This short piece addresses the question: “What strategy-based knowledge do we possess that will be effective in addressing the needs of the lowest performing 20% of students in large education systems?”
My first and most important response is that in order to improve part of the system you have to focus on the entire system — raise the bar and close the gap for all. But let me start with a single school example.
A TEACHER who strives to develop professional skills finds it profitable to examine and evaluate the social forces which are active within the class situation. Periodic observations and evaluations of how students respond to the
teaching method and content, what reactions express their feelings, and why these reactions are forthcoming can improve the quality of instruction, integrate teaching and learning, and provide a more democratic atmosphere in which to resolve the problems of both teacher and students. When followed cooperatively by students and teacher, these procedures should also improve the quality and extent of learning in every experience.
Many CPAs are curious about whether teaching at a university will be a rewarding and fulfilling part of a professional career. In this article, the co-authors relate their experiences at the front of the classroom. They detail the benefits of teaching for individuals as well as the institutions that employ professional faculty.
Quality teaching and how to assess and award it, continue to be an area of scholarship and debate in higher education. While
the literature demonstrates that assessment should be multifaceted, operationalizing this is no easy task. To gain insight into
how teaching excellence is defined in Canadian higher education, this empirical study collected and analysed the criteria,
evidence, and standards for institutional teaching awards from 89 institutions and 204 award programs across Canada. The
majority of awards included criteria such as specific characteristics of teaching performance and student-centredness; while
activities that had impact outside an individual’s teaching practice were also prevalent, including campus leadership, scholarship
of teaching and learning, and contributions to curriculum. Lists of potential sources of evidence were heavily weighted towards
student perceptions and artefacts from instructors’ teaching. Recommendations for individuals and institutions wanting
to foster excellence in teaching are offered along with suggestions for future research.
Keywords: teaching, awards, excellence, assessment, criteria, evidence, standards
If any part of the university should understand leadership, it would be the business school. Not only do the faculty research leadership, they also impart this knowledge to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as participants from across the globe in a variety of executive education programmes.
The government of Ontario has signalled the need for Ontario’s publicly funded universities to seek additional productivity gains while sustaining access and quality in light of fiscal constraints. It has identified differentiation as a key policy driver to achieve these goals.
Implementation of these provincial directions likely involves consideration of how universities deploy their faculty to meet their differentiated teaching and research mandates. In fact, a preliminary examination by HEQCO of productivity in the Ontario public postsecondary system suggested that how universities deploy their faculty resources may be one of the most promising opportunities for universities to increase their productivity (HEQCO, 2012).
Technology and the Problem of Change
In fall 2015, overall postsecondary enrollments decreased 1.7 percent from the previous fall. Figure 1 shows the 12-month percentage change (fall-to-fall and spring-to-spring) for each term over the last three years. Enrollments decreased among fouryear for-profit institutions (-13.7 percent), two-year public institutions (-2.4 percent), and four-year private nonprofit institutions (-0.3 percent). Enrollments increased slightly among four-year public institutions (+0.4 percent). Taken as a whole, public sector enrollment (2-year and 4-year combined) declined by 2.3 percent this fall.
Asked to offer advice to new hires in his department, a senior professor replied, "There is no way not to have a first year." Her remark seemed odd, and a bit ominous, but it turned out to be an accurate indicator of the harried life of a first-year faculty member.
The 2016 Canadian National Postdoctoral Survey (the 2016 Survey) is an outcome of the collaboration between Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (CAPS-ACSP) and the Tri-Council granting agencies (Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council). The content of the 2016 survey leverages the results from two earlier National Postdoctoral Surveys1 and a CAPS-ACSP 2014 report2 developed in collaboration with Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), which highlighted the professional development needs of postdocs in the Social Sciences and Humanities.
Inside Higher Ed’s fifth annual survey of college and university provosts and chief academic officers (CAOs) aims to understand how these leaders perceive and address the challenges facing higher education institutions in the U.S.
When I was 19 and decided I wanted to become a psychology professor, I did so from the comfort of my dorm room, on the window seat across from a decommissioned fireplace. I’d always loved reading, writing, and talking, so what better career for me than academe? I could not have known that my vision of faculty life would become anachronistic by the time I was out
of graduate school.
