Do we communicate more with students in writing than we used to? I think so. In addition to the course syllabus, the usual handouts, and written feedback on papers, projects, and performances, we now share all kinds of electronic messages with students. We exchange emails, post announcements on course management systems, and participate in online discussions. Those who use PowerPoint tend to make rather text-heavy slides. And if you happen to teach online, then virtually all your communication with students occurs via some written format.
For young Canadians, a university education remains a path to success in the job market. Canadian universities share the federal government’s concern about youth unemployment, and are committed to the goals of helping to create jobs and growth for the benefit of all Canadians, especially young people. Universities are taking steps to ensure that graduates are equipped with the skills they need to be competitive in a mobile and globally-connected knowledge labour market.
We live in a stressful world, and the stress is heightened for students and educators when it’s time to prepare for high-stakes tests. When test scores are tied to school funding, teacher evaluations, and students’ future placement, the consequences of these stressors can be far-reaching.
From a neurological perspective, high stress disrupts the brain’s learning circuits and diminishes memory construction, storage, and retrieval. Neuroimaging research shows us that, when stresses are high, brains do not work optimally, resulting in decreased understanding and memory. In addition, stress reduces efficient retrieval of knowledge from the memory storage networks, so when under pressure students find it harder to access information previously studied and learned.
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are online courses that cater to a huge population. MOOCs have been around for quite some time; however, they have begun to gain importance only in recent years. With technologyinfused classroom instructions on the rise, techno-savvy students with little patience for hour-long (or even longer) lectures and the necessity to earn has led to the popularity of online courses among the student population. The obvious benefits of taking up online courses include, among others, self-paced learning, and learning while earning, and learning from absolutely anywhere. An upcoming form of online learning is the massive open online courses (MOOCs). This paper discusses the concept of MOOCs, their history, and their need in the present scenario. This paper also focuses on the benefits and the possible challenges that MOOCs face.
Elementary and high schools spend so much time on the content-laden curriculum that students are unprepared for the analytic and conceptual thinking they'll need at university
Has Ontario’s educational system taught a decade of students not to think? There is growing evidence that the combination of standardized testing with a content-intensive curriculum that’s too advanced – both introduced by the Conservative government between 1997 and 1999 – has done exactly that.
A dramatic indication that there could be a serious problem was the performance of my introductory physics class on their November test last year. It was identical to one given in 1996, but the class average over this 10-year period had plummeted from 66 to 50 percent. There is about a five-percent fluctuation in this test grade from year to year due to variation in student ability
and the difficulty of the questions but, when I looked at the class average over the many times I have taught the course since 1981, I found that four of the five lowest grades have occurred in the last four years, with the lowest this year. When I enquired elsewhere at Trent University, I found the same pattern in the mathematics department, where the first test in linear algebra was down some 15 percent from its historic mean, and the calculus average had dropped nine percent from the year before.
Before they set foot on campus, most had already undergone a significant process of researching university choices, course options and the potential for employment after graduation.
They are already anticipating the benefits – skills gained, a good job and a rewarding career. They are on the right track. Evidence shows high employment and strong incomes for university graduates. The investment pays off. The myth of the underemployed graduate is just that – a myth. Jobs for the university- educated in any discipline are growing across
Canada. In Alberta, for instance, 56 percent of net new jobs since 2008 have been for university graduates. That’s almost double the result for college grads and triple the result for tradespeople.
According to Beghetto, there are three major perspectives for including creativity in the classroom. The first is the “radical change” view that requires entirely rethinking the goals of the K–12 curriculum and the ways in which teachers teach. The second approach, the “additive change,” incorporates “extra” or “new” creativity activities to the current curriculum. Finally,
the third perspective, which the author argues for and illustrates in this book, is the “slight change” one. More specifically, the goal of the book is to show that teachers do not have to make radical changes in their present academic responsibilities to incorporate creativity in their classrooms; instead, “teachers [can] develop an understanding of the role of creativity in the
classroom, common challenges that get in the way of including creativity in one’s classroom, and practical insights for addressing those challenges in the context of one’s everyday teaching” (p. xii).
Bridging programs are designed for internationally educated immigrant professionals who have completed formal training in another country but who may not have the educational, professional or language requirements necessary to become licensed to practice in Canada. As Ontario’s population ages, the successful integration of internationally educated health professionals (IEHPs) into the health care workforce has been identified as a strategy to address the challenges created by the shrinking labour pool and growing demands on the health care system (Finley & Hancock, 2010; Stuckey & Munro, 2013). To better understand the role of Ontario’s postsecondary system in facilitating the entry of IEHPs into the health care workforce, this study analyzed seven Canadian bridging programs and obtained input from 15 key informants. The goal of the evaluation was to identify the characteristics and practices of effective IEHP bridging programs. The specific research questions addressed by the evaluation were:
1. What are the expected outcomes of effective bridging programs and how should they be measured?
2. What are the key features that contribute to bridging program effectiveness?
3. What challenges do bridging programs face in achieving their goals?
4. What is the appropriate role of regulatory colleges, government, employers and professional associations in ensuring bridging program effectiveness?
Welland, Ont.-based Niagara College offers tourism, hospitality and business courses at its campus in Taif, which opened in 2014, while Ottawa's Algonquin College offers 10 programs, including business, accounting and electrical engineering technician, at a campus opened in 2013 in the city of Jazan.
The Local 242 OPSEU rep said faculty members are uncomfortable with the school's association in Saudi Arabia, a country with a "horrible" human rights record, he said. Ramkissoonsingh said staff has been against the Saudi expansion since day one, and have continued to feel uncomfortable as their course material is taught at the segregated campus.
