This commentari is contextualized in America's gilded age of corporate education caharacterized by millionaire CEO university presidents and a growing chasm of wealth inequality in our educational system. America's deepening educational stratification mirrors and magnifies wider social, economic, racial, and political inequality and injustice.
Gender disparities appear to be decreasing in academia according to a number of metrics, such as grant funding, hiring,
acceptance at scholarly journals, and productivity, and it might be tempting to think that gender inequity will soon be a problem of the past. However, a large-scale analysis based on over eight million papers across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities reveals a number of understated and persistent ways in which gender inequities remain. For instance, even where raw publication counts seem to be equal between genders, close inspection reveals that, in certain fields, men predominate in the prestigious first and last author positions. Moreover, women are significantly underrepresented as authors of single-authored papers. Academics should be aware of the subtle ways that gender disparities can occur in scholarly authorship.
This article examines the share of adults aged 25 to 65 with a university degree who were in the lower range for literacy skills, numeracy skills, or both, and the factors most likely to be associated with lower levels of literacy or numeracy among university graduates. In this article, individuals in the lower range for literacy and numeracy are defined as those who scored at level 2 or below (out of 5 levels) in tests administered to survey respondents who participated in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC).
In Canada, the term “visible minority” is used to define one of four designated groups under the Employment Equity Act. The purpose of the act is to achieve workplace equality and to correct employment disadvantages affecting women, Aboriginal peoples, people with disabilities, and visible minorities. Within this context, visible minorities are defined as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.”
The combination of work and study has been hailed as crucial to ensure that youth develop the skills required on the labour market so that transitions from school to work are shorter and smoother. This paper fills an important gap in availability of internationally-comparable data. Using the 2012 Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), it draws a comprehensive picture of work and study in 23 countries/regions. Crucially, it decomposes the total share of working students by the context in which they work (VET, apprenticeships or private arrangements) and assesses the link between field of study and students’ work. The paper also assesses how the skills of students are used in the workplace compared to other workers and identifies the socio-demographic factors and the labour market institutions that increase the likelihood of work and study. Finally, while it is not possible to examine the relationship between work and study and future labour market outcomes at the individual level, some aggregate correlations are unveiled.
As Canadian businesses look for new ways to empower workplace learning to meet demands to achieve more while having fewer resources available for training and development, interest in delivering programs using different kinds of instructional pproaches (e.g., face-to-face, problem-based learning, coaching) combined with a variety of technologies (e.g. discussion boards, e-content, conference calls) – generally referred to as blended learning – is growing. These blended learning strategies can be designed to provide opportunities for supporting just-in-time (i.e., immediate) access to learning tools and supports anywhere, anytime - especially important when the objective is to improve performance on the job. Generally, research in this area has focused on comparisons of classroom versus online courses versus blended programs indicating blended programs out-deliver either online or classroom when used alone. However, analysis of the impact of different blended learning strategies on personal soft-skills (e.g., coaching, teamwork, critical thinking) development and job performance has not been given much attention. The focus of this research study was to compare the learning impact/outcomes of four different blended learning strategies (offered in parallel in each of four research groups) based on a theoretical model emerging from work reported by Adams (2004). Each level in the model was defined by a different blended learning strategy that moves from a very loose coupling of personal learning with job performance in level 1 (e.g., online learning used as a background resource for self-directed learning), to tighter and tighter couplings of learning with job performance in level 2 (e.g., online materials integrated with a structured classroom course and required as pre-and post work) and level 3 where online learning materials were integrated with personal learning objectives and blended with collaborative discussion forums and peer coaching. Level 4, defined in this model as a very tight coupling of personal learning with job performance in relation to the previous three blended learning strategies mentioned involved using online learning materials to support personal job-based projects where participants worked on the projects as part of their learning (i.e., an action-learning pedagogical approach) where a demonstrable return on learning (ROL) was measured.
The pressure is on Canadian universities for a scandal-free year after a string of high-profile sexual assault cases and orientation week faux pas over the past academic year spotlighted what some say is a pervasive campus rape culture.
"Things don't change overnight. It's a slow progress," said Bianca Tétrault, officially McGill University's new "liaison officer (harm reduction)" and informally the person tasked with combating sexual assault on campus. "But that doesn't mean we should be deterred from it or that we should stop."
This article examines the career and college advice that high school counselors and vocational teachers give to the “forgotten half,” students who are unlikely to seek a 4-year college degree. Using interview data from 12 Midwestern high schools, we found that most counselors tend to encourage all students to attend college, regardless of the students’ interests or plans. Vocational teachers, on the other hand, showed evidence of a more nuanced view of the need for college. We found that vocational teachers in our sample fit in to four broad categories in terms of their advice and opinions about college: the college-for-all advocates, who push college regardless of circumstances; the diplomats, who try subtly to tell students that their plans are unrealistic; the straightforward, who try to make sure that students have realistic information; and the hands-off, who disavow any role in helping students make future plans. After an examination of these approaches, we conclude with a discus-sion of the implications of the various approaches for guiding students’ choices.
Rachelle Peters is exactly the kind of student colleges are hoping to attract more of.