I am one of an increasingly small group of Ph.D.s whose faculty dreams have been realized. I have a tenure-track job with paid sabbaticals and institutional support for my research. I’ve written a book. But with each passing year, my experiences as a faculty member are less and less the norm. What it means to be a professor has changed for many other Ph.D.s — largely
because academic life and culture is nothing like it used to be.
I want to speak to you tonight about the cooperative movement in Canada and internationally, and its place in a balanced, pluralistic economy. In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 and the continuing economic challenges we face, it’s more important than ever that all three legs of our economic stool are strong and balanced: the public sector, the corporate sector and the cooperative sector.
I also want to suggest ways we could strengthen the partnerships between the public and cooperative sectors for the benefit of Canadians.
In the past year, national discussions about glass ceilings in politics and in the board room, and sexist news coverage of the Olympics, have brought the subject of gender equity to the forefront of the American consciousness in compelling ways. Higher-education institutions are no strangers to the issue, as they struggle to meet their own aggressive gender-equity goals.
With women making up only about 26 percent of all college and university presidents, there’s a lot of ground to cover. But in the Minnesota State system, we think we may have identified the secret sauce. The recent addition of seven new presidents has resulted in almost 50 percent of our presidents’ being female — 14 out of 30.
In addition, the presidents of all the colleges and universities have elected four women to represent them on the executive committee of the Minnesota State Leadership Council, a body consisting of all the campus presidents as well as the chancellor’s cabinet.
The Ontario university sector is already somewhat differentiated. A policy decision to increase the differentiation of the postsecondary system brings the following benefits:
• Higher quality teaching and research programs
• More student choice with easier inter‐institution transfer and mobility
• Greater institutional accountability
• A more globally competitive system
• A more financially sustainable system
Ontario’s postsecondary system can transition seamlessly and incrementally to greater differentiation with the judicious and strategic use of funding strategies already familiar to government. This transition to a more differentiated university sector is guided by principles including:
• Equal value on the teaching and research functions of universities
• Forging a contemporary relationship between Ontario’s colleges and universities
• Linking the differentiation policy to funding decisions
• More effective use of multi‐year accountability agreements and performance
indicators to evaluate whether universities are meeting expected goals and targets.
The Ontario university sector is already somewhat differentiated. A policy decision to increase the differentiation of the postsecondary system brings the following benefits:
• Higher quality teaching and research programs
• More student choice with easier inter‐institution transfer and mobility
• Greater institutional accountability
• A more globally competitive system
• A more financially sustainable system
Cheerful and helpful workers are beloved by their bosses, and just about everyone else, really. Enthusiastic optimists make for great colleagues, rarely cause problems, and can always be counted on.
But they may not necessarily make the best employees, says Adam Grant, the organizational psychologist and Wharton professor.
Speaking in Chicago at the annual conference of the Society for Human Resource Management, Grant said he separates workers along two axes: givers and takers, and agreeable and disagreeable. Givers share of themselves and make their colleagues better, while takers are selfish and focused only on their own interests. The agreeable/disagreeable spectrum is what it sounds like: some workers are friendly, some are grouchy.
The numbers are striking: Within just three years, the College of Arts and Sciences at Emory University has more than tripled the proportion of faculty hires from underrepresented minority groups. How? We took many steps, but a key one was the increasingly popular, yet controversial, strategy of "cluster hiring."
As a new hiring season gets underway across academe, we all are determined to diversify our faculties — both to meet student needs and to better reflect the full spectrum of American society. Most important, we know that diversity is a critical element in
undergraduate education, research, scientific discovery, and artistic expression.
One of the commitments emerging from the Canadian Education Association's What’s Standing in the Way of Change in Education? workshop in Calgary in October 2013 was to convene a series of Regional Workshops designed to expand the conversation about change in Canada’s education systems. To this end, in the Spring of 2014, similar workshops were held in New Brunswick, Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia with a final session held in Quebec in August, 2014.
As I write about my experiences in higher education, I want to make one thing clear: I don’t believe the issues we are facing have a one-size-fits-all solution. I see too many articles that pronounce the end of higher education as we know it and that the solution is [insert latest buzzword here]. But the reality is that there are many different kinds of institutions with many different kinds of issues that are complex and not easy or quick to solve.
What I hope to address in sharing my experiences is that we all need to honestly assess where we are with various issues and look for good solutions that are evidence-based and make sense for our specific type of college or university. What makes sense for a large public institution won’t necessarily make sense for a small liberal arts college.