Increased demands in professional expectations have required online faculty to learn how to balance multiple roles in an open-ended, changing, and relatively unstructured job. In this paper, we argue that being strategic about one’s balance of the various facets of online teaching will improve one’s teaching efficiency and effectiveness. We discuss the balancing issues associated with four key online teaching facets: course design/development, delivery of the course content, assessments/feedback, and professional development. We conclude with a template for a strategic professional development plan that addresses these key facets.
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.
When the path is clear and given, when a certain knowledge opens up the way in advance, the decision is already made, it might as well be said there is none to make: irresponsibly, and in good conscience, one simply applies or
implements a program. Perhaps, and this would be the objection, one never escapes the program. In that case, one must acknowledge this and stop talking with authority about moral or political responsibility. The condition
of possibility of this thing called responsibility is a certain experience and experiment of the possibility of the impossible; the testing of the aporia from which one may invent the only possible invention, the impossible invention
(Jacques Derrida, 1992b, p. 41, italics in original).
Human capital is key for economic growth. Not only is it linked to aggregate economic performance but also to each individual’s labour market outcomes. However, a skilled population is not enough to achieve high and inclusive growth, as skills need to be put into productive use at work. Thanks to the availability of measures of both the proficiency and the use of numerous types of skills, the Survey of Adult Skills offers a unique opportunity to advance knowledge in this area and this paper presents and discusses evidence on both these dimensions with a particular focus on their implications for labour market policy. This paper explores the role played in the labour market by skill proficiency in the areas of literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments. It also shows how skills use, not only proficiency, affects a number
of key labour market phenomena, such as the gender wage gap. Finally, the paper combines information on skill proficiency, educational attainment, skill use and qualification requirements to construct indicators of qualification and skills mismatch and to explore their causes and consequences.
This three-year study explored the perceptions of pre-service candidates in a five-year concurrent teacher education program who participated in a peer mentorship practicum model. In this practicum model teacher candidates were placed as a dyad, with each novice first-year candidate paired with a second- or third-year candidate who acted as a peer mentor. Ideally, the pair was then placed in the same classroom under the supervision of the same hosting associate teacher. However, each year
constraints presented by candidates requesting different geographic areas for their placements and/or a lack of associate teachers in some locations who were willing to host two candidates (i.e., a novice and a mentor) necessitated placing between 5 and 8% of candidates in another classroom in the same school as their mentorship partner or in another school in close geographic proximity. The objective of the peer mentorship model was to foster collaborative practice between novice and mentor candidates, which was perceived to hold the potential to provide additional support for both candidates.
Dengting Boyanton, author of Teachers and Students as Co-Learners: Toward a Mutual Value Theory, experienced “extreme culture shock” when she left her native Chinese educational system to begin graduate study in education at the
University of Virginia in 2003. Despite the fact that she had been an enthusiastic and successful learner in her home country, Boyanton often felt perplexed and disappointed regarding the behavior expected of her in U.S. classrooms. She was inhibited about speaking up in class, afraid to ask questions of her professors or classmates, and insecure about offering her opinions and comments.
Boyanton’s international student colleagues, with whom she shared her feelings, reported experiencing the same negative emotions. When Boyanton began questioning American-born students about their classroom experiences—with the goal of helping herself and other international students adjust to American classroom culture—she discovered to her surprise that American students also felt alienated, invisible, and lonely in their classes. For example, one Caucasian male student
told her, “Like most new students here, you feel lonely, nobody knows you, nobody talks to you, and nobody seems to care about you either” (p. xvii).
Rates of depression and anxiety among young people in America have been increasing steadily for the past 50 to 70 years. Today, by at least some estimates, five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds even when the measures and criteria are constant.
The focus of the article is to provide recommendations for how to design learning environments to foster
greater creativity. I bring together art education research, creativity research, and learning sciences research to provide recommendations for how to design learning environments to foster creative learning outcomes.
Outcomes‐based education (OBE), namely the emphasis in education systems on learning outcomes and their assessment, has had one of the largest and most significant impacts on postsecondary education (PSE) in recent decades. Not only does OBE present clear statements to describe students’ skills and abilities, it also provides the vehicle by which postsecondary institutions can assess and improve the quality of their programs and demonstrate the value of these programs to both employers and the general public.
Studies of faculty development efforts at a liberal arts college and a landgrant university suggest the programs can have an impact on student outcomes.
