Knowledge in the Public Interest (KPI)

This edition of UPDATE focuses on partnerships, beginning with an interview with Dr. Gene Bottoms, founder of High Schools That Work (HSTW). Dr. Bottoms provides important insights into the ways partnerships were used to create HSTW, as well as the ways they are necessary to involving high schools and community colleges in the implementation of Programs of Study. This volume also includes two invited articles, one by Dr. Pamela Eddy, College of William and Mary University, and Dr. Marilyn Amey, Michigan State University, that give OCCRL readers a glimpse into their new book on partnerships and collaboration, and a second by Dr. Louise Yarnell, who shares a model that she and her colleagues at SRI are developing for the Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

"ISC provides consulting, facilitation, network building, leadership development, and training services so that our clients can innovate, think strategically and take vision to action. We build the capacity of all with whom we work by modeling the behaviors and transferring the skills and tools of collaboration. Today, one focus of our work is on integrating technology and new social media to achieve greater social impact in all of our collaborative efforts."

OER university, a wiki,"is a virtual collaboration of like-minded institutions committed to creating flexible pathways for OER learners to gain formal academic credit." As of 11/2011, there are 15 international universities listed as "founding anchor partners," including Empire State College (SUNY) and Southern New Hampshire University in the U.S.

By Jarret Cummings in Jarret's blog, Educause, Nov 9 2011. Review of education policy briefing led by Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter, in which she discussed her department's on-going commitment to open educational resources (OER). Her statement included a wide-ranging definition of OER and information about how OER will tie-in with recently announced government grants.

From their "Pinning 101" notes, Pinterest is an "online pinboard." The explicit purpose is to bookmark and share images from the web, and to annotate them. While the site emphasizes "beautiful" things from the web, with a suggestion of domestic purposes, this might be another way to generate collaborative collages (as we've done with GSCC) or to share non-written artifacts on a specific topic.

Part of UD's Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education, this program offers workshops at the K-12 or post-secondary level for how instructors can integrate problem-based learning into their own classrooms. The PBL Clearinghouse, a "peer-reviewed online resource" collects PBL problems and articles. Additionally, the site offers resources including sample syllabi and projects.

Published by CMA (Cox, Matthews, and Associates, Inc.), Diverse is an online magazine that looks at higher education through the lens of diversity. In addition to looking at basics like news, opinions, and jobs, the site also provides special reports and a variety of multimedia offerings. Currently on the home page, a searchable database of Top 100 Minority Degree Producers with subsets for AA, undergrad and graduate degrees

Located within the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, the Center for Social Innovation (CSI) works to "build and strengthen the capacity of individuals and organizations to develop innovative solutions to social problems."

"Online collaboration delivering on-target solutions Doing business in today's world means stepping up to the plate to meet complex and fast moving challenges. To make critical business decisions, you need world-class expertise, preferably on-demand. How can you harness this knowledge for virtually any industry or functional area, anywhere, any time? The answer is 10EQS Online Collaboration. With 10EQS' global platform, you leverage a next-gen "workforce in a cloud" combining proven management consulting techniques with on-line mass collaboration."

""A new online community devoted soley to education in the 21st Century." Anyone with thoughts on education is welcome. We have so much to talk about."

"An accessible and safe discussion space for conversations with more of your community. EngagementHQ has everything you need to engage your community effectively, efficiently and safely. PDF Brochure."

By Josh Fischman, and part of The Chronicle (of Higher Education's) 2011 Special Report on Online Learning, published Nov 6 2011. Central Piedmont Community College developed an Online Student Portal learning system to improve retention among its students. They have had success with the system (in use 2004-2008). Now, with a Next Gen grant, they will roll the system out to 6 additional local schools to see if they can match the retention improvements. The system is based both on learning styles and on frequent intervention by students and counselors.

by Derek Bruff, November 6, 2011. The best justification of the Innovation Lab premise that I have seen. "Sharing student work on a course blog is an example of what Randall Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, of Georgetown University, call "social pedagogies." They define these as "design approaches for teaching and learning that engage students with what we might call an 'authentic audience' (other than the teacher), where the representation of knowledge for an audience is absolutely central to the construction of knowledge in a course."" Often our students engage in what Ken Bain, vice provost and a historian at Montclair State University, calls strategic or surface learning, instead of the deep learning experiences we want them to have. Deep learning is hard work, and students need to be well motivated in order to pursue it. Extrinsic factors like grades aren't sufficient-they motivate competitive students toward strategic learning and risk-averse students to surface learning. Social pedagogies provide a way to tap into a set of intrinsic motivations that we often overlook: people's desire to be part of a community and to share what they know with that community. My students might not see the beauty and power of mathematics, but they can look forward to participating in a community effort to learn about math. Online, social pedagogies can play an important role in creating such a community. These are strong motivators, and we can make use of them in the courses we teach.

"Leveraging Digital Storytelling and Social Media to Build Your Organization & Network"