How prepared are today’s entering undergraduates for the challenges that lie ahead of them?
This annual report goes beyond the usual metrics of standardized test scores and high school transcripts to explore a wide range of non-cognitive attitudes that influence college readiness, such as students’ levels of self-discipline and confi dence in their abilities. The report is based on student survey responses drawn from a sizable national sample of entering undergraduates in 2012.
Among the highlights:
• Nearly 30 percent of incoming freshmen nationally in 2012 reported they “usually get bored and quit after a few minutes” when they try to study;
• Only 59 percent of incoming freshmen reported that they have developed a solid system of self discipline
for keeping up with schoolwork;
• Nearly 60 percent of incoming freshmen expressed openness to receiving help with improving their study habits;
• Fully 45 percent of today’s incoming freshmen nationally agreed with the statement, “Math has always been a challenge for me”;
• Only 42 percent of incoming, first-generation freshmen indicated, “I have a very good grasp of the scientific ideas I’ve studied in school”;
• Nearly half (49 percent) of incoming freshmen indicated being receptive to help with improving their math skills;
• Nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of incoming male freshmen wondered if a college education “is really worth all the time, money, and effort”;
• Three-quarters (75 percent) of incoming freshmen ages 25 and older reported being settled on their career direction vs. fewer than two-thirds (64 percent) of traditional-age freshmen; and
• Almost 40 percent of incoming, first-generation freshmen indicated they had “very distracting and troublesome” financial problems—a proportion that has generally held steady over the last six years.
College prices have increased by 45 percent on average over the past decade, while household income has declined by 7 percent in the same period. According to a Lumina/Gallup survey in 2015, more than three-quarters of American adults do not think education beyond high school is affordable for everyone in the nation who needs it.
The Ontario government recognizes the importance of ensuring equality of access to postsecondary education (PSE). One group that has been and continues to be underrepresented in PSE is students with disabilities. As a response, the Ontario government has made improvements to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, with the end goal of making Ontario a more accessible province for people with disabilities by 2025. In addition to making changes to legislation, there has been increased funding for students with disabilities, with more than $47 million allocated in 2010-2011 to help these students achieve
success in PSE. The Ontario government now also provides targeted funding for students with learning disabilities (Tsagris and Muirhead, 2012).
The 2005 Postsecondary Review, “Ontario: a Leader in Learning,” authored by Bob Rae, addressed issues facing students with disabilities. Key recommendations1 included:
Require institutions to reach out to students with disabilities at their schools and in their communities to ease the transition to postsecondary education. Provide funding for enhanced academic and career counselling on campus. Allow for the evolution of centres of research and service excellence and distribute funding to institutions for supports and services on the basis of the size of a given institution’s population of students with disabilities (Rae, 2005: 32).
After reviewing the state of student retention research and practice, past and present, the author looks to the future and identifies three areas of research and practice that call for further exploration. These concern issues of institutional action, program implementation, and the continuing challenge of promoting the success of low-income students.
Key Word: Tinto
With a population of 13 million people, the province of Ontario covers a significant geographic distribution of 917,741 square kilometres (Statistics Canada, 2005). Fourteen per cent of the population is categorized as living in a rural, remote or northern area (Statistics Canada, 2011). Within this land mass is a rich diversity of people, systems and institutions that are privileged to call it home - including Francophone persons and First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. There are unique challenges that exist within these communities that affect access to health services: geographic distance, socioeconomic status, availability of health human resources and infrastructure. These factors have an impact on health status, wellness and the ability to offer person-centred health care.
Highlights
• Aboriginal women living off-reserve have bucked national trends, with employment rates rising since 2007 alongside labour force participation.
• Employment growth has been particularly high in service sectors such as finance and professional services – areas typically associated with well-paying, stable jobs.
• Linked to improving labour market outcomes, Aboriginal women have seen sizeable improvements in education attainment over the past 20 years.
