We set out to determine whether hybrid delivery of a college program could facilitate completion of an apprenticeship. We found unanticipated complexity in the answer. The hybrid program delivered completion rates and average student grades that were comparable to those in a program delivered entirely in the classroom, but in only half the required time. However, we found that performance in the in-class portion of the program was not always linked to apprenticeship completion. The factors affecting completion are varied, in part because different stakeholders place a different value on completion.
From pro-rape chants at St. Mary's University in Halifax to misogynistic Facebook posts by some dentistry students at Dalhousie University, sexual assault has become a contentious topic on Canadian campuses.
Over the course of six months, CBC News contacted 87 university and major colleges across Canada to request the number of sexual assaults reported on each campus to the institution between 2009 and 2013.
Here's that data, searchable by school.
The comparative performance of education systems is attracting more attention than ever before. In Canada, questions have been raised about whether we are keeping pace with the world’s leading education systems, and whether our performance has been eroding over time. There are also concerns about whether too many students from less advantaged backgrounds are being left behind. This report reviews the latest international evidence regarding achievement and equity in education. It shows that, in terms of achievement, Canada consistently places among an elite group of high performing countries and economies.
Moreover, Canada continues to be a leader in terms of equity: public schools in Canada are among the best in the world at helping to level the playing field between rich and poor children, and Canada is one of only a very few high-immigration countries that show no significant achievement gap between immigrants and non-immigrants. In fact, Canada distinguishes itself by its ability to combine high levels of achievement and high degrees of equity in education.
At the same time, Canada is not without its challenges. There has been a modest decline in Canada’s performance over time, and Canada’s relative advantage is diminishing as a number of other rapidly modernizing countries are catching up. And while the education attainment of Aboriginal peoples in Canada is increasing, the achievement gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples at the higher end of the education attainment spectrum is still getting wider. No matter how well Canada may have performed to date in any given international study, there is will always be a need to strive for improvement.
Major study of adaptive learning finds inconclusive results about its ability to improve outcomes and lower costs, but use at two-year colleges and in remedial courses shows potential.
In this ongoing series focused on flipped and active-learning classrooms, we’re taking a deeper look into how to create successful learning experiences for students. We’ve examined how to encourage students to complete pre-class work, how to hold students accountable for pre-class work, and how to connect pre-class work to in-class activities. Now let’s focus on the challenge of managing the in-person learning environment.
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.
The focus of this project is on the assessment of transferable skills, and specifically resilience. Resilience has been defined as “the capacity of the person, family, or community to prevent, minimize, overcome, or thrive in spite of negative or challenging circumstances” (Wagnild & Young, 1993). In this report, Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) investigates the most appropriate measures to assess resilience as a learning outcome of Ontario’s postsecondary education (PSE) system. The long-term aim is to support the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) in its efforts to determine the role of PSE in enhancing resilience as a transferable skill.
The purpose of this document is to provide a high-level introduction to economic impact analysis (EIA) in a postsecondary education (PSE) context, written for a non-subject-expert audience of postsecondary institution stakeholders. It is intended to serve as broad context for individuals in the postsecondary education community who may wish to measure the economic impacts of their institutions or understand the methods, findings and limitations in studies done elsewhere. The information contained herein is of a general nature and is not intended to be an exhaustive, detailed quantitative textbook in actually conducting such studies, nor is it intended to address the circumstances of any specific individual or entity.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tasked with examining the future of online
education have
returned with a simple recommendation for colleges and universities: focus on people and process,
not technology.
Back in 2013, an MIT task force presented a vision of undergraduate education at the institute in which students spend half as much time on campus as they do today. Freshman year would be fully online, and instead of a senior year, students would take online continuing education courses to refresh their knowledge and add new skills. That vision leaned heavily on MIT’s work with edX, the massive open online course provider it founded with Harvard University.
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.
The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) represents over 17,000 professors and academic librarians at 28 faculty associations at every university in Ontario. OCUFA represents full-time tenure-stream faculty, and at many universities also represents contract faculty members who work either on a limited-term contract or on a per- course basis.
OCUFA estimates that the number of courses taught by contract faculty at Ontario universities has doubled since 2000.
