What do K-12 schools need to do to prepare their students for adult success? This was the question that originally catalyzed the standards-and-accountability movement some 30 years ago, though it seems somehow to have gotten lost. Today the question merits revisiting, because addressing it makes a strong case for taking an integrated approach to…

Identifies the constructive elements of learning and teaching that can be employed in cooperative education programs. Work experience can enhance student motivation and confidence; help clarify goals; and provide reinforcement, rewards, and opportunities for practicing desired learning behaviors. (SK)

This report presents recommendations of a national forum of education, industry, and government leaders on the integration of learning and work in postsecondary curricula. A glossary explains key terminology in the report. Introductory information stresses the importance of integrating K-12 education, postsecondary education, and industry, and the…

Infusing cooperative strategies into the business education curriculum provides a feasible way to ensure the development of technical literacy but not at the expense of workplace literacy and employability skills. (JOW)

Could knowledge work practices become pervasive in formal education? Could knowledge creation pedagogies help us close the gap between graduates' knowledge work competencies and fast changing needs of the knowledge society? In this commentary, I first revisit the most notable contributions of this special issue. Then, I turn to some overarching…

Graduating students who can compete in the digital age is imperative but remains an uphill battle in the absence of a strong national technology policy, empowered education leadership, and ongoing dialogue involving business, community, government, and educators. Meantime, in pockets around the country, some states, districts, and schools are…

The Second World Conference on Cooperative Education, held in April 1981, in conjunction with the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Cooperative Education Association in Boston, emphasized that the need to relate education and work is a worldwide concern. Summaries of the Conference's major presentations and selections from the rest are reproduced…

This "crucible moment" in which democratic capitalism finds itself does not call for more government mandates to dictate progressive activism in higher education. Rather, this crucible moment calls higher education on its own initiative to focus on the moral foundation that both democracy and capitalism require. The foundation of democratic…

At each Association for Business Communication (ABC) conference the authors have attended in the past 2 to 3 years, the many presentations focusing on social networking, blogs, wikis, and various Web 2.0 technologies have captured their attention. They welcome the wonderful, new communication tools that increasingly allow people to communicate and…

All workplaces are sites in which people learn. To state such a fact still seems fairly revolutionary given that many employers and policymakers tend to restrict the meaning of job-related learning to formal episodes of "training" that can be counted and costed. This view is rooted in a wider perception prevalent in society in general…

If the United States is to be competitive in the global market, students must first learn to work with one another. Using cooperative and collaborative learning in the college classroom requires attention to group formation and composition, group dynamics, assessment of student work, and the design of group tasks. (MSE)

Describes the concept of a new employability credential for youth, examines the essential elements of such a credential, and explores the process to develop an employment credential. (JOW)

Since the start of the twenty-first century, the mass media in Russia have increasingly appealed to the concept of human capital, initially formed in the framework of the system of education. The sphere of education is being recognized as top priority in the context of the worldwide movement toward what is called the knowledge economy or even the…

Competencies identified by the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills can be integrated into cooperative education through cooperative preparation seminars; individually tailored learning objectives; relevant, challenging field assignments; clearly defined evaluation processes; and cooperative educators' understanding of the…

The internships and cooperative education experiences offered at Michigan's 15 public universities were examined. The study focused on the following items: the organization of internships and cooperative education experiences on university campuses; ways employers and students access such work-based learning opportunities; the numbers of students…