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The rapid proliferation of technology can have profound effects on the evolution of teaching, learning, scholarship, and governance in higher education (Katz, 2008). However, instructors report that simply "keeping up" with new instructional technologies, let alone integrating them productively into one's teaching, can be a significant challenge (Sorcinelli, Austin, Eddy, & Beach, 2006; Zhu, Kaplan, & Dershimer, 2011). This Occasional Paper describes how instructors at the University of Michigan are currently using online collaboration tools (hereafter OCTs) in a variety of disciplines and teaching contexts to enhance student engagement and course management. Based on these cases and faculty interviews, the authors also outline recommendations for implementing OCTs effectively and efficiently in teaching.

Efforts to improve civic education face a conundrum. On the one hand, students report that they are more likely to learn about democracy and citizenship through reading textbooks than through any other activity and according to the National Education Association, reading is the gateway to learning in all content areas. However, reviews of textbook materials repeatedly find them to be turgid, poorly organized, and uninteresting, features unlikely to enhance learning or motivation. Compounding the problem, 69 percent of eighth graders scored below Proficient on the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress in Reading, failing to demonstrate a level of literacy necessary to comprehend and learn from reading challenging subject matter. Poorly designed textbook materials would be particularly ineffective for the students lacking strong literacy skills. This paper reports a study in which tenth graders who had parental permission were randomly assigned to read one of three types of passages about direct and representative democracy. After reading, all students responded to the same tasks to measure their understanding and their motivation to engage in civic-related activities. Students were selected from regular classes in high schools, from a West Coast state and from a state in the Mid-Atlantic region. Data was collected on two sides of the country because the authors believe that research conducted in one location is frequently too widely generalized. To communicate with one another and the larger public, political scientists design their texts to inform (presenting lots of facts), to argue (taking a stance on the optimal relationship), and to explain (presenting many examples and analyzing them according to democratic principles). The authors note that most textbook material is designed to inform. The study aimed to compare the effect on student understanding of texts designed to argue and explain as well and found that there were few differences in outcomes among the three texts. The authors concluded that students were able to take advantage of the features in all three designs and found them to be comprehensible, to enhance their understanding, and to spark their interest in engaging in civic activities. (Contains 9 endnotes and 3 figures.) [This document was produced by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).]

This literature review is specifically interested in empirical research addressing the relationship between adolescent participation in extracurricular activities and adult political engagement. Relevant research is found in political science, psychology, education and sociology. In order to capture the literature most directly related to the main question the authors screened known research, searched bibliographic references, reviewed databases including major social science fields and searched for the work of authors with a history of working on this question. Relevant journals were also reviewed manually. General findings are as follows: (1) There is a strong correlation between adolescent extracurricular participation and adult political and civic behaviors; (2) When controlling for type of organization, adolescent participation in instrumental organizations is correlated with later political and civic participation while adolescent participation in expressive organizations is not; (3) Although most adolescent members of extracurricular groups come from higher socioeconomic status (SES) families, extracurricular participants who do not come from high SES families have similar adult political and civic engagement patterns; and (4) Research utilizing path analysis and/or longitudinal panel data is proving to be the most powerful for explaining the complex set of forces that shape politically active adults. (Contains 1 table.) [This working paper was produced by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).]

The idea of a set of skills, usually called civic skills, which are required to effectively participate in civic and political life, is integral to many concepts of political participation. This literature search is designed to investigate what is known about civic skills empirically and theoretically including how they are defined and measured, and what relationship they have to political participation. This literature review began with the work most familiar to political scientists, Verba, Schlozman and Brady's "Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics" (1995). which defines civic skills and incorporates them into a larger conceptual framework on political participation. From political science, the author moved to the education field, where civic skills-related literature is dispersed in the civic education and service learning arenas. A third set of research focused on experimental programs including service learning and youth development. The author explored psychology literature, looking at authors whose work has crossed between developmental psychology and political socialization as related to skill development. The author notes that there is dispersion of literature with very little cross-over; disparate fields seem to be doing important work, with significant overlap in findings and observations, but most authors stay largely focused on their own disciplinary predecessors, not venturing deeply into other disciplines to inform their work. Kirlin concludes with several observations about the state of knowledge concerning civic skills and a menu of questions for further research attention, including: (1) Lack of definition; (2) Need for better understanding of the process of how to measure emerging civic skills; (3) Concepts about how civic skills relate to broader questions of civic engagement, and political participation between disciplines; (4) Lack of literature and understanding of such complex skill acts as learning to work with others to achieve a common good; (5) Exploration of the rationale for placement of civic skills within specific age groupings; (6) Better understanding of skill transfer and causal relationships; (7) Importance of organization structure; (8) Consideration of civic skills in complete context, rather than in a vacuum; and (9) Encouraging as well as understanding factors in political participation. (Contains 3 figures.) [This document was produced by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).]

Governments in all Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries are facing the challenge of governing increasingly complex education systems. There is a growing need for governance structures that can handle this complexity and which can provide actors with the knowledge they need to make decisions. This working paper asks the question: "How do governance and knowledge mutually constitute and impact on each other in complex education systems?" It provides an answer through a state of the art literature review and original theoretical argumentation. It breaks new ground by combining different schools of academic and policy thinking which traditionally look at various aspects of the relationship between governance and knowledge separately. Research in public management, political science and public policy, sociology, institutional economics, and organisational management (particularly the knowledge transfer literature) is augmented with work from education and other social sciences, including healthcare, law, and social justice. This working paper argues that just as knowledge is crucial for governance, governance is indispensible for knowledge creation and dissemination. It proposes an analytical framework that combines models of governance with modes of learning and types of knowledge, and provides preliminary empirical examples to support this framework. In the context of diverse social, economic and political environments of OECD countries, the interaction between these two focal points--models of governance and types of knowledge--has become increasingly relevant to researchers, policy makers, and education stakeholders more generally. (Contains 2 tables, 2 boxes, 1 figure and 14 notes.)