• Significant gaps in outcomes relative to the Non-Aboriginal population persist. Fortunately, the rela- tively young population implies that these gaps will continue to close as the Aboriginal population is likely to see further gains in educational outcomes.
Just as goods, services, products, and daily news gradually become widespread going beyond borders due to mass media, and global free movement, so do scientific publications, books, and academic work. As a result of the mind-blowing developments in publishing industry and communication, a piece of information, comments, or inventions belonging to a nation, country,
university, or an academic ach the furthest country immediately and be shared with other societies and scientists.
An important consequence of intensification of economic, political, and cultural relations among countries is that scientific and educational cooperation has increased. Only 30-40 years ago, there was only a handful of books and articles published abroad
by Turkish scientists, yet today, hundreds of articles are published in magazines, and many books are printed by foreign publishing houses, which gives various nations information on science, arts, sports, politics, education, and inventions in Turkey.
While discussions on the value of education often focus on economic gains, the social returns to education are vast and can be reaped at both the individual level (e.g., better health) and societal level (e.g., lower crime rates).
Based on a combination of new and existing analyses, this paper explores the individual benefits and disadvantages associated with education, focusing on civic engagement; health/happiness; crime; and welfare/unemployment. The findings clearly suggest that investing in education has both individual and social benefits. While no causal link can be made between level of education and the returns examined, it is evident that those with some form of postsecondary education (PSE) often fare better than those with no more than a high school education.
For example, in terms of civic engagement, university graduates are more likely than high school graduates to volunteer and donate money. Higher levels of education also increase the likelihood of voting and other forms of political participation. In terms of health and happiness, university graduates tend to rate their physical and mental health higher than those with fewer years of education and are also less likely to smoke. Finally, happiness and life satisfaction also tend to increase with education.
Educated individuals are less likely to be incarcerated, most notably when comparing high school graduates with those who did not graduate. With that said, certain types of crime are more prevalent among certain populations and individuals with higher levels of education are more likely to commit white collar crimes. Finally, those with more education have lower unemployment rates and fared better during the most recent economic recession. They were less likely to require social assistance and had shorter welfare spells, especially for women.
Student Debt and the Class of 2013 is our ninth annual report on the cumulative student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges. Our analysis of available data finds debt levels continue to rise, with considerable variation among states as well as colleges.
About seven in 10 (69%) college seniors who graduated from public and private nonprofit colleges in 2013 had student loan debt. These borrowers owed an average of $28,400, up two percent compared to $27,850 for public and nonprofit graduates in 2012. About one-fifth (19%) of the Class of 2013’s debt was comprised of private loans, which are typically more costly and provide fewer consumer protections and repayment options than safer federal loans.
This research uses the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) to compare participation in postsecondary education (PSE) in Ontario to such participation in other Canadian regions. We begin by presenting access rates by region, which reveals some substantial differences. University participation rates in Ontario are in about the middle of the pack, while college rates are relatively high. We then undertake an econometric analysis, which reveals that the effects of parental income are quite strong in the Atlantic provinces but much weaker elsewhere, including within Ontario. We also find that the relationship between high school grades and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test scores (measures of academic “performance” and “ability”) differ by region and are generally strongest in Ontario. From this perspective, Ontario would appear to have a relatively “meritocratic” system, where those who are more qualified are more likely to go to university and where overall attendance rates are less affected by family income. Interestingly, the effects of parental education, which are generally much stronger than family income, are similar across provinces. Understanding the reasons underlying these patterns might warrant further investigation.
Every developed country is racing to keep up with profound and fundamental changes in the 21st century. The new knowledge economy is creating unprecedented demands for higher levels of expertise and skills, while, at the same time, changing demographics will significantly reduce the numbers of qualified people available in the economy.
The cumulative impact presents great opportunities and great challenges to Ontario.
The province has an opportunity to implement meaningful and transformational changes that exploit the potential for growth in the new economy and drive Ontario’s prosperity to unprecedented levels.
