Since the late 1990s, teacher professional development models have shifted from a focus on individual improvement to collaboration as a means to foster support, information, and resource exchange between teachers. Following this shift, researchers began to use social network research methodology in the early 2000s to reveal the ways in which informal relationships affect teachers’ practices. This chapter reviews current literature on teachers’ social networks and teacher quality to describe the ways in which social networks mediate teachers’ practices. It provides detailed examples from two studies on teachers’ social networks and suggests ways that scholars can incorporate the constructs of social capital and social networks into large-scale research on teacher quality.
Responsible leadership is rare. It is not that most leaders are irresponsible, but responsibility in leadership is frequently defined so that an important connotation of responsible leadership is ignored. This article equates responsible leadership with virtuousness. Using this connotation implies that responsible leadership is based on three assumptions—eudaemonism, inherent value, and amplification. Secondarily, this connotation produces two important outcomes—a fixed point for coping with change, and benefits for constituencies who may never be affected otherwise. The meaning and advantages of responsible leadership as virtuous leadership are discussed.
It's a common cliché: the worldly professor who charms and mesmerizes his adoring young student.
Mathematician John Nash, captured in the Hollywood film A Beautiful Mind, was one of them. As was biologist and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey.
And recently, University of British Columbia creative writing professor Steven Galloway officially joined the club when he apologized via his lawyer for having a two-year affair with one of his students.
The disclosure follows a year-long controversy surrounding Galloway's abrupt dismissal over "serious allegations." Few details have been revealed; the matter is currently under review.
Like other major Canadian universities, UBC doesn't prohibit professors from dating students — although conflict of interest rules require them to disclose the relationship to a superior and recuse themselves from any decisions that may affect the student.
But it prompts the question: In an era of increasing discussion of sexual harassment on campus, should universities
allow relationships between faculty and students at all?
If you’re interested in using technology tools to enhance your teaching, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the mountain of information out there. To make matters worse, much of it is either highly technical or simply not very practical for the college classroom.
Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning approaches teaching technologies from your perspective — discussing what works, what doesn’t, and how to implement the best ideas in the best ways.
The primary goal of this study was to identify a wide range of characteristics of college students that may influence their decisions to select online courses. The motivation underlying this study is the realization that online courses are no longer exclusively being taken by non-traditional students (for undergraduates, that would be students age 25 years and older with career, family, and/or social obligations). In fact, there are recent reports indicating that traditional undergraduate students (on-site students that are age 18-24) are now including online courses in their course curriculum. To accomplish the goal of this study, an ordered logit model was developed in which a Likert scale question asking students how likely/unlikely they were to take an online course was used at the dependent variable. The independent variables were based on a wide range of responses to questions regarding student demographic, experience, and preference information (these are the students’ characteristics). The data for this study is from a 2010 Oklahoma State University campus-wide student survey. The results of the study have identified a number of considerations that may be helpful to administrators wishing to improve and/or expand online course offering, as well as areas that can be further investigated in future studies. For example, undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in business majors were more likely than those in other majors to select online courses. On the other hand, undergraduate students(traditional and non-traditional) enrolled in engineering majors and graduate students enrolled in anatomy,biochemistry, biology, and botany major were the least likely groups of students to select online courses.Freshman and sophomores were found to be more likely than juniors and seniors to select online courses, and were much more likely than graduate students to select online courses. With respect to residency, out-of-state/non-residents (not including international students) were the most likely to select online courses, while international students were the least likely to select online courses. Finally, a significant and positive relationship was identified between some web 2.0 technologies, such as online social networking (e.g.Facebook) and live video chatting (e.g. Skype), and students’ likelihood of selecting online courses.
If we believe in the active-learning classroom — that the only way to bring about real learning is to engage students in ways that help them revise and broaden their thinking — then student participation is a nonnegotiable part of the equation. Learning does not happen without the student actively taking part.
Oddly, however, given its importance, our own definition of “student participation” is often quite limited. In the scholarship on teaching and learning, that term is almost always defined narrowly as the degree to which students take part in class discussions. And while discussion is obviously an important component of an active-learning classroom, it’s not the only component. There are many other ways in which students participate in class: writing, researching, and contributing to small group activities are just a few. If we want to accurately assess and reward participation in our courses, we need to expand our definition to include more than just the amount of times that students raise their hands.
This report focuses on data comparability of scale scores in the Teaching and Learning nternational Survey (TALIS).
Valid cross-cultural comparisons of TALIS data are vital in providing input for evidence-based policy making and in promoting the equity and effectiveness of teacher policies. For this purpose, an investigation of data comparability is a prerequisite for any meaningful cross-cultural comparison.
TALIS involves a large number of countries and economies, and has used rather strict conventional statistical methods to test comparability. Thus, many scales in TALIS do not reach the level of comparability that allows direct comparisons of scale scores. To facilitate the effective data analysis of TALIS and maximise its policy implications, this project: (1) uses a more flexible statistical method to testcomparability, and (2) investigates the level and sources of scale data incomparability.
