The spectrum of school–university partnerships: A typology of organizational learning systems

School–university partnerships are not uni-dimensional projects. Success in these partnerships can be found in loosely-coupled systems such as client–server partnerships and in more tightly-coupled systems such as collaborative development centers. Using a comparative case study approach, we explore two school–university partnership case studies and propose a framework for identifying and evaluating partnerships as learning systems. The structure of the partnership has implications for the focus of organizational learning initiatives that can form the foundation of sustained, systemic internal evaluation.     

Competing views of teaching in a school–university partnership

This case study examines how differing views on the teacher's role in school reform affected the work of a school–university partnership. The school district and the university had a history of partnerships and shared common general goals. Yet, as the partnership progressed, conflicting perspectives about teaching and the purpose of professional development became evident and created dilemmas that influenced the nature of the work. We provide background information about each partner, describe the two views, and examine how the differing perspectives influenced the goals and activities of the partnership. This study highlights the complex issues embedded in school–university collaboration.     

Learning as boundary-crossing in school–university partnership

This paper points out that globalization has raised fundamental questions about knowing and learning and that it is essential for educators to engage in collective knowledge generation by crossing community boundaries. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Activity Theory, this paper reports on a study on the expansive learning that was afforded by a school–university partnership as university tutors, mentor teachers and student teachers engaged in a new activity system mediated by lesson study. The study showed that in the course of resolving contradictions that were inherent in the boundary zone, they negotiated the mediating tool and consequently, the activity system was transformed from helping student teachers learn to teach into learning for all participants. This paper concludes that it is essential for teachers and teacher educators to develop the capability to engage in expansive learning through tackling ill-defined problems in boundary zones.     

Professional learning in community: teachers and academic partners focused on disadvantaged students in schooling and higher education

This paper reports on the work of a small group of Education academics to build a professional learning community in a regional university in the north of England. Their efforts form part of a ‘Leading Learning’ school–university partnership serving schools in disadvantaged communities in inner city Leeds. This is designed to support teachers’ professional learning and development and reclaim their sense of collaborative professionalism in a new era of austerity Britain. The account given here is about the new partnerships being created between and among academic colleagues, who are learning to work effectively with each other and their schooling colleagues on their collective professional learning and to build their collaborative sense of professionalism. The complexities of this task—of working in a professional learning community within Faculty in order to model and support a city-wide professional learning community with teacher partners, school communities, and civil servants in the local Authority—are framed in terms of knowledge-building for the improvement of educational provision for disadvantaged students in local schools and the university.     

Paul F-Brandwein 2004 Lecture: Regarding the Ecology of Science Education: Connections to Environmental and Distance Education

Paul F-Brandwein was a visionary who looked at education broadly. He left us with an insightful view of the ecology of education in which he identified three ecological systems: school–family–community, postsecondary, and cultural. The first part of this lecture, by Dean B. Bennett, examines Brandwein's ideas related to environmental education and explores the relationship of environmental education with science teaching in the K-12 school–family–community ecosystem. Focusing particularly on the middle-secondary level, evidence suggests that the goals of environmental education, since their emergence in the late 1960s, are today strongly evident in science curricula, instructional resources, educational assessment, and teacher education. But the author points out that more must be done and provides some fundamental suggestions. The second part of the lecture, by Sheila K. Bennett, examines the role of distance education in the teaching of science in the postsecondary ecosystem and addresses its value as a viable tool in promoting scientific literacy. The lecture focuses on a successful statewide, interdisciplinary laboratory science course delivered by interactive television, the Internet, and computer network. Now in its ninth year, the course reflects Brandwein's thinking about effective classroom teaching and is based on national standards for scientific literacy.     

Collaborating for educational change: The role of parents and the community in school improvement

Following the attention given by the Jomtien Declaration to the need for new partnerships and collaboration in the promotion of educational improvement, the International Institute for Educational Planning has initiated a programme of case studies and workshops to examine how partners involved in education can be empowered and encouraged to improve the education in which they have responsibilities or interest. Cases which have been studied fall into three categories: those which enhance collaboration within and across schools, those which centre on school—community interaction and those which involve collaboration among a range of government officials and agencies, NGOs, village organizations and private enterprises. Collaboration in each of these groups may involve changes in the stimulation or control of resources or innovations in educational content or delivery methods. This paper identifies the problems inherent in collaborative exercises, including poverty, institutional or individual inertia and structural obstacles within political or cultural systems. Finally the factors or conditions which affect collaboration are examined along with the implications for staff training, structural re-alignment and skill development at all levels of the educational system.     

Aging & community health: a university–community partnership project

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how university–community partnerships can be utilized to provide affordable and accessible health care for the elderly at community health clinics. A review of community health clinics, usage data from 2013 to 2014 by a sample of aging individuals will be described along with faculty perspectives about the usefulness of the university partnership and suggestions for improving future partnerships. Recommendations for future university–community partnerships are discussed.     

Continuous improvement in schools: Understanding the practice

This article investigates conceptually and practically what it means for schools to engage in the practice of continuous improvement. The analysis draws upon prior research and discussion to predict core elements of the practice of continuous improvement in schools. The predictions are then applied to a case study of continuous improvement efforts in a Pakistani secondary school that was involved in a 10-year school–university school improvement partnership. The article concludes with a set of eight empirically based propositions about the practice of continuous improvement schools.     

Moving beyond collusion: clinical faculty and university/public school partnership

Drawing on interviews with clinical and university-based teacher educators and administrators, the authors explore the challenges of building and sustaining collaborative university/school partnerships. Using the concept of “communities of practice” (Communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1998), the authors describe how clinical and university-based teacher educators share a set of assumptions about their respective roles—described as a form of “collusion”—that confirms status differences as well as the value of transmissive models of teaching. These assumptions undermine the goal of collaboration. The authors argue that the process involved in forming university/school partnerships needs to be understood less as an administrative and motivational problem than a question of identity formation and of relationship building.     

Building school-university partnerships: Subjectivity,power, and the process of change

In the flurry of 1980s educational reforms, school-university collaborative partnerships appeared as a popular and promising vehicle for change. The growth of partnerships has been accompanied by an increasing knowledge about the process of change. This study, based on ethnographic and interview data, further extends the knowledge by focusing on one facet of the process: the initiation of partnership relations between a college of education and surrounding elementary and secondary schools. The study finds that the subjective perceptions of school people toward change plays a critical role in the development of partnership relations. These perceptions are grounded in the existing relations between school and university people, and in the harsh conditions of work in schools. School people's relation to these conditions, as manifest in their sense of power or powerlessness, shaped their willingness to work with the university.     

Nation-building universities in a global environment: The case of Australia

The mass system of higher education in Australia is a product of the publicly financed nation-building strategies of the 1955–1990 period. The nation-building university is now undergoing a three way crisis brought on by the governmental retreat from nation-building and from the funding that sustained it, the stand-off between corporateand academic practices inside universities, andthe need for new strategies in a globalisingenvironment, in which national policies arerelativised but remain important. The crisis isexacerbated by Australia's location on theAmerican `periphery', associated with globalvulnerability and fluctuating economic andcultural dependence. In response the primarystrategy should not be to imitate Americanuniversities, a course of action which islikely to deliver modest returns, but tostrengthen the academic identity andplace-based identity of Australianinstitutions, enabling them to make adistinctive contribution to global highereducation underpinned by a renewed partnershipbetween nation and university.     

Auditing and Evaluating University–Community Engagement: Lessons from a UK Case Study

The growing importance of community and public engagement activities in universities has led to an increasing emphasis on auditing and evaluating university–community partnerships. However, the development of effective audit and evaluation tools is still at a formative stage. This article presents a case study of the University of Brighton's experience of evaluating such partnerships. Drawing on this experience, a review of the literature and an analysis of published measurement frameworks, the challenges of measuring community and public engagement are discussed and a typology of dimensions for university public engagement presented. A critique of the Brighton case study and the lessons learned provides a basis for clarifying the activities that universities might want to measure and the key questions they need to ask when determining which tools are appropriate.     

A sociocultural approach to understanding teacher identity, agency and professional vulnerability in a context of secondary school reform

This paper uses a sociocultural theoretical lens, incorporating mediated agency [Wertsch et al. (1993). A sociocultural approach to agency. In A. Forman, N. Minick, & A. Stone (Eds.), Contexts for learning sociocultural dynamics in children's development (pp. 336–357). New York: Oxford University Press] to examine the dynamic interplay among teacher identity, agency, and context as these affect how secondary teachers report experiencing professional vulnerability, particularly in terms of their abilities to achieve their primary purposes in teaching students. Two mediational systems that shape teacher agency and their professional vulnerability are addressed. These are: (a) the early influences on teacher identity; and (b) the current reform context. Interview data revealed that the political and social context along with early teacher development shaped teachers’ sense of identity and sense of purpose as a teacher. Survey and interview data indicate that there was a disjuncture between teacher identity and expectations of the new reform mandates. Teacher agency was clearly constrained in the new reform context. Teachers struggled to remain openly vulnerable with their students, and to create trusting learning environments in what they described as a more managerial profession with increased accountability pressures. Directions for future research are also discussed.     

University–school collaboration based on complementary needs

This paper discusses school development as collaboration between local schools and universities based on complementary needs. I examine a 10 year case study of a long-term relationship between an elementary school and a university in a town in Sweden. The relationship is jointly constructed and mediated by local, national, and international projects. Such jointly constructed and shared projects represent innovations of both the school’s and the university’s pedagogical practices. The significant actors in the collaborative relationship have been teachers, undergraduate and graduate students, school pupils, and researchers. The collaboration, which still exists, started in 1996 and has experienced stages of varying intensity and scope conceived metaphorically as a thin string. Analysis of the case and collaborative process suggests an answer to the question: Why does this collaboration exist and what makes it sustainable? This case suggests that the collaborative projects provide solutions to problems intrinsic to the respective educational institutions.     