But the threats to Ontario’s future are just as great. Failing to move forward now with significant measures could leave Ontario unprepared for the challenges ahead, and strand thousands of people as permanently unemployable.
Handheld devices are widely applied to support open and distributed learning, where students are diverse. On the other hand, customization and personalization can be applied to accommodate students’ diversities. However, paucity of research compares the effects of customization and personalization in the context of handheld devices. To this end, a customized digital learning system (CDLS) and personalized digital learning system (PDLS) were implemented with the handheld devices and they tailored to the needs of different cognitive style groups. Furthermore, we conducted two empirical studies to examine the effects of cognitive styles on the use of the CDLS and PDLS. More specifically, Study 1 identified the preferences of each cognitive style group while Study 2 investigated how students with different cognitive styles react to the CDLS and the PDLS. The results from these two studies showed that student with the CDLS and those with the PDLS obtained similar task scores and post-test scores, regardless of their cognitive styles. However, cognitive styles affected the efficiency of completing tasks and perceptions for customization and personalization.
Keywords: customization, personalization, handheld devices, cognitive styles
The Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) exercise was intended to address at least three desired
outcomes:
1. To promote the government’s stated goal1 of increasing the differentiation of the Ontario postsecondary system by asking each Ontario postsecondary institution to articulate an institutional mandate statement identifying its distinctive strengths or aspirations and to identify key objectives aligned with that aspiration.
2. To advance and inform the discussion about how the Ontario system could increase its productivity to deliver a quality education to more students within the financial constraints expected in the public sector.
3. To elicit the best thinking from institutions about innovations and reforms that would support higher quality learning and, in its most ambitious form, transform Ontario’s public postsecondary system.
To assist with the evaluation of the SMAs, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU)
“…instructed the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) to establish a peer review panel to evaluate…mandate submissions … for their ability to achieve significant improvements in productivity, quality and affordability through both innovation and differentiation.” The members of the Expert Panel are listed in Appendix 1.
One of my primary research interests is the design of higher education systems, a subject on which I did background papers for recent commissions on postsecondary education in Ontario and British Columbia. I am interested in both factors that influence the design of higher education systems and in the implications of different system designs for accessibility, quality, innovation, and the effectiveness of higher education in meeting societal needs. An example of analysis of the design of a higher education system is found in a recent book that I co-authored (Clark, Moran, Skolnik, and Trick, 2009). We concluded that the design
employed in Ontario for the provision of baccalaureate education is inefficient, because it attempts to provide almost all baccalaureate education through a system of publicly funded research universities, the most expensive model for the provision of bachelor’s programs. In our recommendations we emphasized the need for greater institutional differentiation among
providers of baccalaureate credit activity. This would include having a few predominantly teaching universities that concentrate on baccalaureate programming; an open university; and making credit transfer a major function of the colleges.
Identifying effective policy interventions for adults with low literacy and numeracy skills has become increasingly important. The PIAAC Survey of Adult Skills has revealed that a considerable number of adults in OECD countries possess only limited literacy and numeracy skills, and governments now recognise the need to up-skill low-skilled adults in order to maintain national prosperity, especially in the context of structural changes and projected population ageing.
An Act respecting the establishment and governance of colleges of applied arts and technology
EXPLANATORY NOTE
NOTE EXPLICATIVE
The purpose of the Bill is to continue the power formerly con-tained in section 5 of the Ministry of Training, Colleges andUniversities Act to allow the establishment and governance ofcolleges of applied arts and technology. The colleges and theboard of governors for each college are established by regula-tion. Each board is a Crown agent.
Le projet de loi a pour objet de proroger le pouvoir auparavant prévu par l’article 5 de la Loi sur le ministère de la Formation et des Collèges et Universités afin de permettre l’ouverture et la régie des collèges d’arts appliqués et de technologie. Les col-lèges et le conseil d’administration de chacun d’eux sont mis en place par règlement. Chaque conseil est un mandataire de la Couronne.
