Many countries strive to make postsecondary education maximally accessible to their citizens under the assumption that educated citizens boost innovation and leadership, resulting in social and economic benefits. However, attempts to increase access, especially in contexts of stagnant or diminishing financial support, can result in ever-increasing class sizes. Two aspects of large classes are extremely worrisome. First, economic and logistical constraints have led many such classes to devolve into settings characterized by lectures, readings and multiple-choice tests, thereby denying students experience and exercise with important transferable skills (e.g., critical thought, creative thought, self-reflective thought, expressive and receptive communication). Second, such classes are depicted as cold and impersonal, with little sense of community among students.
The Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) were founded in 1965 as a vehicle to increase access to post-secondary education, to address the needs of learners not served by the university system, and to meet local economic and community development needs. The CAATs have been highly successful at fulfilling their mandate, with 24 institutions currently serving 220,000 fulltime and 300,000 part-time students. This level of enrolment represents a 100% increase over the past 28 years.
This report examines community colleges from the perspective of the faculty who deliver their public service – high quality post-secondary education and job training. The report is based on conversations with over 600 faculty at all 24 CAATs, along with historical research and present-day inquiry into the sector’s financing, management, and operations. The report is focused primarily on perceptions by college faculty that there is a crisis of quality within the college system today.
Discussed below are seven classroom strategies that are frequently encouraged by teacher trainers and/or administrators and are assumed to be useful. However, when examined more closely what one sees is that they are actually highly ineffective and tend to encourage negative effects on the classroom climate, students’ psychology and level of function and order in the class. We need to therefore stop suggesting teachers use them, and if they have been suggested to you, you might politely decline and instead consider implementing better alternative practices that will get you long-term positive results such as those described below.
Inside Higher Ed’s fifth annual survey of college and university provosts and chief academic officers (CAOs) aims to understand how these leaders perceive and address the challenges facing higher education institutions in the U.S.
The Ontario Ministry of Education and Training’s Task Force on University Accountability first proposed key performance indicators (KPIs) for colleges and universities in Ontario in the early 1990s. The three main KPIs for Ontario universities are the rates of (1) graduation, (2) employment, and (3) Ontario Student Assistance Program loan default. This exploratory and descriptive study examined the perceptions of 12 key informants from 11 participating universities about the efficacy and effectiveness of these KPIs. The results of this study demonstrate that a clear majority of participants believe these KPIs
are not having the intended impact. This paper analyzes the evidence and makes recommendations designed to foster efficient collaboration between stakeholders; it also asks all parties to clarify their goals, agreed expectations, and requirements, in order to develop effective measures of institutional performance and accountability and address the political needs of the government, the universities, and the public.
This paper reports the results of an analysis of persistence in post-secondary education (PSE) for college students in Ontario based on the extremely rich YITS-B dataset that has been used for other recent studies at the national level. We calculate hazard or transition rates (and cumulative transition rates) with respect to those who i) graduate, ii) switch programs, and
iii) leave PSE (perhaps to return later). We also look at the reasons for switching and leaving, subsequent re-entry rates among leavers, and graduation and persistence rates once switchers and re-entrants are taken into account. These patterns are then probed in more detail using hazard (regression) models where switching and leaving are related to a variety of individual
characteristics, family background, high school outcomes, and early pse experiences. Student pathways are seen to be varied. Perhaps the single most important finding is that the proportion of students who either obtain a degree or continue to be enrolled somewhere in the PSE system in the years after entering a first program remains close to the 80 percent mark for the five years following entry. Seventy-one percent of students graduate within five years of starting, while another 6 percent are still in the PSE system.
When Bernie trailed Behind me to my office after class looking crestfallen and slumped into the chair to study with some intensity the laces on his sneakers, i realized that a battle of epic proportion was being waged. after some moments of silence, he blurted out that he was dropping out of school, that he just didn’t feel connected to the students in my class or to students in any other of his classes for that matter. he felt much more comfort- able with the construction crew he worked with every summer. maybe, after all, this was his true calling—being in the open air with scuffed work boots and dirt under his fingernails. maybe this was where he really should be. maybe college just wasn’t for him.
The increases in tuition and fee prices in 2015-16 were, like the increases in the two preceding years, relatively small by historical standards. However, the very low rate of general inflation makes this year’s increases in college prices larger in real terms than those of 2014-15 and 2013-14. Significantly, and perhaps counter to public impressions, price increases are not accelerating over time. However, the average published tuition and fee price of a full-time year at a public four-year institution is 40% higher, after adjusting for inflation, in 2015-16 than it was in 2005-06.The average published price is 29% higher in the public two-year sector and 26% higher in the private nonprofit four-year sector than a decade ago.
Algonquin College teachers call for closure of Saudi Arabia campus.
On March 12, 2015, the government announced that Ontario would be moving forward with the transformation of its
postsecondary education sector by launching consultations on modernizing the university funding model. The purpose of this
consultation paper is to outline an engagement process and position the review within the context of the government’s overall
plan for postsecondary education. Funding universities in a more quality-driven, sustainable and transparent way is part of the
government’s economic plan for Ontario.
