Each year, many of us make New Year’s resolutions and try and keep them. Others, usually newspapers and media outlets, speculate on the key things to watch out for during the coming year. Rather than resolutions or predictions, we list ten developments we wish for online learning in 2016.
We hope these come true, but it will take clear resolution, firm commitment and lots of hard work by all to make them happen. This is why we refer to this as a “wish list”.
Not from the realm of pure speculation, all items in our list are developments from current practices in technology, learning, and public policy.
There’s a lot of talk these days about evidence-based instructional practices, so much that I’ve gotten worried we aren’t thinking enough about what that means. Let me see if I can explain with an example.
Recently I’ve been trying to locate the evidence that supports quizzing, wondering if it merits the evidence-based label. Tracking down this evidence in our discipline-based research is challenging because although quizzing has been studied across our disciplines, it’s not easily searchable. My collection of studies is good, but I know it’s not complete. As you might suspect, the results are mixed; they are more positive than negative, but still, a significant number of researchers don’t
find that quizzes affect learning outcomes.
Faculty are the critical labor element in the pursuit of the economic goals of community colleges, yet they are not central to institutional decision-making. Their views and values are not consistent with the goals and actions of their colleges. Instead, these goals and actions are aligned with business and industry, directed by government and college administrators. Although there is a misalignment of faculty values and institutional actions, faculty do not comprise an oppositional culture within their colleges. This multi-site qualitative study addresses the presence of tensions between educational values of faculty and the economic values of faculty work.
Faculty development has its own set of fundamentals. More than 20 years ago, I co-authored a grant establishing the faculty development center at the University of Central Arkansas. Over the years, I have served as faculty coordinator, co-director, and director. My experiences may benefit others who are working in the field or plan to in the future.
Community colleges that want students to graduate increasingly focus not just on academic needs, but on transportation, housing and food issues.
A report released today by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab and the Association of Community College Trustees reveals that many community college students are dealing with a lack of basic needs.
The report -- "Hungry and Homeless in College" -- surveyed more than 33,000 students at 70 two-year institutions in 24 states and found that two-thirds struggle with food insecurity, half are housing insecure, one-third are regularly hungry and 14 percent are homeless. The report defines food insecurity as the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and homelessness as a person without a place to live or residing in a shelter, automobile or abandoned building.
When I was younger, much younger, I read a science-fiction book where life on a particular planet was difficult because the landscape was constantly shifting. If one substitutes conceptual and occupational for physical landscape, one could as easily be talking about Earth at the beginning of the 21st century.
Our system of higher education was designed for a stable conceptual and occupational landscape, the kind where our parents and their parents grew up. One went to school, maybe even attended college, and took a job. One retired from this job, perhaps having been promoted along the way. Many of today’s jobs did not exist during our parents’ days and those still existing often have the same name as before but require much more sophisticated skills. Jason Wingard and Michelle LaPointe note in Learning for Life: How Continuous Education Will Keep Us Competitive In the Global Knowledge Economy that we have left many of today’s citizens ill-prepared for the current occupational landscape. Our citizens’ skills, even many of our youngest, mismatch with the demands of today’s economy. Cynical politicians sometimes promise a return to the good old days, but they do so only
to collect the votes of the disenfranchised. Similar to other educated people, they know that the old jobs a e not coming back because the world has moved on; many people have not moved with it, are stuck in an occupational landscape that no longer
exists, and have become lost.
TORONTO, Feb. 14, 2017 /CNW/ - A new national survey released today reveals a bold portrait of Canada's Millennials (those born between 1980 and 1995), that for the first time presents the social values of this generation, and the distinct segments that help make sense of the different and often contradictory stereotypes that so frequently are applied to today's young adults.
The results show that Millennials cannot be lumped into a single group defined by their age, or by other demographic characteristics such as gender, region or socio-economic status. They are a diverse part of the Canadian society, made up of six social values "tribes", each reflecting a distinct worldview and approach to life. While Millennials may share some common experiences and aspirations as befits their stage in life, there are notable differences in outlook and life path across these tribes, be they "Engaged Idealists," "Bros and Brittanys," or "Lone Wolves."
After years of teaching face to face, many instructors are able to begin teaching a traditional, classroom-based course without having the entire course laid out ahead of time. This approach doesn’t work very well in the online classroom where careful planning and course design is crucial to student success.
Good online course design begins with a clear understanding of specific learning outcomes and ways to engage students, while creating activities that allow students to take some control of their learning. It also requires a little extra effort upfront to minimize
two of the most common frustrations of online learning: 1. confusing course organization (how course elements are structured within the course) and 2. unclear navigation (what links or buttons are used to access these elements).