Intuitively, it makes sense that professors who spend time developing their teaching skills will become more effective instructors -- and that that will eventually translate to better student outcomes. Practically speaking,
though, the challenges of (and the variables involved in) tracing the effects of professional development on student learning are myriad. That’s probably why the research on the matter is patchy, relying largely on self-reported measures. But a new book based on data from two very different institutions purports to show that faculty members can learn to become more effective teachers.
Faculty members at various institutions debate the pros and cons of shielding freshmen from themselves (or least their performance) in the form of "covered" or "shadow" grades on transcripts.
Students returning to class after the longest strike in the history of Ontario’s college system must wait awhile longer before cracking open their books: OPSEU has suggested its 12,000 unionized instructors start the day with a 20minute talk about their walkout before restarting any teaching.
It’s understandable that teachers want to speak their mind after walking the line these last six weeks. It’s debatable whether nearly 500,000 students will be of a mind to hear them out, or feel very understanding when forced to listen to a labour lecture from the front of the class.
The University/College Applicant Study™ (UCAS™) has been surveying applicants for over 18 years to gain insights into the post-secondary education (PSE) decision-making process. The study includes the measurement of:
Applicant demographics, including socio-economic characteristics and educational profile
Key decision factors weighed by applicants when they consider a PSE institution (academic, campus, extracurricular, financial, nurturing, outcome and reputation), and the impact of these factors on their application decisions.
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.
The University community has an interest in improving the happiness and well-being of graduate students for a straightforward reason: to enable graduate students to do their best work. Balanced, happy people are more productive, more creative, more collaborative, better at pursuing long-term goals, more likely to find employment, and more physically and psychologically resilient, among other things. Positive emotion is associated with curiosity, interest and synthetic thinking. In contrast, depression is associated with loss of interest, helplessness, difficulty concentrating and remembering details, and worse. For more on this, see Part VI, “The Objective Benefits of Subjective Well-Being,” from the World Happiness Report.
In Germany, strong public and private investments in apprenticeship training have created a well-coordinated and functional apprenticeship system. Its success renders the German apprenticeship system a model that other countries look to for ideas and inspiration. Nevertheless, German governments, businesses, employee groups, researchers, and other stakeholders continue to seek ways to improve the system.
The key mechanism for apprenticeship reform in Germany is the Board of the Federal institute for Vocational Education and training (BiBB). the Board coordinates negotiations among employers, employee groups, the 16 federal states, and the federal government, who work toward a legally mandated consensus on new or revised apprenticeship legislation.
Any time a student moves from high school into postsecondary education, or from postsecondary into the workforce,
stakeholders on either side of the transition seem to say to the other side, “You got this, right?” Postsecondary institutions might say that secondary schools need to better prepare students for PSE, while employers might argue that higher ed does not produce enough “job ready” graduates. But these gaps are not necessarily any one group’s fault, as the entire school-to-work journey has been siloed into a number of distinct services that are in dire need of bridging. With no group focused on the spaces between the silos, it should come as little surprise that these points of transition represent some of the most challenging times in the school-to-work journey.
Learning communities bring together small groups of college students who take two or more linked courses together — typically as a cohort. During the last few decades, many colleges and universities have started or expanded learning communities as a method to deliver curricula to students and forge closer bonds between students, among students and faculty, and between stu-dents and the institution. The learning community “movement” has grown in large part because of the leadership and advocacy of the Washington Center for Undergraduate Education at Evergreen State College. Founded in 1985, the Washington Center expanded its support for learning com-munities nationally after 1996 with support from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) and the Pew Charitable Trusts. As of August 31, 2005, more than 245 learning communities were listed in the online directory of the National Learning Commons. The learning communities registered on this Web site are located at both two-year and four-year colleges. A recent survey by the Policy Center on the First Year of College found that all types of colleges and universities offer some form of learning communities; 62 percent of responding institutions en-rolled at least some cohorts of students into two or more courses.
Dark economic times have come to the province. The Premier, under pressure from business groups, appoints a prominent citizen to review the government‟s finances. His report proposes dramatic cuts to most social programs and the public sector, including education. There is no broad -based public consultation involving public servants, teachers, doctors or university faculty.
While the cost of tuition and the rate at which it increases are obviously important subjects to students, they often cloud other important tuition-related issues. For instance, there are currently no regulations governing how and when universities may charge students tuition, meaning that each institution has the freedom to set individual payment processes.