Schools and school systems all across the world are seeking ways of improving student achievement to respond to the growing public recognition of the importance of education for individual and societal progress and success. Ontario has adopted an exciting approach to supporting school improvement that is research and evidence based. Unlike many jurisdictions around
the world that have adopted simplistic practices, Ontario has recognized that sustained improvement depends on schools, districts, and provinces adopting an aligned approach that builds the capacity of teachers, school leaders, boards, district leaders, parents, and community allies. Ontario is putting that approach into practice in elementary schools through the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy and Secretariat, and in secondary schools through the Student Success Strategy. In both strategies, the Ministry of Education is closely working with schools and school districts to develop common approaches to mean- ingful change focused on improved school and classroom practices. We recognize that within these broad parameters there can be many different ways to proceed, taking into account the diverse demographics and contexts of Ontario schools.
In November 2013, the Ontario Undergraduate
Student Alliance (OUSA) asked students to comment on their experience with summer and in-study employment. Of particular interest were: the number of jobs students were working during these terms; whether or not these opportunities were within a student’s field of study; and whether they positively impacted their academic performance.
Results of OUSA’s 2013 Ontario Post-Secondary Student Survey (OPSSS) were further broken down based on institution and field of study for questions of particular interest. This was done to easily compare the responses from these distinct groups to see how consistent the undergraduate employment experience was across academic disciplines and universities.
What Do Colleges and Universities Want Students to Read Outside Class?
Women are much less likely to be reappointed as faculty deans than men, says a new study of hiring at Canadian
universities.
While recruitment of new deans at Canadian universities largely reflects the overall gender balance of its academic sector, a University of Toronto researcher has found that women were far less likely to be reappointed once their five-year office had concluded.
Analysing almost 300 appointment and reappointment announcements from the Canadian publication University Affairs between 2011 and 2016, Eric Lavigne, a PhD student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, found that 58 per cent of appointments for dean positions went to men and 42 per cent were awarded to women.
Work-integrated learning (WIL) has been identified as a key strategy for supporting Canada’s postsecondary education (PSE) system in responding to an increasingly dynamic, globalized, knowledge-based economy. Ontario in particular has been described as a “hot bed” of co-operative education (Ipsos Reid, 2010). However, while there is a common belief that WIL improves employment outcomes (see Gault, Redington & Schlager, 2000; Kramer & Usher, 2010), research on this topic has generally been specific to certain programs and types of WIL (Sattler, 2011).
Work-integrated learning (WIL) has been identified as a key strategy for supporting Canada’s postsecondary education (PSE) system in responding to an increasingly dynamic, globalized, knowledge-based economy. Ontario in particular has been described as a “hot bed” of co-operative education (Ipsos Reid, 2010). However, while there is a common belief that WIL improves employment outcomes (see Gault, Redington & Schlager, 2000; Kramer & Usher, 2010), research on this topic has generally been specific to certain programs and types of WIL (Sattler, 2011).
In order to address this limited understanding of the impact of WIL on participants, employers and institutions, in 2009 the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) launched a multi-year project titled “Work-Integrated Learning in Ontario’s Postsecondary Education Sector.” This multi-stage study involved gathering qualitative and quantitative insights from faculty, employers and students on the perceived value and benefits of work and voluntary activities undertaken during a postsecondary program of study, both WIL and non-WIL, and examines the impact of these activities on learning, skills acquisition and labour market outcomes.
Beliefs about language learning and teaching have intrigued applied linguists since the mid-1980s starting with the pioneering work of Elaine Horwitz (1985) and Anita Wenden (1986). Since then, the interest in this topic in the field of Applied Linguistics has increased, with the publications of books on the theme (Bernat 2009; Borg, 2006; Kalaja & Barcelos, 2003) as well as several thesis, dissertations and journal articles. As a construct, beliefs have eluded researchers since the beginning being labeled as "messy" (Pajares, 1992) and complex. Several terms have been used to refer to beliefs such as folklinguistic theories of learning (Miller & Ginsberg, 1995), representations (Riley, 1994), metacognitive knowledge (Wenden, 1986), learning culture (Riley, 1997), the culture of learning languages (Barcelos, 1995), and culture of learning (Cortazzi & Jin, 1996), teacher cognition (Borg, 2003), and BAK (Beliefs-Assumption-Knowledge) (Woods, 1996). This profusion of terms is not necessarily negative. To quote Freeman (1991), "the issue is not the pluralism of labels, but the recognition of the phenomenon itself"
A fraternity member from the University of Oklahoma is otaped chanting a racist sont. At the University of Missouri, a slow response to racial slurs and graffiti fueld protests and led to the resignation of top administrators.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has linked data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) of teachers of 15-year-old students with school-level data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a survey of 15-year-old students. The purpose of this study is to present an exploratory analysis of the combined TALIS-PISA data by examining the relationship of school-level student measures to teacher outcomes. In other words, this paper examines how student factors in a school may influence teachers’ work, their attitudes, and their perceived needs for support. Survey responses were collected from teachers and students in eight countries. Data from 26 610 teachers were combined with student measures, aggregated by school, from 103 077 students.
Jenny: For much of the history of the Career Talk column, we’ve focused on faculty careers. But in the coming months, we are going to turn to a different topic, and explore the career paths and concerns of M.A.s, A.B.D.s, and Ph.D.s who opt for careers in campus administration.
Julie: Let’s start with the hiring process. How does it work? What application materials will you need? How is it different from a faculty search?
First, it’s important to understand that, while all colleges and universities have similar missions, they operate in very different ways. Administrative offices may have come into being organically or strategically. The same office — say, international programs — may report to university life at one institution but to the provost at another. When you start applying for a particular administrative position, it’s wise to figure out the office’s place within the institution because that will affect the way you write your letter and contextualize the job.