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Purpose: Drawing from findings of a case study of inter-organisational collaboration, this paper aims to employ organisational theory to examine the potential learning that opens between educational organisations. The focus is discursive practices. Two questions guide the analysis. What (unique) practices are implicated in the "knotworking" of inter-organisational collaboration? What knowledge and capacities are learned in these discursive practices? Design/methodology/approach: A case study was conducted of a collaboration between a university unit, school district, elementary school and parent executive board to govern a laboratory school. Documents were examined and 17 interviews conducted and analysed inductively. Document analysis and second stage transcript analysis employed methods of discourse analysis. Findings: The case analysis suggests that collaborations open unique sites for organizational learning. Actors (teachers, administrators, parents) engage with various discourses in the "knots" of inter-organisational networks. Those who thrive in the "knot" of collaboration learn how to be flexibly attuned to shifting elements that emerge in negotiations. Further, these actors appear to develop capacities of mapping, translating, rearticulating, and spanning boundaries among the diverse positions of organisations. Research limitations/implications: The case study is limited in scope in order to allow in-depth discourse analysis of the data. Originality/value: The combination of theories employed here--a practice-based organizational learning theory called "knotworking" and critical organisational discourse analysis--is unique in educational administration research. It is argued that together, these theories provide a useful analytic approach for administrators wanting to understand and work through the cultural and political complexities of inter-organisational collaborations.

Humanity delights in spinning conceptual models of the world. These models, in turn, mirror their respective root metaphors. Three root metaphors--spiritual, organic, and mechanical--have dominated western thought. The spiritual metaphor runs from Plato, through Hegel, and connects with Montessori. The organic metaphor extends from Aristotle, through Darwin, and joins with Dewey. And the mechanical metaphor stems from Democritus, through Newton, and links with Skinner. The three metaphors have played a germinal role in western philosophy. They have also shaped the character of educational thought and practice. Which model to choose? Your choice will depend upon the purpose or aim you have in mind.

Recognizing that school nurse leaders are essential to the development of school nurses, the North Carolina School Nurse Leadership Institute was developed to enable school nurse leaders to update and advance their leadership skills. The Institute was a collaborative endeavor between the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Eastern Area Health Education Center, and East Carolina University School of Nursing. School nurse leaders were empowered to assume a role in public policy, and they were provided opportunities to network with leaders in other counties throughout the state. A combination of face-to-face and asynchronous discussion via the Internet was used to foster continuous rather than episodic learning. Participant evaluations were positive and indicated a significant increase in learning in key areas. (Contains 3 tables.)

This article presents a brief history of the Berkeley Child Study Center from the establishment of the Institute of Child Welfare in 1928. The authors review the center's more than 75 years of continuous service as a laboratory preschool. With its careful attention to staffing and its philosophy of giving priority to children's free activity and interests, the program has attracted families who value high staff-child ratios, the presence of a research component, and a rich play environment. University lab schools have a vital role in early childhood education in developing and demonstrating innovative practice, preparing leaders, conducting research, and providing community service through teacher training and advocacy.

The transition to kindergarten can be difficult for both parents and children. Teachers, administrators and community providers can help ease this process by developing effective transition programs and materials for families in anticipation of the school year. However, such resources are often time-consuming and costly. To offer a solution, a team of graduate students conducted a service-learning project in collaboration with a small group of parents whose children attend a preschool in central Florida. The resulting product of this partnership was an informative brochure designed and disseminated with the goal of assisting parents in easing their child's transition from preschool to kindergarten. This project also serves to illustrate the utility of the service-learning model as a means of supporting children and families within a community preschool context. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Since the 1970s, both authors have been involved in the school reform movement, sharing a passion for improving public education, particularly urban public education. Their experiences as teacher and professor in an urban magnet laboratory school reinforced their belief in the ability of all children to learn. They state that, within the magnet school, the real difference was not who the students were, but rather how they were treated. Thus, they saw firsthand that these students from poverty-stricken homes could achieve at the highest levels when they were provided with appropriate preparation and excellent teachers. Furthermore, in this article they present their collaborative research studies, which highlights the power of site-based courses in transforming preservice teachers' beliefs about urban schools and dispelling myths about teaching urban children.