She went back to school at 40, after years of boom then bust. Her career had been in art publishing in Vancouver, a niche business of finding artists whose artwork is then reproduced, say, 2,000 times. The company would frame and sell the prints with an eye to home decor trends. Think record company, but selling art reproductions instead of music.
In Ontario, the topic of increasing transferability between colleges and universities has recently attracted the attention of
numerous individuals in the fields of higher education, politics and the local media – many of whom have suggested that increasing the availability of college to university transfer programs, also known as articulation agreements, would facilitate pathways to higher education for a greater number of students from diverse backgrounds. However, there are many issues surrounding the transfer of students from colleges to universities in Ontario, most of which are connected to the historical structure of the system of postsecondary education in the province. Any progress towards a system of greater transferability between community Ontario and universities would require a careful analysis of the success of existing college to university transfer programs as well as a radical reconsideration of the provincial system of postsecondary education as a whole.
Leadership models of the last century have been products of top-down, bureaucratic paradigms. These models are eminently effective for an economy premised on physical production but are not well-suited for a more knowledge-oriented economy. Complexity science suggests a different paradigm for leadership—one that frames leadership as a complex interactive dynamic from which adaptive outcomes (e.g., learning, innovation, and adaptability) emerge. This article draws from complexity science to develop an overarching framework for the study of Complexity Leadership Theory, a leadership paradigm that focuses on enabling the learning, creative, and adaptive capacity of complex adaptive systems (CAS) within a context of knowledge-producing organizations. This conceptual framework includes three entangled leadership roles (i.e., adaptive leadership, administrative leadership, and enabling leadership) that reflect a dynamic relationship between the bureaucratic, administrative functions of the organization and the emergent, informal dynamics of complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Keywords: leadership, complexity theory, complex adaptive systems (CAS), Knowledge Era, creativity, adaptive organizations, bureaucracy
This qualitative research study investigates a model of delivering assistive technology training to adult students with a variety of disabilities who are enrolled in academic upgrading classes at a Canadian college. The purpose was to examine whether an academic subject context for assistive technology training delivered by Academic Strategists impacted students’ engagement in
classes, independence, completion of learning outcomes, and adoption of assistive technology. The model of assistive technology training used in this study utilized subject area Academic Strategists to deliver assistive technology training in the context of their regularly scheduled academic strategies sessions.
Designing an online course shares many of the same elements and processes that go into designing a traditional face-to-face course, however the online environment brings a unique set of challenges that require special attention and a different approach.
The ability to reach a variety of audiences in diverse environments has made distance learning a major form of education
and training in the 21st century. Though traditionally encountered in the educational and business communities, distance learning has proven an important resource for a variety of other constituencies. Terrorist groups have exploited the digital domain as a means of recruitment, propaganda and training, and other related activities, including the use of distance learning as a strategic resource and force multiplier. The distance learning strategies and tactics of jihadists are reviewed as we explore the dark side of distance learning.
Canada needs skills of all kinds to remain competitive in the global economy. Today’s students are the workforce of tomorrow, and their education will shape Canada’s future prosperity. Graduates across all disciplines are reaping the rewards of a university education. They’re armed with the hands-on learning experience, entrepreneurial spirit and interdisciplinary skills that will help them succeed in an evolving labour market.
Universities offer innovative and diverse learning experiences that equip students to adapt, collaborate, lead and learn throughout their lives, and they can do even more with the partnership and commitment of the government and private sector.
This article contributes to the leterature on how teachers learn on the job and how schools and districts can support teaching learning to improve student learn ing and incorpirate changing standards and curricular materials into instructional practices.
The clearest and most consistent message received by the Steering Committee through its working group reports and submissions from the wider community is that, as the University of Toronto seeks to respond fully and faithfully to the challenges issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (“TRC”), our focus must be on concrete action. The Steering Committee (the “Committee”) is of the same mind. Therefore, this report will be framed around a series of ‘calls to action,’ mirroring the work of the TRC itself.
With all of the recent writing on globalization, it is a welcome addition to find a book that deals comprehensively with the relationship between globalization and education at all levels and comparatively in different countries, both developed and developing. This book is a collection of articles that arose from presentations at the 1997 western regional conference of the Comparative and International Education Society and were later augmented. Given that history, it is unusual for such a book to be a cohesive whole, and yet it manages to be that. The quality of the various contributions is quite consistent and authors
acknowledge different contributions and perspectives that appear in other sections of the book.
What is on the five-year horizon for higher eudacation instiregarding technology adoption? Which trends technology developments ill drive educational change? What are the challenges that we consider as solvable or difficult to overcome, and educational change steered the collaborative research and discussions of a body of 58 experts to produce the NMC Horizon Report: 2016 Higher Education Edition, in partnership with the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). This NMC Horizon Report series charts the five-year horizon for the impact of emerging technologies in colleges and universities across the globe. With more than 14 years of research and publications, it can be regarded as the world’s longest-running exploration of emerging technology trends and uptake in education.
This paper replicates the work of Giles and Drewes from the 1990s.They showed a catch-up effect whereby graduates of liberal arts undergraduate programs, although at an early-career disadvantage compared with graduates of applied programs, had higher incomes by mid-career. Working with the Panel 5 Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (2005–2010), the catch-
up no longer exists.