learning communities

Microsoft - Partners in Learning Network

Type: 
Corporations
Overview 

Microsoft Partners in Learning is a global initiative designed to actively increase access to technology and improve its use in learning. The goal is to help schools gain better access to technology, foster innovative approaches to pedagogy and teacher professional development and provide education leaders with the tools to envision, implement and manage change.

Our Relationship 

Partners in Learning called on Collaborative’s expertise in knowledge management to help build strategic partnerships. Collaborative developed a process and tools for analyzing partnership opportunities, which includes development of a comprehensive framework for partnership analysis, extensive research on potential opportunities and strategic recommendations for moving ideas to action.

Our Services 
Strategic Services
Our Ideas 
Move Ideas to Action

The Alliance for Excellent Education

Type: 
Associations
Overview 

The Alliance for Excellent Education is a national policy and advocacy organization that works to make every child a high school graduate—to prepare them for college, work, and to be contributing members of society. Founded in 2001, the Alliance focuses on America's six million most at-risk secondary school students—those in the lowest achievement quartile—who are most likely to leave school without a diploma or to graduate unprepared for a productive future.

Our Relationship 

Collaborative provides the Alliance for Excellent Education with advise and expertise on a wide range of issues, including research and analysis, project management, the development of written policy and advocacy documents, and the development and coordination of public engagement events.

Our Impact 
Transforming the High School Experience
Our Services 
Engagement Services

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Type: 
Foundations
Overview 

The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation believes that learning how people can live together most effectively is one of the fundamental needs of humanity. Building strong communities through collaboration provides a basis for positive change.

Our Relationship 

For the past 9 years, Collaborative has served as trusted advisor to the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation by providing critical management of their member networks, research and analysis on seminal publications, and coordination services for conferences that bring to together practitioners, policymakers, and key stakeholders.

Collaborative supports the Mott Foundation’s work on national and statewide initiatives, as well as managing all aspects of the Statewide Afterschool Network, including the Web site, ongoing conference calls, Webinars, and marketing pieces. In addition, Collaborative partnered with the Mott Foundation to develop a Time, Learning, and Afterschool Task Force, whose primary goal was to develop recommendations that will integrate afterschool programs and formal schooling. The result, A New Day for Learning, is an influential publication that rethinks how child and youth use their time for learning.

Our Impact 
A New Day for Learning
Policy Review: Documenting Legislative Successes of Statewide Afterschool Networks
Our Services 
Network Development
Our Ideas 
Build Learning Communities

KETC St. Louis Public Television

Type: 
Non-Profit Organizations
Overview 

In St. Louis, KETC engages and entertains the community with the diversity of ideas, issues, discourse and experiences that inform our present, guide our future and illuminate a wider world.

Our Relationship 

As KETC/Channel 9 in St. Louis was seeking innovative and effective ways to infuse community engagement into national initiatives on the Mortgage Crisis and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education, they turned to the Collaborative team to provide technical assistance and consultation services.

Collaborative engaged KETC/Channel 9 senior leadership and teams from across the country to bring community engagement principles and strategies into partnership development and project planning. The team harnessed resources to provide facilitation and technical expertise to a network of public broadcasting stations, as well as the development of agendas for critical calls and planning sessions.

Our Services 
Engagement Services

Collaborative Wins Awards for its Web site Redesign Work

TAGS:

Collaborative redesigned the National Art Education Association's (NAEA) Web site, conducting a complete overhaul and redesign of its Web site to make it both a vehicle for its message of advancing art education as well as a 24/7 online community of practice for its members. The Web site met the client's goals of revamping and rebranding everything from the look and feel, to the content and the actual URL for the site. The Web site earned a 2008 World Wide Web Awards Gold Award, as well as the 2009 APEX Award in the category of Web & Intranet Sites-Most Improved for this transformed site. More ...

Collaborative assisted in the design and development of the Web portal for the Council of Chief State School Officers that serves as a resource for school districts in the process of redesigning secondary schools. The Web portal was awarded the 2008 Bronze Summit Creative Award in the Web site category by Summit International Awards for its efforts to inform the work of government leaders. More…

As part of Collaborative’s work to support the C.S. Mott Foundation-funded National Network of Statewide Afterschool Networks (SAN), we received a 2006 APEX Award for Publication Excellence for the quality of the SAN Web site in helping to sustain this online learning community.

Date Added: Mar 30, 2010

The National AfterSchool Association Hosted 2009 Convention

The Challenge 

The National AfterSchool Association (NAA) wanted to bring together afterschool professionals from across the nation to share best practices and to learn about new resources in the field.

Our Approach 

Having assisted with workshop coordination at the 2008 Convention, Collaborative had the experience, insight and creativity to successfully support the NAA's 2009 convention. Collaborative coordinated the workshop planning and preparation, as well as the Web site development, convention registration, exhibition sites, specials events, plenary sessions, networking events, site visits and participant activities.

Our Impact 

Speaker management included scheduling both the keynote speakers and workshop sessions.  This year's convention featured the following keynote speakers:

  • Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation, and human resources
  • General Colin Powell, former Secretary of State
  • Jeff Corwin, host of Animal Planet's The Jeff Corwin Experience

Collaborative facilitated the request for proposal process for workshop presenters.  With our strategic knowledge of the afterschool field, we reviewed proposals and selected content. The workshops were carefully planned to ensure an exciting and diverse suite of offerings. 