Two years ago, Niagara College successfully bid to open a campus in Saudi Arabia. At the time, the school said they expected an annual injection of $8 million to the college budget, said Ramkissoonsingh.
This story begins late last school year, when I was standing in front of my Introduction to Film class, getting set up for the day’s session. The technology in the classroom was often glitchy, so I’d given myself plenty of time. I chatted with my teaching assistant about the new Twin Peaks while logging in to my email to retrieve the PowerPoint I’d sent myself.
That’s when I saw the message from my department with the subject header “2017-2018 Budget Cuts.” “Well, that can’t be good,” I thought and clicked to open it. It began, “Dear Sara, As you might know, the university is in the midst of a significant budget cut across all units for Financial Year 2018, which starts July 1.” And it ended, “Within this context, we unfortunately will not be able to offer the courses that we projected for you in 2017-2018. I am sorry to let you know about this development …”
Ontarians are most likely to identify the province’s financial situation as the most important issue currently facing the Ontario
government.
Consider the following two scenarios: Scenario No. 1: Having sat through the entirety of a search committee’s deliberations, a trustee on the panel seeks to invalidate its work — accusing two other committee members of having a conflict of interest because they are colleagues of an internal candidate who has become one of the two finalists. Those relationships had been discussed openly within the committee but conveyed to the full governing board only after the finalists had been named. The mere accusation compels the board to reject the finalist pool and restart the search from the beginning. The result: considerable disruption and delay, not to mention the damage done to the institution’s reputation in the hiring market.
Ontario students are supportive of the provincial government’s recent decision to create an Ontario Online Institute. This endeavour could significantly advance access, especially for traditionally underrepresented groups facing financial, physical, social, cultural, and geographic barriers which prevent them from attending a traditional post-secondary institution. Moreover, such an Institute could provide increased flexibility for the thousands of current students looking to blend online learning with an in-class education.
n 2005, for the first time in a half-century, the Government of Ontario made an investment of $6.2 billion into post-secondary education over five years that began a process of strengthening the Ontario higher education system. The Reaching Higher plan focused on areas in post-secondary education that were in dire need of attention after years of neglect: enhanced student financial assistance; increased enrolment and outreach to underrepresented groups; and improved accountability for student and public dollars.
While there have been large and measurable successes over the past five years of considerable commitment from the Ontario government, there are also areas where goals were set and plans were laid out, but results did not come to fruition. Students understand the reality that sought-for improvements, particularly to the quality of education, were unattainable in the university sector despite record funding, due to unforeseen enrolment pressures and a rate of cost inflation that is consistently higher than the province’s normal rate of inflation or growth in government spending.
The purpose of the study was primarily concerned with exploring the major issues that are confronting presidents of higher education and determining if transformational or transactional leadership practices and concepts are warranted in addressing their issues. The study attempted to determine if presidents or institutions of higher education are taking the path to success and if they take charge with a transformational or transactional leadership style.
The next new development is the dawning of the post-LMS era where both open and closed learning components and experiences will be crafted into courses to meet current and emergent student, teacher and learning needs.
The wide variety of "web 2.0" services, and especially those focused on disciplinary topics, will continue to expand. These will include open resources, web and networking sites, commercial products and institutional resources. It won't make sense for an institution to try to contain all these resources and networking opportunities within their own walled garden. Opening will allow
both students and teachers the opportunity, and the challenge, of developing their net presence and literacies.
The purpose of this study was to identify how entrepreneurship education is delivered in Ontario colleges and universities. In Ontario, as in the rest of Canada, the increase in the number of entrepreneurship courses at universities and colleges, and the concurrent popularization and maturation of entrepreneurship programming, contribute to fostering entrepreneurial skills and mindsets, and the creation of businesses. The overall aim of this report is to inform debate and decision-making on entrepreneurship education through a mapping and assessment of existing programs in the province.
The purpose of this non-experimental, cross-sectional, descriptive research was to survey faculty and staff perceptions of mentorship in a postsecondary institution in order to determine gaps and strengths in the current mentorship
environment. The anecdotal activities we present reflect our educational practice environment through the work of our Mentorship Team. Data were collected utilizing Zachary’s Mentor Culture Audit tool. The culture building block measured 4.65 on a 7-point Likert scale, suggesting the presence of a weak mentorship culture. However, the infrastructure building block measured only 3.41, showing that organizational resources and supports are below average. We also present eight hallmark category results to further identify strengths and gaps. This is the first assessment of our mentoring culture at an organizational level. Other postsecondary institutions may benefit from formally assessing the gaps in and strengths of their mentorship culture toassist them with acquiring adequate resources to further develop and sustain their mentoring activities.
Canada’s colleges, institutes, cégeps and polytechnics play a pivotal role in ensuring that Canada is “innovation ready,” providing students with the knowledge, advanced skills and work experience needed to maximize employment and entrepreneurship opportunities. They reach over 3,000 communities in urban, rural and remote areas from coast to
coast to coast, serving young people, adults requiring skills upgrading, Indigenous peoples, post-secondary graduates seeking specialized skills and work-integrated learning, newcomers to Canada and many more. These institutions serve 1.5 million learners with an extended reach that directly impacts the lives of one in eight Canadians. In 2014/15 alone, those who attended colleges and institutes generated $130.3 billion in added income through their higher earnings and increased
productivity of their
employers1.
An Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Local 352 member speaks to a man crossing the union�s picket line at Fleming's Sutherland Campus during a faculty strike on Monday, October 16, 2017. Union members, including college professors, instructors, counsellors and librarians, hit the picket line Monday after negotiations between it and the College Employer Council fell flat. JESSICA NYZNIK/Peterborough Examiner/Postmedia Network
While the balancing power of collective bargaining is a positive force, Ontario's provincial government was right to order striking community college teachers back to work.