To provide graduate students in pharmacology/toxicology exposure to, and cross-training in, a variety of relevant laboratory skills, the Duquesne University School of Pharmacy developed a "methods" course as part of the core curriculum. Because some of the participating departmental faculty are neuroscientists, this course often applied cutting-edge techniques to neuroscience-based systems, including experiments with brain G protein-coupled receptors. Techniques covered by the course include animal handling and behavioral testing, bacterial and mammalian cell culture, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, western blotting, receptor binding of radioligands, plasmid DNA amplification and purification, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, gel electrophoresis, and UV-visible and fluorescence spectroscopy. The course also encompasses research aspects such as experimental design and record keeping, statistical analysis, and scientific writing. Students were evaluated via laboratory reports and examinations, and students in turn evaluated the course using a detailed exit survey. This course introduces the graduate student to many more techniques and approaches than can be provided by the traditional graduate "rotation" format alone and should serve as a template for graduate programs in many basic research disciplines. (Contains 2 tables.)

This study examined how the use of Knowledge Forum (KF)[R], a networked, Internet-based learning environment, was related to the literacy development of 4-year-old children in a laboratory school affiliated with the University of Toronto. Over the course of the year, children participated in a longitudinal photo journal project. With adult support, children posted their photo journals and ideas to KF[R] in the form of electronic "notes," which allowed children to view each other's work and to build on ideas by posting their responses and comments. A comparison group employed a paper-only format to write notes about their photos. Results showed that children were motivated to read others' notes and to respond using invented spelling. There were gender differences in the number of notes posted. Implications of the study are discussed regarding the motivation for literacy among boys and girls and the benefits of having electronic archives of literacy development.Student Motivation

Documentation of children's projects is advantageous to their learning process and is also a good method for student teachers to observe the process of learning. Documentation panels are a unique way to help student teachers understand how children learn. Completing a panel requires a student teacher to think through a process. Teachers must learn how to ask appropriate questions that reveal the progress of the project and then reflect the information onto a panel that preserves the growth of the child's thinking. Panels are an effective way to help student teachers convey their knowledge about young children and appropriate methods of teaching.

This article features University Park Campus School, a 7-12 grade school in Worcester, Massachusetts. University Park was created through a partnership between Clark University and Worcester Public Schools. It opened in 1997 as a public school educational alternative for students from the challenging inner-city neighborhood directly adjacent to Clark. Tangible results have been achieved, ranging from the university president living in a renovated house in the Main South neighborhood to the sprouting of businesses on Main South corridor to local students being admitted to Clark University and other prestigious colleges and universities. The important factors that contribute to the educational success of its students include rigorous academic preparation, high expectations, and awareness of access to higher education for all students at an early age. University Park provides lessons for any school looking for ways to improve educational opportunities for disadvantaged students. By keeping an uncompromising focus on its mission and utilizing resources available through the partnership with the neighboring university, the school prepares its students for college success.

School-based health centers (SBHCs) often are located in high-need schools and communities. Dental service is frequently an addition to existing comprehensive services, functioning in a variety of models, configurations, and locations. SBHCs are indicated when parents have limited financial resources or inadequate health insurance, limiting options for primary care and preventive services, or within low-access areas such as dental health professional shortage areas. Poor health and concomitantly poor oral health can lead to attendance problems. Oral health services in school-based setting are often the only access to services a child may have. Children who attend schools with SBHCs have immediate access to services that are coordinated with the student's family and school personnel or administrators. Comprehensive services can be collaborative, with support or administration provided by more than 1 organization. For example, the Children's Aid Society (CAS), Columbia University School of Dental and Oral Surgery (CUSDOS), and Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health developed, implemented, and currently operate SBHCs in 2 communities in the northern Manhattan section of New York City (Central Harlem and Washington-Heights/Inwood). The clinics operate in or are affiliated with public schools in New York City. All CAS and Columbia University sites include dental components, using a variety of delivery models. Determining which dental delivery system to use for a particular community or population is a complex decision. The models, reasons for selection, and sustainability of each system are described.

