What myths about constructing a teaching persona merit review? Teachers regularly exchange general advice about how to establish an identity in the classroom. Like most myths, these contain kernels of truth, but we believe their conclusions require a critical look. What are your beliefs about teaching persona, how it develops, and the role it plays in student learning?
Social networking became the rallying cry for a generation that connects over the Internet as easily as previous generations communicated over the telephone. In fact, many Millennials entering the workforce actually prefer social media to spoken conversations.
The governance of complex, decentralised, multi-level education systems poses two fundamental questions for both policy- and research discussions: What are innovative contemporary governance strategies for the central level in education systems? How can these approaches be described and analysed to identify commonalities that might help to understand how and if they work? In addressing these questions, this paper’s aim is twofold: first, to inform the policy-discussion by presenting empirical examples of new governance mechanisms that central governments use to steer systems across their levels; and second, to contribute to the conceptual discussion of how to categorise and analyse the evolution of new governance structures. To do so, the paper starts with identifying core features of multi-level governance and the respective conceptual gaps it produces. It then introduces a simple analytical categorisation of modes of governance. An analysis of three
empirical cases (an institutionalised exchange between governance levels in Norway, a capacity building programme in Germany, and the Open Method of Coordination within the European Union) then shows how various education systems address these gaps and design the role of the central level in complex decision-making structures. A comparison of the three cases identifies – despite the heterogeneity of the cases – several communalities, such as multi-staged policy processes,
transparency and publicity, and soft sanctions. The paper concludes that the Open Method of Coordination, even though often criticised for its inefficiencies, might serve as a promising template for national approaches to soft governance in education. Further research on OECD education systems is needed to gather more empirical examples; these may help to get a better
understanding of what is needed for successful steering from the central level in decentralised contexts.
Aboriginal women with higher levels of education had slightly higher employment rates than non-Aboriginal women in 2011. Specifically, 81.8% of Aboriginal women with a certificate, diploma or degree at the bachelor level or above were employed, compared with 79.5% of their non-Aboriginal counterparts. The same pattern held true for all three Aboriginal identity groups: First Nations, Métis and Inuit women.
Madeline Levine has been a practicing psychologist for twenty-five years, but it was only recently that she began to observe a new breed of unhappy teenager.
When a bright, personable fifteen-year-old girl, from a loving and financially comfortable family, came into her office with the word empty carved into her left forearm, Levine was startled. This girl and her message seemed to embody a disturbing pattern Levine had been observing. Her teenage patients were bright, socially skilled, and loved by their affluent parents. But behind a veneer of achievement and charm, many of these teens suffered severe emotional problems. What was going on?
This research paper highlights the mis-directed approach of the Ontario and federal governments’ research and development policies, policies that are reiterated in the platforms of both the Liberal and Progressive Conservative platforms in this Ontario election.
The community college is one of many providers of postsecondary and adult education in Canada. In making decisions about how the community college should allocate its efforts among various possible programs and activities, it is important to understand its relationship to other providers of postsecondary and adult education. This article describes and analyzes the relationship between Canada's community colleges and other providers of postsecondary and adult education in Canada. It attempts to identify the comparative strengths and weaknesses of community colleges relative to other providers with respect to particular types of activity, and from that analysis it offers suggestions regarding the emphases that colleges might place on certain of their activities.
Le collège communautaire est un des nombreux fournisseurs d’enseignement supérieur et d’éducation aux adultes au Canada. En prenant des décisions concernant la manière dont les collèges communautaires devraient allouer leurs efforts parmi différents programmes et activités, il est important de comprendre leurs relations avec d’autres fournisseurs d’enseignement supérieur et d’éducation aux adultes. Cet article décrit et analyse la relation entre les collèges communautaires du Canada et les autres fournisseurs d’enseignement supérieur et d’éducation aux adultes au Canada. Il tente d’identifier les forces et faiblesses des collèges communautaires comparativement à d’autres fournisseurs relativement à certains types d’activités, et à partir de cette analyse, il offre des suggestions concernant l’importance que les collèges peuvent accorder à certaines de leurs activités.
Not long ago, a colleague and I were talking about Mount Royal’s plan to become a new, undergraduate, instructionally-focused university. While supportive, he wondered if students would be better served by, and get more value, from a university with an
established reputation, rather than from the new Mount Royal University. He suggested without malice that university reputation was important to students, and thus a degree from a larger research-intensive university would hold more value.
Last week’s release of the annual Maclean’s magazine university rankings (June 19, 2006) suggests that he may have missed the mark. While Canada’s research focused universities are indeed outstanding institutions from which anyone would be proud to have a degree, Canadian universities are experiencing what could be called a reputation-quality paradox: the widening gap between a university’s reputation — based primarily on research-related measures — and the quality of students’ undergraduate experience.
Background/Context: The implications of complexity theory have become a recurring topic in the literatures of a wide range of scholarly and professional fields including adult education. This paper builds on literature calling attention to the educational need for pedagogically addressing the implications of the intensifying complexity in the environments that
confront adults in their professional and personal lives.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Three theoretical streams, (a) Complex adaptive systems; (b) learning through experience; and, (c) adult developmental theory provide the basis for the pedagogical approach that is presented. The focus is on contingently applying these distinct streams of theory into learning designs. We share our experiences in experimenting with course designs for preparing adult learners for taking action on personal, civic, and professional
challenges embedded in ambiguity and uncertainty in which rigid application of ready-made solutions is not possible. Our goal is to stimulate deeper experimentation. Accordingly, the question guiding this paper is, “How can we as adult educators create conditions in our classrooms, and other learning venues, for addressing the need for preparing adults to mindfully learn through
the challenges that confront them in the context of increasing complexity?”
