Founded on the principles of place-based education, land-based learning collaboratively engages learners and community members in a four-step process of identification, understanding, intervention, and evaluation to enhance the sustainability of community-based agricultural systems. While scholars have provided the philosophical foundation for…

Mitigating complex problems is increasingly essential to sustaining life on Earth. Empowering current and future generations to address these problems requires rethinking traditional education approaches. This article serves as a primer for land-based learning--defined as a pedagogical approach in which learners collaborate with community members…

This article describes a diverse style of teaching that can be adopted by school administrators and teachers who are interested in creating a school culture where success is nurtured using a community approach. This community approach of teaching is built on a pedagogy Lourie Davis developed and named Village Style Learning (VSL). This style of…

With many potential community partners and a diverse student population, the metropolitan university has many opportunities to operationalize transformative learning, which involves a dramatic shift in one's assumptions that has a lasting change on their perspectives. The challenge of identifying transformative learning initiatives and making…

Many librarians work in public libraries to make a difference for children, families, and communities and identify family and community engagement as a cornerstone of their responsibilities. For librarians to be successful they must be afforded strong foundations in family and community engagement that begin early in their preparation. Yet little…

This report describes a study conducted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Task Force on the Work of the Future to understand how community colleges are adapting their workforce programs to changing skill demands, diversifying pathways to certificates and degrees, and grappling with…

This Special Issues Brief from the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform (CEEDAR Center) and the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center) outlines essential features for providing high-quality, structured, and sequenced opportunities to practice within teacher preparation programs. This brief is…

We conducted a qualitative analysis of 5 years of student writing data to understand learning and moral development on a field philosophy course in Isle Royale National Park. We were interested in the connection between physical experiences in the natural world and the way students care about or value nonhuman beings, natural systems, and place.…

Higher education institutions are continually seeking to recruit nontraditional adult students yet struggle at the same time to meet their needs effectively. The following case study offers strategies to address this situation by documenting the pedagogical design and initial outcomes of an interdisciplinary, nineteen-month leadership-themed…

As numerous studies from 1906 on have confirmed, children lose ground in learning if they lack opportunities for building skills over the summer. Nonetheless, summer learning loss comes up but rarely in the national discussion of education reform. By the end of summer, students perform on average one month behind where they left off in the spring.…

"Listening to the River" (LTTR) is a watershed science education project funded by the National Science Foundation. The project aims to deliver watershed education experiences in and around Traverse City, Michigan, and also to develop a model that can be replicated in other locations. Inverness Research was contracted by the…

In the more than 10 years since the inception of EPA's (Environmental Protection Agency) Brownfields Program, brownfields have been redefined. Properties that were shunned or eyed warily by those with the resources to transform them are now viewed as dormant opportunities for economic and environmental rebirth. Communities that suffered aesthetic…

Begun in 1972 as an alternative for students with attendance problems, the ALPHA program is still flourishing. Now attended by at-risk and volunteer students, this Michigan alternative high school offers individually tailored learning opportunities. Students complete traditional graduation requirements via workshop classes, independent study,…