Teachers in large class environments may have status as the dominant source of knowledge and language. When provided with tools for empowering learners through interactive language learning, teachers may feel challenged as roles change and language demands expand. Language development tools to create an interactive learner- centred class room include teachers’ own language learning, the use of specific task types, and class room techniques which build English language confidence. To build confidence to change from the `guru’ fronted environment requires cultural sensitivity, techniques and tailored approaches in teacher education. This paper will draw on research and experience in rural Malaysia and wider settings to suggest a framework for developing interactive language acquisition within a nationwide teacher education project.
With the ever-increasing availability of online education opportunities, understanding the factors that influence online student satisfaction and success is vital to enable administrators to engage and retain this important stakeholder group. The purpose of this ex-post-facto, nonexperimental quantitative study was to investigate the impact of faculty professional development, faculty degree status, and faculty longevity upon online student satisfaction and success. A large, archived dataset from an online public
state university was analyzed. Repeated measures Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) analysis was used to explore changes in student satisfaction over time. Results showed that both training and degree were not significant predictors of student satisfaction. On the contrary, faculty longevity was found to be a predictor of student satisfaction. Recommendations for future research include incorporating qualitative analysis and expanding the study to diverse institutional types to determine whether findings are consistent.
This paper is the response of the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario (ACAATO) to the consultation on adult education in Ontario. It provides an analysis of the elements of an adult education system, the role of the colleges, the trends which are shaping the environment as well as responses to the six questions posed in the Discussion
Paper.
The numbers surrounding social media are simply mind boggling.
750 million. The number of active Facebook users, which means if Facebook was a
country it would be the third-largest in the world.
90. Pieces of content created each month by the average Facebook user.
175 million. The Twitter accounts opened during Twitter's history.
140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day in February 2011.
460,000. Average number of new Twitter accounts created each day during February 2011.
120 million. LinkedIn members as of August 4, 2011.
More than two per second. The average rate at which professionals are signing up to join
LinkedIn as of June 30, 2011.
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.
The purpose of this research study was to map Ontario universities’ strategies, programs and services for international students (IS). In mapping these programs, we aimed to understand the opportunities, challenges and gaps that exist in supporting IS. We focused on services at various levels, including from the first year of study all the way through to graduation, the job search process, entry into the labour market, and students’ transition to permanent resident status.
Background/Context: The literature on emotional and social intelligence, based on the the-oretical constructs of several authors, identifies self-awareness as a core skill for leadership development. However, there is very little research or theory on how one might develop a ped-agogy of self-awareness for leaders.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study describes an innovative leadership development program in self-awareness in the Summer Principals Academy at Teachers College. It describes both the theoretical and practical pedagogy of self-awareness training. What follows is a description of that pedagogy and some preliminary research results based on the journals and feedback of 45 students who completed the program in 2006.
Love it or hate it, social media is no passing fad -- and increasingly it’s intertwined with more traditional academic platforms. Numerous scholars have popular blogs, for example, on which they test out new ideas and share research. Other academics have made names for themselves on Twitter or Facebook -- both to the benefit and detriment of their respective careers.
This paper is about the two million students in Ontario’s publicly funded school system.
In our first mandate (2003-2007) the government inherited a crisis in education. We responded by making education our first priority, set bold targets, and invested in the improvement of schools in partnership with local educators and communities. Together we were successful— test scores are up, the graduating rate from high school has increased, teacher morale has improved, and overall, people are satisfied with the direction of the reform.
But this is not nearly enough as we begin a second mandate. There are two kinds of dangers. One that we merely continue down the linear path of incremental improvements, or two that we enlarge the agenda so much that it becomes unwieldy and diffuse. We have struck a middle ground in this paper that involves substantially extending and building on our first platform.
It is common for second term governments to lose the fresh momentum they had created in their first term. England obtained substantial improvements in literacy and numeracy in its first term under Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997-2001. Then performance plateaued as the government lost focus in its second term (2002-2006) even though it had received a decisive majority from the electorate. Recently, Sir Michael Barber, the chief architect of England’s literacy and numeracy strategy was asked what he wished they had done differently in their second term. He responded by saying, “I wish we had: