The Viability of Combining Academic and Career Pathways: A Study of Linked Learning

In an attempt to reform high schools and prepare students with the knowledge and skills needed for the 21st century, educators and policymakers have turned to programs that combine career and academic pathways. One such program, Linked Learning, has taken up the reform challenge by relying on technical adjustments, rearranging students’ schedules, and integrating career technical education (CTE) with a set of courses that support students’ eligibility for their state and university college system. Linked Learning has attempted to avoid the pitfalls often associated with an earlier vocational education model. This article reports findings from a year-long study of eight schools in five districts whose district leaders and principals have placed Linked Learning at the core of their platform for school reform. Interviews with these educators reveal that while changing the structure of students’ course schedules offered some advantages for students, school principals were challenged to keep their academic and career promises. This qualitative investigation has shown that to understand reform challenges it is essential to examine the broader school, district, and state context in which the reform is embedded. Both structural and cultural considerations must be addressed if high school reform is to more effectively support students.     

Grand Innovation Prizes: A theoretical,normative, and empirical evaluation

This paper provides a systematic examination of the use of a Grand Innovation Prize (GIP) in action – the Progressive Automotive Insurance X PRIZE – a $10 million prize for a highly efficient vehicle. Following a mechanism design approach we define three key dimensions for GIP evaluation: objectives, design, and performance, where prize design includes ex ante specifications, ex ante incentives, qualification rules, and award governance. Within this framework we compare observations of GIPs from three domains – empirical reality, theory, and policy – to better understand their function as an incentive mechanism for encouraging new solutions to large-scale social challenges. Combining data from direct observation, personal interviews, and surveys, together with analysis of extant theory and policy documents on GIPs, our results highlight three points of divergence: first, over the complexity of defining prize specifications; secondly, over the nature and role of incentives, particularly patents; thirdly, the overlooked challenges associated with prize governance. Our approach identifies a clear roadmap for future theory and policy around GIPs.     

Fresh thinking about academic development: authentic,transformative, disruptive?

We highlight three ways of conceptualising and enacting academic development: firstly as authentic, practice-based activity, secondly in terms of a new transformative paradigm for academic development units (ADUs), and thirdly as a space for disruption. We illustrate these conceptualisations through our investigation of the practice of internal secondment of faculty to ADUs. We report our findings from a sector-wide survey of Scottish higher education institutions and a series of in-depth interviews with secondees and their managers in two Scottish universities. We recommend further investigations to identify new ways of enacting authentic, practice-based, transformative, and disruptive academic development.     

Voices of university students with disabilities: inclusive education on the tertiary level – a reality or a distant dream?

Twenty-four university students with disabilities were interviewed about their experiences studying at Czech universities. The interviews were analysed using the grounded theory approach. The most commonly experienced barriers faced by these students were institutional barriers, attitudinal barriers, and disability-specific barriers. The types of support mentioned by the students included family support, peer support, and support provided by assistants. The participants also shared strategies they used to deal with the barriers they faced. These were assertiveness, self-determination, metacognition, efforts to ‘fit in’, optimism, and career planning. The implications for policy and universities are discussed.     

Impediments to Partnership: A literature review of school‐university links

Partnership innovations between teacher educators on school and university sites have become ubiquitous. Calls for bridging the theory/practice gap have been answered with reappraisal and restructuring of programs. The literature on the rationale and implementation of a partnership approach has grown steadily since the early 1980s. Praise for measures that promote increased and meaningful interaction between the key players is now almost universal. Ironically, simultaneously, this documentation reveals the challenges as well as the promises of partnership. Clear impediments to the creation and nurturing of partnership have emerged. This paper takes as its principal focus an exploration of the literature that examines the range of barriers encountered by teachers of future teachers.