Setting: For purposes of illustrating our experience and provoking questions, we draw on examples from our work in three graduate level courses in distinct disciplinary settings—specifically, organizational psychology and adult learning, adult education, and technology management.
The crisis — and there is no other word for it — in public schooling is a function of the interaction of an enormous push-pull dynamic. The push factor is that students find schooling increasingly boring as they proceed across the grades. Studies from many countries show that among high school students less than 40% of upper secondary students are intellectually
engaged (Jenkins, 2013; Willms et al., 2009). And, not unrelated, signs of teacher frustration are growing. For example, in the U.S the percentage of teachers who are satisfied with teaching has plummeted from 65% to 38% from 2008 to 2012. Teachers and students are psychologically if not literally being pushed out of school. Meanwhile prodigious technology is alluring all, kids and
adults alike, to the digital world, not necessarily productively. Within this allure we are seeing exciting new learning modes emerging from the interaction of pedagogy and technology. Education under these terms needs to be radically rethought — partly to stop the boredom, but mostly to blow the lid off learning, whereby students and teachers as partners become captivated by education day in and day out.
This report examines skill trends in 24 OECD countries over the past several decades. The skill measures used include broad occupation groups, country-specific direct measures of skill requirements from international surveys, and direct skill measures from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database applied to both United States and European labour force surveys. Each kind of data has its own strengths and limitations but they tell a consistent story.
A substantial body of research indicates that a teacher’s identity is an essential aspect of their professional practice. As this body of research grows, researchers have increasingly sought to investigate the nature of pre-service teacher identities. This paper reports on a study that examined identities in the context of a pre-service cohort’s online discussion group. By examining the group, this study attempted to address a gap in research knowledge, as research to this date has been unable to investigate pre-service teacher identities in non-course-endorsed or instructor-occupied spaces. A thematic and quantitative analysis of online postings by and interviews with group members provided an insight into how identities performed and related to one another within the online discussion group. The findings indicate that one category of identities emerged from a commitment to the social expectations and values of the group, whilst another emerged out of a personal resistance towards the social norms of group participation and involvement. This study may be useful for teacher educators deliberating the use of online spaces to support pre-service teacher identity development.
Keywords: online discussion group; pre-service teacher identity; teacher education; thematic analysis
School leaders are faced with the daunting task of anticipating the future and making conscious adaptations to their practices, in order to keep up and to be responsive to the environment. To succeed in a rapidly changing and increasingly complex world, it is vital that schools grow, develop, adapt and take charge of change so that they can control their own futures.This paper will examine the tension that exists for school leaders in relation to data about their schools and their students, arguing that the explicit connections between data and large-scale reforms make it impossible to avoid a critical approach to data, drawing on research in Ontario and Manitoba in Canada, and examining parallels with evidence from research in England, to highlight the challenges involved in using data effectively in different political contexts and mandated policies on the uses of data.
A number of studies suggest that student evaluations of teaching are unreliable due to various kinds of biases against instructors. (Here’s one addressing gender.) Yet conventional wisdom remains that students learn best from highly rated instructors; tenure cases have even hinged on it.
What if the data backing up conventional wisdom were off? A new study suggests that past analyses linking student achievement to high student teaching evaluation ratings are flawed, a mere “artifact of small sample sized studies and publication bias.”
We live in a world where economic, social and personal fulfillment depends less upon what we know, and more upon what we are able to learn, how we think and the degree to which we are able to respond to change around us. As centres of learning and discovery, universities play a crucial role in this process. Universities transform the lives of people, who in turn transform
our communities, our country and the world.
This report builds on the work of the past decade by the research team of the College Mathematics Project (CMP) and the College Student Achievement Project (CSAP) based at Seneca College, of which the authors were members. In particular, the senior author was a principal author of the final reports of both CMP and CSAP over the past several years. However, the present paper, while drawing heavily from those reports, is the responsibility of its two authors.
This article examines the differences in the location of study of immigrant adults aged 25 to 64 with a university education (i.e., with at least a bachelor’s degree). It provides results by period of immigration (pre-1990, the 1990s, and the 2000s) and provides a more in-depth analysis of factors that are linked to the location of study for the most recent cohort of immigrants (i.e., those who immigrated in 2000 or later).
This collection of essays reflects that classic sense of exploration, questioning, and discovery. The ten essays contained here, sponsored by the Alliance for Community College Excellence In Practice, were prompted by a challenge prior to the Alliance’s first symposium, held in Traverse City, Michigan, in the summer of 2013. The symposium topic: The Future of Community Colleges. Before the July “Futures” discussion brought 50 people together, the participants – community college leaders, visionaries, teachers, and learners – were invited to explore topics related to present and future opportunities facing higher education. They were asked to consider implications. Raise questions. And posit thoughtful commentary.
One of the many lessons learned from the early years of distance education is the fact that you cannot simply pluck an instructor out of the classroom, plug him into an online course, and expect him to be effective in this new and challenging medium. Some learned this lesson the hard way, while others took a proactive approach to faculty training. All of us continue to refine our approach and discover our own best practices.
Can Test of Workplace Essential Skills (TOWES) assessments and Essential Skills (ES) training interventions be used to help internationally educated professionals to be more effective at work? Through three worker groups, Bow Valley College (BVC) sought to test, train and re-test IEPs to determine if Essential Skills training could increase workplace success. The worker groups included: WorleyParsons with Targeted training for a specific workplace; Corporate Readiness Training Program (CRTP) which was, in-class training followed by a work experience; Success in the Workplace (SWP) /City of Calgary blended delivery Continuing Education training. In all three worker groups, 142 learners were tested. Of that group 48 tested in at Level 2 in Document Use and completed the training and both TOWES assessments. Results indicated that all workers moved positively within Level 2 and some workers moved from Level 2 to Level 3 and Level 4.