Building on StudentsNS’ quality and accessibility values, this report discusses the systemic barriers that persons with disabilities face when pursuing post-secondary education. Providing an in-depth discussion of the supports and challenges found within the academic system, this paper begins to re-conceptualize how disability is viewed and accommodated. Nova Scotia has made great strides toward enabling persons with disabilities to access post-secondary education in the past several decades, but we still have a long way to go. Persons with disabilities remain among the most underrepresented and underemployed groups in Canada. Ensuring persons with disabilities have access to and adequate support during post-secondary education is fundamental if we want this to change. Programs aimed at increasing persons with disabilities’ participation in post-secondary education, and in the work force are often insufficient. Similarly, the supports offered by post-secondary institutions (funded through the province) could be improved to better support students with disabilities. We make suggestions for the post-secondary system to further develop present accessibility measures and improve the quality of education delivered to students with disabilities. Recognizing that providing support for students with disabilities is not purely an academic matter, this report will be complimented by future reports on campus health services, social determinants of access to post-secondary education, and discrimination and human rights.
The aim of this study was to review the existing literature on game-based digital interventions for depression systematically and examine their effectiveness through a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Database searching was conducted using specific search terms and inclusion criteria. A standard meta-analysis was also conducted of available RCT studies with a random effects model. The standard mean difference (Cohen’s d) was used to calculate the effect size of each study. Nineteen studies were included in the review, and 10 RCTs (eight studies) were included in the meta-analysis. Four types of game interventions—psycho-education and training, virtual reality exposure therapy, exercising, and entertainment—were identified, with various types of support delivered and populations targeted. The meta-analysis revealed a moderate effect size of the game interventions for depression therapy at posttreatment (d= -0.47 [95% CI - 0.69 to - 0.24]). A subgroup analysis
showed that interventions based on psycho-education and training had a smaller effect than those based on the other forms, and that self-help interventions yielded better outcomes than supported interventions. A higher effect was achieved when a waiting list was used as the control. The review and meta-analysis support the effectiveness of game-based digital interventions for depression. More large-scale, high-quality RCT studies with sufficient long-term data for treatment evaluation are needed.
This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency and are having an increasing effect on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list
of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings
to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation.
This report maps learning outcomes associated with three Ontario advanced diploma programs in Business (Accounting Administration, Human Resources Administration, and Marketing Administration) in order to determine whether these credentials are equivalent to baccalaureate degrees in an international (European and American) context. In so doing, it draws on recent discussions of learning outcomes in both Ontario and the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), particularly with regard to the Bologna Process. It also provides more information for current Ontario debates about the positioning of the three-year advanced diploma.
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.
One of the most maddening things about contemporary book publishing is the niche that a new book is supposed to occupy. This niche is not an abstraction: it corresponds to the actual place where a book will land in the bookstore. Consider, then, an analytical book about contemporary parents: is it a parenting book, which will then end up next to the how-to book on toilet training? Maybe. But if the book doesn’t offer advice, some would say it doesn’t belong there. Then does it belong on the “sociology” shelf, where no parent will find it?
“905” Residents are most likely to identify jobs/unemployment” as the most important issue currently facing the Ontario government.
Claiming that talking about race causes more racism is akin to suggesting that it would not rain if people would just stop carrying umbrellas. Conversely, just as umbrellas protect against the rain, talking about race can serve as a defense against racial microaggressions and onslaughts. Researching Race in Education: Policy, Practice, and Qualitative Research provides a 'storm
olars can gather under as we ride out another racial storm.
At a time of increasingly complex societal challenges and tight fiscal constraints, all participants agreed that social finance offers an opportunity for Canada to mobilize new sources of capital to generate positive social and financial returns. Despite recent advancements in the field of social finance, Canada remains in the early adoption stage and has yet to reach a stage of maturity. Participants agreed that transformational change takes time and commitment; as such, it should such change, reporting that there is increasingly more openness to innovation and more permission to think differently.
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.
There’s surprisingly little research on the effects of graduate student instruction on undergraduates and of teaching experience on graduate students’ eventual careers. But conventional wisdom suggests that seasoned faculty members make better undergraduate instructors and that graduate students benefit from more time spent on finishing their dissertations than on teaching. For those reasons and others, some institutions -- most recently Purdue University -- have taken steps toward increasing faculty-undergraduate interaction and limiting the use of graduate students as instructors.
For decades, research and public discourse about gender and science have often assumed that women are more likely than men to “leak” from the science pipeline at multiple points after entering college. We used retrospective longitudinal methods to investigate how accurately this “leaky pipeline” metaphor has described the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the U.S. since the 1970s. Among STEM bachelor’s degree earners in the 1970s and 1980s, women were less likely than men to later earn a STEM Ph.D. However, this gender difference closed in the 1990s. Qualitatively similar trends were found across STEM disciplines. The leaky pipeline metaphor therefore partially explains historical gender differences in the U.S., but no longer describes current gender differences in the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in STEM. The results help constrain theories about women’s underrepresentation in STEM. Overall, these results point to the need to understand gender differences at the bachelor’s level and below to understand women’s representation in STEM at the Ph.D. level and above. Consistent with trends at the bachelor’s level, women’s representation at the Ph.D. level has been recently declining for the first time in over 40 years.
When a person enrolled in university in 1967, he or she entered a world barely recognizable to most students today. Today’s students can only gaze back at it with envy.
Tuition was $2,750 a year (in current dollars), less than half today’s. Unlike many students today, few students then had to work during the school year to pay for their education, so they could devote as much time as they wanted to their studies.