As online education moves from the fringes to the mainstream, one question still persists: “How do I know what my online students have learned?” There are no simple answers, just as there aren’t in face-to-face courses, but with a little creativity and flexibility, you soon discover that the online learning environment opens up a host of new student assessment possibilities. And, just as with traditional courses, the trick is finding the right combination that works best for your particular course.
This special report features 12 articles from Online Classroom that will cause you to examine your current methods of online assessment, and perhaps add something new to your assessment toolbox. It even talks about some of the common assessment mistakes you’ll want to avoid.
Take a look at some of the articles you will find in Assessing Online Learning: Strategies, Challenges and Opportunities:
• Authentic Experiences, Assessment Develop Online Students’ Marketable Skills
• Four Typical Online Learning Assessment Mistakes
• Assessing Whether Online Learners Can DO: Aligning Learning Objectives with
Real-world Applications
• Strategies for Creating Better Multiple-Choice Tests
• Assessing Student Learning Online: It’s More Than Multiple Choice
• Using Self-Check Exercises to Assess Online Learning
• Measuring the Effectiveness of an Online Learning Community
• Ongoing Student Evaluation Essential to Course Improvement
Online courses enable a strong student-centered approach to learning and, as a result, assessment. We hope this report helps you design and develop online assessment strategies that take full advantage of the many formal and informal assessment tools now at your fingertips.
Faculty and students may hold center stage in society’s image of higher education institutions, but a whole variety of influential behind-the scenes personnel are also essential to running institutions successfully. Faculty and staff alike bring knowledge and skills that often go beyond their current job descriptions. However, the wealth of talent on campus has traditionally been
difficult to identify, track and integrate with the institution’s present needs and long-term strategic plans.
Although education institutions are focused on learning outcomes, they are also businesses. Typically, only about half of the staff
are instructors. The rest are administrators, business professionals, support staff and operational titles. A well-run entity must have a way to track and manage relevant personnel data and competencies across all of these job types. To meet this need, colleges and universities are implementing an integrated system for performance and talent management. “Don’t think of talent management as an isolated topic,” says Dave Jones, organizational effectiveness specialist in the Housing and Food Services Division at Purdue University in Indiana. “It has to be part of the organization’s bigger picture in order to be successful.”
Disable the Label
Improving Post-Secondary Policy, Practice
and Academic Culture for Students
with Disabilities
Released December 4, 2014
1673 Barrington St S TUDENT SNS.C A . Halifax, NS B3J 1Z9
ii
Abstract
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 postsecondary
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 postsecondary
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.
In a traditional face-to-face class, students have many opportunities to interact with their instructor and fellow students. Whether it’s an informal chat before or after class, or participating in the classroom discussion, interaction can be an important factor in student success. Creating similar opportunities for participation and collaboration in an online course is one of the biggest challenges of teaching online. Yet, opportunities for meaningful interaction online are plentiful, provided you design and facilitate your course in the correct manner and with the proper tools.
Asynchronous and synchronous learning tools, such as threaded discussions, instant messaging, and blogs play an important role in humanizing online courses by replicating the classroom experience of information exchange and community building, not just between students and teacher but among the students as well. This Faculty Focus special report features 15 articles from Online Classroom newsletter, and will provide you with specific strategies on how to use synchronous and asynchronous
learning tools to engage your online students.
Here are just some of the articles you will find in this report:
• A Plan for Effective Discussion Boards
• Using Video Clips to Stimulate Discussion
• Using Individual and Group Instant Messaging to Engage Students
• Nine Strategies for Using IM in Your Online Course
• Four Ways to Improve Discussion Forums
Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning Tools: 15 Strategies for Engaging Online Students Using Real-time Chat, Threaded Discussions and Blogs is loaded with practical advice from educators who’ve found effective ways to promote learning and build community in their online courses.