Abstract
This article explores the relationship between unionization and academic freedom protections for sessional faculty in Ontario universities. Specifically, we compare university policies and contract provisions with a view to determining whether unionized sessionals hired on a per-course basis have stronger academic freedom protections than their non-union counterparts.
We then explore whether particular kinds of bargaining unit structures are more conducive to achieving stronger academic freedom provisions. Finally, we consider whether academic freedom can be exercised effectively by sessionals, whether unionized or not. We conclude that unionization does help to produce stronger academic freedom protections for sessional faculty and that faculty association bargaining unit structures are most likely to help deliver this outcome. We further conclude that academic freedom is difficult to exercise for sessional faculty, regardless of union status, but that unionization offers greater protections for sessionals facing repercussions as a result of asserting their academic freedom.
Keywords: academic freedom, sessional instructors, contract faculty, faculty associations, unions, bargaining unit structures
THE PAUCITY OF WOMEN IN SCIENCE HAS BEEN documented over and over again . A 2012 Report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology reported that a deficit of one million engineers and scientists will result in the United States if current rates of training in science, technology, math, and engineering (STEM) persist (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2012) . It’s not hard to see how this hurts the United States’ competitive position—particularly if women in STEM meet more gender bias in the U .S . than do women elsewhere, notably in India and China .
Dalhousie University’s Centre for Learning and Teaching offers a Certificate in University Teaching and Learning, which includes a 12-week course entitled Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. This course provides the certificate’s theory component and has evolved to reflect the changing needs of future educators. One significant change is the development of a blended course model that incorporates graded online facilitation, prompted by the recognition that teaching assistants and faculty are increasingly required to teach online or blended (i.e., combining face-to-face and online) courses. This study invited graduate students enrolled in the course to participate in pre- and post-facilitation questionnaires that assessed their awareness, competence, confidence, and attitudes towards online and blended learning. Students recognized the value of the online component for future teaching expertise and experienced increased awareness, competence, and confidence regarding teaching online. However, preference for face-to-face teaching and student learning did not change.
The Public Policy Forum has organized a series of roundtables to discuss strategies to better connect First Nations, Metis and Inuit businesses and communities with affordable financing and new sources of funding. Our goal is to develop a series of concrete recommendations to help inform a comprehensive strategy that enhances First Nations, Metis and Inuit access to capital. The first roundtable was held in Toronto, with the focus of discussions being access to large-scale commercial financing. Our second roundtable was held in Vancouver and considered where capital can be better leveraged for First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities.
Teaching. So many things have been said about teaching. "Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students." "A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning." "A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." Whoa. That is some heavy stuff right there. Makes being a teacher sound noble, important, and oh so awesome, does it not?
Between 1991 and 2011, the share of young people with a university degree increased significantly, as did the share of young workers employed in professional occupations. Nevertheless, many young university degree holders could still be considered ‘overqualified’—working in occupations requiring lower levels of education. In this article, changes in the overqualification among young graduates are examined over the period from 1991 to 2011.
Prior knowledge is essential for learning because it helps us make sense of new ideas and information. But when that prior knowledge is incomplete, confused, or flawed, it can create barriers to learning. Consider the following scenarios.
Student success is core to the enterprise of any university. What is meant by “student success” is complex and nuanced, but a key measure is provided by student retention rates: the proportion of students who continue with their studies and complete their degrees.
Carleton has made remarkable progress in improving its retention rates. For the 1992 cohort of undergraduates, only 56.5 per cent remained at the University two years after first enrolling. For the 2004 cohort, that figure had risen to 81.1 per cent. Much of this improvement can be attributed to the increase in the high school averages of students entering Carleton, as well as to
internal measures taken to encourage student success.
The rapid turnover of technology and ever expanding network of data and information which underpin the knowledge economy have led to a reevaluation of the importance of knowledge to the economic process. Economists now conclude that human capital - the ideas, skills, and expertise of people - is a fundamental driver of economic growth. Demand for employees that possess a mix of both “hard” and “soft” skills is rising as companies respond to intensified global economic competition.
The Cloud Goes to School
No validated tools assess all four competency domains described in the 2011 report Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPEC Report). The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a tool based on the IPEC Report core
competency domains that assesses the interprofessional attitudes of students in the health professions.
This is a time of change in higher education in Canada.
David Agnew, former Cabinet Secretary for the Government of Ontario, current President of Seneca College, and Chair of Colleges Ontario, drew attention to the changes occurring in Ontario in a speech to the Canadian Club in October 20151. Some of the changes occurring in Ontario and across Canada increase access to, and success in, higher education for many who would otherwise not have been able to go to college or university. Other changes are not so positive, as Agnew also
observed. Some colleges and universities are struggling to survive while others appear to be thriving. Understanding the current and future dynamics of the higher education system is important, especially for those leading the system or developing the policies which guide it.