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In this ethnographic study of summer undergraduate research (UR) experiences at four liberal arts colleges, where faculty and students work collaboratively on a project of mutual interest in an apprenticeship of authentic science research work, analysis of the accounts of faculty and student participants yields comparative insights into the structural elements of this form of UR program and its benefits for students. Comparison of the perspectives of faculty and their students revealed considerable agreement on the nature, range, and extent of students' UR gains. Specific student gains relating to the process of "becoming a scientist" were described and illustrated by both groups. Faculty framed these gains as part of professional socialization into the sciences. In contrast, students emphasized their personal and intellectual development, with little awareness of their socialization into professional practice. Viewing study findings through the lens of social constructivist learning theories demonstrates that the characteristics of these UR programs, how faculty practice UR in these colleges, and students' outcomes - including cognitive and personal growth and the development of a professional identity - strongly exemplify many facets of these theories, particularly, student-centered and situated learning as part of cognitive apprenticeship in a community of practice. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

In this chapter, we report the results of a study comparing current student’s perceptions of computer information systems with student’s perceptions of 12 years past. We found that students continue to prefer more interaction than they perceive an IS career to provide. Given this we (1) report on some programs available in high schools to interest students in a CIS career and (2) discuss case or problem-based learning as a means to provide students with the interaction they desire and show them that it is an integral part of a CIS career. © 2008 by IGI Global.

AN ARRAY OF programs, policies, and institutions in the United States attempts to improve the transitions of youths from school to work. These components of the educational system have taken a back seat in the past decade to educational reform focused on measurable academic outcomes, as reflected in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). However, a key criterion for assessing educational quality is whether education enhances labor-market success. Although there is a link between test scores and socioeconomic success, it is doubtful that a focus on testing and academic preparation encompasses all of what schools do to prepare students for the world of work. Most notably, perhaps, many students will not attend fouryear postsecondary institutions or even attain any postsecondary education, and the implicit or explicit focus on college preparation that is encouraged by a strong emphasis on testing may serve these students particularly poorly. Despite the shift toward test-based reforms, there are still many extant programs, policies, and institutions that seek more directly to improve school-to-work transitions. This book aims to provide up-to-date, high-quality evidence on the effectiveness of these efforts, whom they help, and how they might be improved. Copyright © 2007 by Russell Sage Foundation.

Contemporary research has identified resilience - the ability to rebound and learn despite obstacles and adversities - as a key element to success in school. Black Deaf students: A Model for Educational Success searches out ways to develop, reinforce, and alter the factors that encourage resilience in African American deaf and hard of hearing students. To find the individual characteristics and outside influences that foster educational achievement, author Carolyn E. Williamson conducted extensive interviews with nine African American deaf and hard of hearing adults who succeeded in high school and postsecondary programs. Until now, the majority of studies of African American deaf and hard of hearing students concentrated upon their underachievement. The only success stories available involved high-achieving African American hearing students. To create an effective model in Black Deaf students, Williamson focuses on the factors that contributed to her subjects' successes in postsecondary programs, what they viewed as obstacles and how they overcame them, and their recommendations for facilitating graduation from postsecondary programs. Her work gives "voice" to a group rarely heard in research, which enables readers to view them as a heterogeneous rather than homogeneous group. Their stories provide vital information for parents, school personnel, community stakeholders, and those enrolled in education and mental health preparation programs. In addition, the insights about how these adults succeeded can be useful in facilitating positive outcomes for students who are going into two-year colleges, vocational training, and work settings. © 2007 by Gallaudet University Press All rights reserved.

Eminus provides Distance Learning for severe disabled students who are not able to visit a school because of mobility problems, tiredness or special care. In this article we will show you how ICT and the Internet can be used to include this group into society through virtual class rooms, online internships and teleworking. © 2007 The authors and IOS Press. All rights reserved.