Creating and translating knowledge about teaching and learning in collaborative school–university research partnerships: an analysis of what is exchanged across the partnerships,by whom and how

Whilst there is a growing body of literature on practitioner research and the role of collaborations and partnerships that include universities in that process, there are relatively few studies examining the role of the university in any depth. We reflect on 12 years of working in school–university collaborative research partnerships through an analysis of the exchanges between teachers and academics as documented by interviews, case studies and project reports. We draw upon a sample of 90 teachers in 51 schools covering all phases of compulsory schooling. Focusing on the exchanges between the university and partnership schools, we extend the idea of radical collegiality to encompass teacher to academic dialogue in the process of mutual transformation. We contribute to the development of greater conceptual clarity regarding school–university research partnerships and their potential to contribute to the creation and translation of knowledge about teaching and learning. The interplay of the project as the context, the role of enquiry and the development and use of tools by the participants is outlined and a model for understanding the dynamics of school–university partnerships proposed. We suggest that the project as a space‐ and time‐limited context inclusive of partner institutions may have the scope to reconcile the tension between an impetus for exclusive bonding and the flexibility of bridging across structures in social networks. We conclude that the model of the exchanges between partners is fruitful in unravelling the relationship between theory and practice in the pursuit of knowledge about teaching and learning.     

K–12 and University Educators Working Together Toward Change: Initiating a Conversation About Practice

This case study of a joint school/university professional development opportunity explored how 12 practitioners came together to examine change in light of discrepancies between current practice in local schools and promising practices recommended in the literature for students identified as having significant disabilities. The group met monthly over the course of one school year to study action research and to examine aspects of individual practice and their emerging identity as a community of learners. Participants explored perceptions about promising practice relative to actual practice engaged in by K–12 teachers, the impact of ongoing structured conversation on individual practice, and the impact of group membership for both individual participants and school/university partnerships. After one academic year, participants reported that the impact of this structured conversation was highly meaningful with respect to positive change in individual practice, the creation of a new support network for participants, and the development of new understandings between university and K–12 practitioners. Findings are discussed in light of implications for researchers, teacher educators, and K–12 practitioners in their various roles as agents of social change.     

In search of “the vibe”: Creating effective international education partnerships

In common with universities in the United Kingdom, Canada and NewZealand, increasing numbers of Australian universities have established offshore education partnerships, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. More than one-third of international students currently enrolled in Australian university courses study at a campus in their home country or somewhere other than in Australia (IDP 2002). Suchpartnerships, also assumed under the rubric of ‘transnational education’ and ‘franchising’, add additional challenges, complexities and risks to the roles of international education managers and administrators. Using convergent interviews and case studies, this paper identifies and examines the critical success factors for the successful establishment and development of relationships between Australian universities and their international partners. Critical among these are the development of effective communication structures and frameworks, the building of mutual trust, and the encouragement and demonstration of commitment between relationship partners.     

Providing school-based learning in elementary school mathematics: the case of a professional development school partnership

Abstract

School–university partnerships also known as professional development school (PDS) partnerships provide potential for universities and schools to establish partnerships that can benefit university faculty, school teachers, university students, and school students. This study examines the impact of a PDS partnership in which the author served as a school-based mathematics coach for two years in a high-need elementary school. Data sources included interviews, surveys, and field notes from classroom observations. Inductive qualitative analyses which were situated in a multi-level framework for researching professional development found that teachers posed more cognitively demanding mathematical tasks and high-level questions in year two compared to year one of this project. Further, student achievement was noted on both state-wide and district-created assessments. Also teachers reported that the school-based approach to professional development led to some teachers taking on more informal leadership roles to support their colleagues’ mathematics instruction. Implications for school-based learning opportunities across the world include the need to establish specific university–school partnerships, and carefully designing research studies to examine the impact of these learning opportunities.     

Transformational Partnerships: A New Agenda for Higher Education

In this article we develop the concept of transformational partnership and illustrate how such an understanding has enriched the relationship between a particular university and a school system. Transformational partnerships are different in purpose, nature, and strategies from transactional partnerships. They are based upon genuine engagement and a focus on common goals and mutual benefits. In transactional partnerships each institution pursues its own goals with little consideration of mutual goals or shared purpose. The areas of community engagement, leadership, and transformational partnerships provided key concepts for analysing the case study showing how higher education institutions can think and work differently with other institutions, organizations, and groups to achieve mutual benefits.     

Ideologies,strategies and higher education development: a comparison of China’s university partnerships with the Soviet Union and Africa over space and time

University partnerships have been a key dimension of higher education development. Based on documentary analysis and empirical data, this study compares two distinctive models of university partnership experienced by China, first as a recipient with the Soviet Union in the 1950s and later as a provider with African countries in the 2000s. The different modalities of China’s university partnerships are analysed in the changing contexts of a shift from the political ideology of socialism to the current global context of neo-liberalism. The article looks critically at how Chinese universities have utilised their earlier experience of development under Soviet influence in their current approach to internationalisation, taking China’s on-going 20?+?20 University Partnership Scheme with less developed countries in Africa since 2010 as an example. The intention of this article is to reflect deeply on the policy implications of China’s experience in transforming its position from a recipient into a provider of university partnerships. Finally, the article also looks at the Confucian mission of the Chinese University 3.0 and the possibility of fostering multilateral university partnerships for international development in the context of globalisation.