While teaching in a California charter school in the late 1990s, I had the experience of working one year under the dictates of a highly scripted curricular program and the next year in the absence of an effectively crafted instructional plan. In both cases it proved difficult for teachers to provide quality instruction to students. In an effort to analyze such contemporary experiences, I explore here the ideas and practices of an important educational innovation from our past: the Laboratory School of the University of Chicago, under the direction of John Dewey from 1896 to 1904. I argue that the very practices that promoted teachers' intellectual freedom at the school, such as weekly meetings to discuss teachers' reports of classroom practice, also provided needed guidance. By avoiding the mindless following of dictates, the school community simultaneously worked to prevent the fragmentation and muddiness of purpose that can result from too little direction. Thus, I argue, a solution to both of the problems I encountered can be found in practices that result from a strong commitment to the intellectual freedom of teachers to make important decisions about curriculum and instruction.

A study group from a Wyoming school and nearby university delve into the Japanese process of lesson study, learning the differences between the Japanese and U.S. education systems and how the process can work--and does not work--in an American context. The group's understandings highlight ways that lesson study can be adapted for use in the United States.

This national study used descriptive quantitative methods to examine and describe the perceptions and concerns of individuals involved in the process of change through the recasting and the reconceptualization of early childhood education through the Reggio Emilia Approach. The study's participants were faculty, laboratory school staff and graduate students from selected university early childhood teacher education programs. The study used the Stages of Concern Questionnaire developed by Hall and associates at the University of Texas (1974) to examine individual concerns about the adoption of an educational innovation, and a Description of Program Questionnaire to examine specific program variables. To gain a deeper perspective on the data, an individual from each university program was also interviewed by telephone. Previous research on the reconceptualization of early childhood education has concluded that collaboration is an essential tenet in organization growth (Fu, Stremmel, & Hill, 2002). The present study yielded a similar portrait in that every university program reported concerns about collaboration, while also maintaining that collaborative efforts were their number one success. The results are discussed in reference to the National Research Council on Teaching and Learning's recommendations for the future of early childhood education. (Contains 4 figures.)

This qualitative study looked at how early childhood teachers talk about and interact with the most powerful children in their classrooms--the student leaders. Relying primarily on interviews with six teachers in early childhood classrooms (infants, toddlers, and preschoolers) within a University-affiliated center, this paper reconsidered leadership qualities in young children from the teachers' point of view, probing the often overlooked challenges and dilemmas that young leaders present in student-student and student-adult relationships. Findings showed that the teachers described children's leadership skills in positive ways in the abstract, but these theoretical beliefs were quickly challenged by the realities of the classroom. As a result, teachers faced the complex dilemma of supporting individual children's leadership strengths while nurturing their own visions of classroom community. Findings are discussed with reference to implications for practice, including implications for early childhood teacher education, and suggestions for further study.

Laboratory schools play an important role in furthering the study of child development and education. Budget cutbacks at universities have threatened the existence of many lab schools, and a growing number are expanding to full-day programming to develop more consistent sources of funding. As lab schools evolve we must consider how they can best sustain their teaching, research, and outreach missions while managing increased service demands. This article explores one lab school's struggle with balancing academic and service missions while moving to full-day programming and the lessons learned in the process. Implications for other expanding lab school programs are discussed.

This article describes a research study exploring the question: What influence will reading and discussing traditional literature have upon students' narrative writing? The setting for the study was a fifth grade classroom that was part of a university laboratory school. Students listened to and discussed Native American folktales and then wrote their own, self-created narrative. Results indicated that students blended elements from the folktales with elements from their own cultures. (Contains 2 tables.)