THE CAREER-ACADEMY model-a school-within-a-school, career focused high school program of study often with related work experience-has spread rapidly throughout the United States since the mid-eighties, in large part because educators and policymakers believe it to be a promising approach for encouraging better academic achievement and facilitating students' transition to college and careers. Learning to what extent well-designed career academies deliver on this promise is the focus of this chapter. As defined in chapter 5 of this volume and other sources, career academies generally include school-based and work-based components, make use of an industry-themed, contextualized curriculum, have a paid summer internship, and offer supplemental career readiness and exploration activities (Kemple and Rock 1996; Stern, Dayton, and Raby 2000; Stern, Raby, and Dayton 1992). In this chapter we look further at the learning theories and instructional strategies of career academies. Academies integrate strategies for student career and college preparation, including organizing learning around a the- matic, career-focused curriculum; extending learning experiences outside of the classroom to the workplace; and preparing all students for college, regardless of their college-going intentions (Cannon and Reed 1999; Maxwell and Rubin 2000; Stern, Dayton, and Raby 2000; Stern, Raby, and Dayton 1992). Unlike conventional vocational education, career academies expose students to a whole industry rather than merely to a job, including the industry's academic foundations and its range and distribution of career opportunities, particularly as related to different levels of postsecondary education attainment. Career academies commonly emphasize innovative instructional strategies that develop high-performance workplace skills-projectbased and cooperative learning, in particular-and stress critical thinking and problem solving. These structural and pedagogical characteristics all reflect the current consensus on secondary-educational reform strategies for improving the engagement and learning of students (Balfanz, Jordan, and McPartland 2002; Castellano, Stringfield, and Stone 2003; Kaufman, Bradby, and Teitelbaum 2000; Useem, Neild, and Morrison 2001). With the expansion of career academies has come considerable variation in implementation. The National Academy Foundation (NAF), which sponsors hundreds of academies nationwide, endeavors to limit variation and sustain quality. Career academies in the NAF network are to implement all recommended elements of the NAF career-academy model to engage students academically, help them prepare for their postsecondary career and college transition, and support them personally while they are in school. For NAF career-academy students, the primary program experiences are four or more core academy courses that are career-contextualized, project- based, and offer student-centered instructional practices during the junior and senior years (although some programs begin earlier); a computer or technology course; a paid six-week summer internship with a private company; a college-level course taken while in high school; and exposure to a variety of activities for college and career planning and preparation. The first NAF academy was founded in 1982, and NAF as a central organization was established in 1989. One of the largest career academy networks in the country and the only one that is national in scope, NAF currently sustains a national network of 619 career academies focusing on finance, travel and tourism, and information technology. It also provides curricular support, professional development, and technical assistance.1 NAF's emphasis is on the inclusion of all core career academy components and the provision of quality contextualized curriculum to its network members; teacher professional development through NAF conferences, materials, and local activities; and business involvement through high-profile national-level firms as well as local advisory boards who provide paid student internships. Career-academy teachers receive NAF curriculum and related materials that are frequently updated and adapted for their local industry context, and they can attend an annual professional development conference. They typically have designated classroom spaces, an area of the school for the academy program, and some autonomy in program management and delivery. In an analysis of the impact on teachers of the academy experience, Margaret Terry Orr (2005) found that the career-academy approach encourages teachers to focus more collectively on preparing students through their curriculum, instructional practices, and working relationships. Academy teachers were more likely than nonacademy teachers to have a strong commitment to the academy-program focus and to the use of organizational supports (such as common teacher meeting time), and to work collaboratively with other teachers, all of which were positively related to their perceived effectiveness with students. Local business participation in career academies varies widely and can include advisory board membership; providing paid summer internships to students; assisting with work-readiness activities for students, such as mock job interviews; offering work experiences or other professional development to teachers; and making in-kind contributions of business-related materials for instruction. Generally, businesses do not directly fund the program. Our analysis of employer participation in the NAF academies found that, judging by the depth and breadth of employers' participation, NAF has been particularly effective in recruiting and retaining quality support from them. As in other research on employer participation, the NAF employers cited philanthropic, public relations, and employee-recruitment as reasons for their involvement (Hughes, Karp, and Orr 2002). NAF acts as an intermediary between schools and businesses, and supports the implementation of all the components noted earlier in its programs. As a result of their membership in a national network and their agreement to adhere to common program characteristics, NAF-affiliated academies are likely to offer a more homogeneous and comprehensive experience than are nonaffiliated, stand-alone academies. Other studies have examined academies in general, as reviewed in chapter 5 of this volume, but this study was the first to look specifically at NAF academies. The multipart study examined the practices of teachers in the program, employer participation, and the views and experiences of alumni and high school seniors in the program. Using data from student transcripts and surveys as well as qualitative evidence from site visits, this chapter summarizes findings regarding graduating seniors' college and career planning and preparation from a study of nine long-standing NAF academies.2 NAF funded the Institute on Education and the Economy (IEE) to undertake the study and NAF officials served as advisers and encouraged local site cooperation. Although the research was funded by NAF, we took considerable measures to ensure the validity and independence of the results.3 The conclusions reflect the authors' views and not necessarily those of NAF. Copyright © 2007 by Russell Sage Foundation.