Collaborative also assisted NAA in the planning and execution of site visits and networking events. Site coordination occurred for the following:

  • Forums with a special speakers and panel discussions
  • Informal networking events and receptions
  • Facilitated discussions on timely afterschool topics
  • Invitation-only focus groups and research-based discussions
  • Membership meetings

Convention registration was a coordinated effort among NAA, Meetings Management Group (MMG), and Collaborative.  NAA supplied the content, MMG provided experienced management of convention planning, and Collaborative coordinated the efforts, fielded questions, and designed and maintained the convention Web site.

Date Added: Mar 13, 2010
in

Collaborative Creates Case Studies About Achievement Gains in Mathematics

The Challenge 

The National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform sought to incorporate the recommendations of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel into their Mathematics Improvement Toolkit, and demonstrate how schools were putting these recommendations into practice.

Our Approach 

Collaborative designed interview protocols, focus group guides, and observation rubrics to help facilitate the effectiveness of site visits at the three schools from the National Forum's Schools to Watch program. 

Once on-site, Collaborative led teams:

  • Making classroom observations
  • Interviewing teachers and administrators
  • Conducting student focus groups

 

Once the observations were complete, Collaborative assisted with:

  • Aligning the findings to the Math Panel recommendations
  • Drafting and editing the case studies
  • Presenting highlights of promising practices from these schools in a special section of the Mathematics Improvement Toolkit Web site
Our Impact 

These case studies outline the achievement gains in schools that have implemented recommendations from the 2008 National Math Panel Report.  Through these focused case studies, Collaborative provided real-world context and useful models for schools struggling to improve mathematics achievement in the middle grades.

Date Added: Mar 13, 2010
in

Creating Gold Standards for High School Internships with the National Academy Foundation

The Challenge 

The National Academy Foundation (NAF) is an acclaimed national network of high school career academies predominately based in urban districts. These schools-within- schools have rigorous, career-themed curricula created in partnership with current industry and educational expertise. NAF's work has shown that work-based learning opportunities are essential to helping youth succeed as adults in the world of work.

NAF sees high school internships as one component of a continuum of work-based learning experiences, and believes that it should be the pinnacle of years of carefully planned work-based learning opportunities. However, no standards for high school internships existed to clarify the kinds of high quality experiences that youth, school personnel and partners, and employers should aspire to when creating, implementing and evaluating internship experiences. NAF needed a clear document stating the gold standards for high school internships.

Our Approach 

Collaborative Communications Group worked with NAF and its partners to create a standards document that would be useful to youth, schools and employers. NAF began the process by convening a Career Academy and Internship Task Force of national experts in work-based learning. Collaborative provided direction on the meeting agenda, materials and purpose; attended and documented the meeting in Oakland, CA; and identified the most relevant themes from the daylong discussion. We also attended a convening of employers in the Los Angeles area and gatherings of educators and intermediaries who deliver work-based learning activities to further test the identified themes.

Our process of creating the standards document included receiving continuous feedback from NAF staff, the Task Force and the field. When a change in scope resulted in the need for a slightly different product, we adeptly changed our approach to deliver a document that would be most useful to the organization in continuing to solicit feedback and funding to obtain support nationwide.

Our Impact 

Collaborative produced Preparing Youth for Life: The Gold Standards for High School Internships, a document that lays out the vision for high school internships, and pushes the discussion about how to achieve this vision in practice.  NAF is using it as a tool to lead internal and external discussions about expectations for high school internships at all stages of implementation.

This project also helped Collaborative continue to grow our partnership with and knowledge of NAF. We have compiled educational resource maps in New Orleans and Los Angeles, and for the state of California.

Date Added: Mar 13, 2010
in

National AfterSchool Association Hosts 2009 Convention

TAGS:

Collaborative assisted the National AfterSchool Association with the planning and coordination of registration, workshops, site visits, networking and participants activities at the 2009 NAA Convention in New Orleans. More...

Date Added: Mar 13, 2010

Generating Online Dialogue for the Aspen Institute

The Challenge 

The Aspen Institute, in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, formed The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. The 17-member group of media, policy and community leaders convened to assess the information needs of communities, and recommend measures to help Americans better meet those needs. The result of their work is the report Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age.

Initially, Aspen invited Collaborative to design the print report, yet the project soon expanded when it became clear that both the Aspen Institute and the Knight Foundation wanted to drive national dialogue around the information needs of communities and move people to take action. They knew they wanted more than a simple online PDF and were open to a variety of online approaches.

Our Approach 

Collaborative began the project with the print design, creating a piece that balanced large amounts of text with compelling pull quotes and images that reinforced the text. Next, we developed an online platform that closely resembled the look and feel of the print piece. This interactive solution has a built in commenting feature that encourages users to discuss publicly specific recommendations put forth in the report, share ideas and challenge assumptions. The report site is also connected to Aspen's broader social media strategy, through blog posts, Twitter feeds and other online connections. Both the print piece and the online platform are available in English and Spanish.

Our Impact 

The Knight Commission launched the report at a high profile event held at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. The print piece was available for distribution and Commission members were able to encourage participation in the online dialogue.

Collaborative received the 2009 Summit International Award in the category of Public Service/Advocacy Web site for this work.

Date Added: Mar 13, 2010
in
Subscribe Subscribe