Documentation lets teachers visibly assess children's interests and abilities and serves as a tool for recording, reflecting, and supporting children. It also provides parents, children, and others a window into what is happening in the classroom. In The Children's School, the laboratory school at Mills College, teachers are always in search of solutions to the constant problems of attachment, separation, and reunion, themes apparent in all infant/toddler and preschool classrooms. As such, they created a project which aims to assess and support separations and reunions through documentation in their infant/toddler classroom. This article presents three vignettes--involving 15, 18, and 20 months old--that illustrate the possibilities of using documentation over time with toddlers.

This article draws on a case study of a school-university partnership negotiation to focus on the discursive practices at work. Two questions form the central focus of this article. Firstly, how do different discourses function in educational partnership negotiations? This highlights observations about which discourses are evident in individuals' language and actions, how these may be related to individuals' beliefs and social practices, and which tensions operate within and among particular discourses. The second question addresses implications of the case study: What does discursive analysis reveal about the work of educational administrators in conducting negotiations among different discursive communities? Employing methods of critical discourse analysis, narratives of various participants in the partnership negotiations--parents, teachers, university faculty, school and school district personnel--were analyzed. The discussion explores overlapping discursive communities, troubling discursive intersections, tensions within discourses, and the generation of resistant discourses; it then examines the discursive work of administrators within these movements. When educational administrators must negotiate differences among their constituent groups, which they are called upon to do regularly, they are doing discursive work. This is part of the "new work order," where the focus of learning is not children and schools, but knowledge distributed across lifelines, social practices and institutions: administrators must become adept at forming networks among multiple community interests and languages. As this article argues, whenever educational administrators find themselves reconciling individuals' different values, meanings or interests--arguably a fundamental dimension of much administrative activity--their success rests at least in part on their capacity to engage discursive work effectively. This work begins with critical awareness of discursive tensions at play, but also involves strategies of translating, spanning discourse communities and promoting discursive work. Particularly in situations where collaboration across differences is the objective, educational administrators are well served by an awareness of discursive dynamics and their own enmeshment and influence within those dynamics. (Contains 1 note.)

Describes how engaging preservice and inservice teachers in the process of documenting children's learning in preschool and primary classrooms enhances learning, promotes reflective thinking, and encourages professional growth. Explains that documentation provides teachers opportunities to observe children more closely; focus on children's meaning-making process; listen and take children's ideas seriously; engage children more fully; inform their own teaching; and reconstruct their own educational beliefs and practices. (KB)

Can John Dewey's experiments at the University of Chicago's Laboratory School teach contemporary inquirers about "learning by making?" This article warrants an affirmative answer to this query. Unlike intellectual historians who trace the source of Dewey's and his colleagues' 1890s pedagogies to their cultural biases, we contend that these experiments were substantially conditioned by pragmatic kinds of insights. Specifically, we argue that Dewey's inquiries into own his children's language development influenced the development of his early educational experiments as well as his later pragmatic communicative philosophy. On this view, the Laboratory School experiments anticipate Dewey's later thinking about communication. If so, rather than embarrassing educational pragmatists, Dewey's and his colleagues' work in the Laboratory School might offer new starting points for thinking about pragmatic education.

Background/Context: Over the last century, perhaps no school in American history has been studied more than John Dewey's Laboratory School at the University of Chicago (1896-1904). Scholars have published dozens of articles, books, essays, and assessments of a school that existed for only seven and a half years. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This article reviews the extensive firsthand accounts and historiography of the famed school. In the first section, the authors trace the published accounts of those who experienced the Dewey School firsthand between 1895 and 1904. In the second section, the authors review accounts of the school by contemporaries, reformers, and historians between 1904 and 2014, focusing on three historiographical areas: the events surrounding the closing of the school, the rationale underlying its curriculum, and the impact of the experiment on U.S. schools. In the third section, the authors argue that most accounts of the Dewey School convey one of three historiographical myths: the Dewey School as misunderstood; the Dewey School as triumph, and/or the Dewey School as tragedy. Research Design: A historiographical essay is a narrative and analytical account of what has been written on a particular historical topic. Following this methodology, the authors are less concerned with establishing what happened at the Dewey School, than they were with how the school was analyzed and interpreted by contemporaries and historians over the past 120 years. Conclusions/Recommendations: The authors analyze each myth to conclude that Dewey only subscribed to the myth of the Dewey School as misunderstood, while the other two were historiographical constructions created by Dewey's contemporaries and historians.

Background/Context: Memphis has, in many ways, become "ground zero" for neoliberal--or corporate--reform efforts, including a statewide turnaround school district, proliferation of charter schools, and value-added teacher evaluation measures. Along with these reforms come models of schooling that undermine the concept of the "community school," leading to different conceptions of schools, teachers, and students. In this reform context, it is challenging to implement culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) in a way that is true to its three pillars: academic achievement, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. The challenges that those who desire to implement CRP face can be categorized as either conceptual--representing a lack of understanding of CRP's conceptual underpinnings--or systemic--representing institutional barriers that impede the integration of CRP. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The purpose of this analytic essay is to outline particular challenges to CRP in a hyper-reform context and to propose a framework describing changes that must take place in the process of implementing CRP. Setting: The authors use Memphis as a model of hyper-reform and the backdrop for discussions of how CRP can be implemented in such a setting. Research Design: This paper is an analytic essay. Conclusions/Recommendations: We propose that effectively implementing CRP in a reform context is a process that requires a shift from a methodology of individualism to a methodology of collectivism. We align corporate reform with an individualist approach, while CRP, we argue, takes a more collectivist stance. The shift from individualism to collectivism also signals a shift in our conceptions of students, from trainees to successful citizens; teachers, from engineers to artists and activists; and schools, from corporations to community.

Examines John Dewey's vision of and concerns for democratic education, arguing that his approach failed to equip students to act effectively in the world as it was (and still is) and that his model of democracy, while extremely useful, is nonetheless inadequate to serve the varied needs of students living in a diverse and contentious society. (SM)

Examines a 1920s campaign to implement the project method in Milwaukee public schools, following the perilous road it traveled from exemplary model to urban classrooms, and arguing that public high schools have been very resistant to pedagogical innovations which might unleash students' learning potential. The impact of this reform, started by Dewey and his colleagues, on Milwaukee schools is discussed. (SM)

Laboratory schools for preservice teacher education are challenged by operational and philosophical dilemmas such as equity and increasing public school placements. Professional Development Schools face similar challenges in becoming institutionalized. They need strong connections among schools, colleges, and communities; a balance of innovation and tradition; and a climate of collaboration. (Contains 35 references.) (SK)

UCLA's laboratory school is experimenting with the teacher-leader role as a way to provide ongoing learning opportunities for teachers. Teacher leaders serve as in-house experts who provide information, modeling, and assistance to other teachers. Choosing appropriate leader roles and teachers with credible leadership skills helps. (MLH)

Examines the purpose and place of Professional Development Schools (PDSs) and laboratory schools in today's educational reform and restructuring efforts, proposing an integrated model intended to create positive working relationships between PDSs and laboratory schools which could promote closer working relationships and improved opportunities for strengthening teacher education programs at colleges and universities. (SM)

Presents accountability model for addressing contemporary issues in the development and operation of on-campus practicum laboratories. A case illustration provides an example of the model's potential use and helps identify needed changes. Recommends that consideration of service delivery, coverage, impact, legal, efficiency, and ethical accountability helps those who operate on-campus laboratories meet their responsibilities to students and clients. (Author/JDM)

Discusses the experiential learning and arts-based approach of the Lab School of Washington, DC, and describes projects that use technology as a valuable tool in teaching students with learning disabilities. Teaching approaches using the computer and specific software are matched with characteristics of learning disabilities and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. (Author/CR)

Lessons from Dewey's Laboratory School include: (1) reform starts with curriculum; (2) experimentation yields new knowledge; (3) planning should be continuous; (4) curriculum should be unified horizontally and vertically; (5) children should be connected with the subject; (6) hands-on activities are vital; and (7) school leaders should stand by their convictions. (SK)