DURING THE LATE 1970s and early 1980s, at a time when the U.S. economy was seen as not competitive with respect to other major industrial countries, concerns were voiced about the quality of the public education system. Critics of public education linked the quality of public schools to the perceived economic problems of the day and argued that improving the quality of schools was critical to future economic competitiveness. Spurred by reports such as A Nation at Risk (Gardner 1983), states and federal legislators then sought to fix what was perceived to be a poorly performing education system. Different educational reforms have focused on increasing the number of rigorous academic courses required for graduation and introducing changes in work-related education. This presumed relationship between educational quality and national economic performance has since been challenged (see National Research Council 1999), but many education reformers continue to make this case. Those reforms included measures to increase participation of high school students in career and technical education (CTE), to better prepare students for the world of work, and to ensure that students were well prepared for educational and economic attainment. Toward this end the federal government initiated in the early 1990s a wave of CTE reforms that set forth national guidelines and provided funding for program and systems change with the general purpose of improving the quality of high school preparation for careers. We are now at a time when the federal government is proposing a substantial change in CTE legislation, changes premised in part on assumptions about the lack of progress made under previous legislation. In this chapter we report on the extent to which, at the end of the twentieth century, students in this country were enrolled in career and technical education and in school-to-work (STW) activities of various kinds: career-major (CM), Tech Prep (TP), and specific work-based STW activities, including cooperative education, job shadowing, mentoring, school-based enterprise, and apprenticeships or internships. We also examine the extent to which career majors, Tech Prep, and specific work-based learning STW activities have become a part of the schooling of all adolescents. Copyright © 2007 by Russell Sage Foundation.

The current competitive economic environment implies that graduates should have besides the area specific academic knowledge a range of transferable skills. This study investigates the transferable skills that graduates should acquire to enhance their chances in the employment market. The study also touches on the contemporary challenges facing universities. The primary research was conducted throughout a set of semi-structured interviews involving key staff from the technology transfer units in two Scottish universities as a proxy to employers. In Addition, a questionnaire was sent to a sample of 100 multicultural postgraduate students in Scotland, Dubai and Russia. The findings display a ranking of the transferable skills portraying the students' perception about the effectiveness of the university's role in preparing graduates for the employment market. The results reflect a gap in perceptions between students and employers. Also the three groups surveyed had different expectations regarding the skills students should acquire through higher education to enhance their employability. Finally the paper concludes by suggesting that universities still need to take actions to narrow this gap in expectations and perceptions by further strengthening the links between the academic world and the industry meanwhile involving students in this bilateral context.

Background: Although medical students' use of portfolios has been studied from many angles, little is known about their motivations. Aim: This article explores medical students' motives for voluntarily compiling a learning portfolio that widely exceeded the assignments. Methods: Content analysis was performed on 22 (8%; n = 22/269) extensive portfolios, followed by a semi-structured interview with 11 medical students. Building on the theoretical work of Simons et al. (2004), interpretative analysis was used to reconstruct and understand the medical students' motives for the effort they put into the portfolios. Results: Compiling an elaborate portfolio is mainly instigated by a personal instrumentality (internally regulated instrumental motivation). These medical students reflected on what they considered important and useful. The portfolio was a tool to achieve self-set goals, yet the specific goals turned out to be very different among the students, reflecting their particular needs and experiences during clerkship. Conclusion: Motivation theory shows that students whoare internally regulated use more deep-level learning strategies and perform better. Internally regulated motivation mainly occurs when students use the portfolio to achieve their self-set goals. The formal portfolio assignments, enforced by the medical school, were more related with externally regulated motivation.

FOR A NUMBER of years, we have been helping high schools and districts that are attempting to create or improve career academies- hence our title: "Learning by Doing Career Academies."4 Our assistance includes developing the schools' capacity to keep track of results for students by relying mainly on information that is ordinarily available from student transcripts. We believe it is essential for schools themselves to continuously gauge results of career academies and other educational programs, because even if such programs have been found to be effective somewhere, they are unlikely to be effective everywhere. Therefore, one of our aims here is to describe how schools can self-monitor, and what they can learn in the process of operating career academies. Second, we wish to add to general knowledge about career academies by testing some ideas about why they may be more effective in some locations and situations than in others. Specifically, we conduct a cross-site analysis to explore whether sites that implement certain features of the academy model to a greater degree also obtain bigger gains in performance of academy students. Both parts of the analysis in this chapter focus on student performance during high school, not post-high school outcomes such as employment or college attendance. Longevity and solid evidence of effectiveness distinguish career academies from other programs, practices, and policies that were bundled under the "school-to-work" or "school-to- career" rubric in the United States during the 1990s. The first known career academies were started in 1969, well in advance of more recent initiatives such as Tech Prep or job shadowing, though much later than co-op or vocational education (Stern et al. 1995). Relatively persuasive evidence of career academies' effectiveness comes from several quasiexperimental studies, and especially from a random-assignment evaluation conducted by MDRC (Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation). The second part of this paper spells out what we mean by a career academy, and summarizes career academies' history and existing research. (Chapter 6 in this volume, by Margaret Terry Orr and her colleagues, provides additional information about the purposes and pedagogical practices of career academies, especially those associated with the National Academy Foundation.) Despite evidence that career academies can produce positive results for students, success is never automatic. Local circumstances may enhance or undermine the effectiveness of a particular career academy, within a particular school at a particular time. The careeracademy model has several elements, all of which require planning and effort to put in place and keep in place. In 1997 we established the Career Academy Support Network (CASN) to help high schools and districts that want to develop and improve career academies. CASN provides professional development, on-site coaching, and other kinds of implementation assistance. As part of its service, CASN uses available data from student transcripts to monitor implementation and to determine whether academy students are improving more or less rapidly than nonacademy students in the same high schools. Nonrandom selection of students into academies and nonrandom attrition make it impossible for this analysis to determine whether academy participation causes greater improvement in students' performance.2 But the available data can nevertheless inform academy stakeholders about the kinds of students who are participating and how their performance is changing over time. The third and fourth sections of the chapter illustrate this kind of analysis. The second question we seek to answer in this paper is whether academy students' growth, relative to nonacademy students in the same school, is associated with implementation of certain key features of the model. We focus on measures having to do with scheduling and course taking because these are considered fundamental to the academy design and they can be computed from student transcripts. This analysis, using a hierarchical model, is reported in the fourth and fifth sections of the chapter. Although the differences between academy and nonacademy students may be attributable in part to nonrandom selection or attrition, this exercise demonstrates a new procedure for estimating how much implementation matters. Copyright © 2007 by Russell Sage Foundation.