preservice teachers engaged children in 36 read-aloud sessions for a vocabulary improvement service learning project. This article describes how the preservice teachers used narrative and informational books as a vehicle for rare-word vocabulary exposure for children ages 8-12.

The Authors@UF program series emerged to showcase the scholarship and creativity of faculty, creating an intellectual forum within the academic library, and providing informal, extra-curriculum, academic engagement between students and faculty outside the classroom. This article identifies steps to launch an author program, and considerations in…

University-community engagement is increasingly emphasized at institutions throughout the United States, yet there remains concern and confusion about how to conceptualize community engagement to provide benefits for both the university and the public. This article summarizes the history of community engagement and describes dominant paradigms of…

Researchers and policy makers have established that family involvement is related to student academic performance. Family participation at a school in a southern state in the United States was declining after the third grade level, and educators at the school needed more information to address this problem. Self-efficacy and ecological theories of…

Woodrow Wilson Senior Fellow James W. Fraser and Audra Watson, the Foundation's Director of Mentoring and Induction Strategy, take a look at emerging trends in clinical preparation for new teachers. This new white paper is based on experience with the Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowships, and includes observations from some of the colleges and…

When academics, who occupy a traditional position of power and privilege, engage with community members whose thinking, attitudes, and responses have been shaped by ongoing sociohistorical oppression and disadvantage, democratic participation is not easy to attain. Yet, unless community members feel able to participate freely, the valuable local…

Providing a comprehensive approach for achieving the goal of a safe environment where the priority can be teaching and learning is vital to every district's success. To attain this goal, school districts must educate students, staff, and the community and provide tools that help anticipate potential problems and prevent them from escalating into…

Outdoor learning areas are becoming more popular as a means for community-based, cross-curricular learning where children study issues of local relevance (Sobel 2004). Outdoor learning areas, any place outside of the school building where children can observe and interact with the natural world around them, include outdoor structures for seating…

Schools face increasing demands to support the mental health needs of students and families; some estimate that 80 percent of students receive mental health services at school. Thus, schools face two daunting challenges: (1) to provide effective mental health support to students and (2) to address how mental health needs affect other students,…

The most pressing social problems facing humanity in the 21st century are what systems theorist Russell Ackoff referred to as "messes"--complex dynamic systems of problems that interact and reinforce each other over time. In this article, the authors argue that the lack of progress in managing messes is in part due to the predominance of…

The knowledge translation movement in health has led to the production of vast amounts of knowledge tools aimed at broadening clinicians' evidence base and improving the quality and efficacy of their practices. However important, these tools, largely oriented towards biomedical and technological aspects of care, are of limited potential for…

Today's classrooms emphasize helping students learn not just for the sake of learning but to become prepared to join the workforce. While teachers across the U.S. know students must be ready for college and career, many may not be sure exactly which skills, competencies, and lessons they need to teach to prepare and animate students for the world…

In Saskatchewan, many of the provincial practices and policies addressing health and social issues including, poverty and social exclusion in multi-service schools are informed by an integrated services policy called School[superscript PLUS]. This study explores how School[superscript PLUS] discourse has shaped and continues to produce the…

This occasional paper of the Centre for Education Policy and Practice outlines how the National School Improvement Tool, developed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) in collaboration with the Queensland Department of Education, Training and Employment is being used in Australian schools. The Tool is grounded in international…