The proportion of adults in Canada with a post-secondary education is the highest among all OECD countries, and the cost of that education is roughly double the OECD average. Yet, more and more of those degree holders fall behind in the earnings scale. The share of Canadian university graduates who make less than half the national median income is the largest among all OECD countries. Sure, on average it pays to get a post-secondary education, but with the education premium narrowing, the number of low-income outliers is rising. And despite the overwhelming evidence that one’s field of study is the most important factor determining labour market outcomes, today’s students have not gravitated to more financially advantageous fields in a way that reflects the changing reality of the labour market.
School and university, and the well-trod path between them, play a dominant role in thinking about education policy. But outside these two institutions there exists a less well understood world of colleges, diplomas, certificates and professional examinations – the world of post-secondary vocational education and training. many professional and technical jobs
require no more than one or two years of career preparation beyond upper secondary level, and in some countries as much as one-quarter of the adult workforce have this type of qualification (see Figure 1). Nearly two-thirds of overall employment growth in the European Union (EU25) is forecast to be in the “technicians and associate professionals” category – the category most closely linked to this sector (CEDEFOP, 2012). A recent US projection is that nearly one-third of job vacancies by 2018 will require some post-secondary qualification but less than a four-year degree (Carnevale, Smith and Strohl, 2010). The aim of this OECD study (see Box 1) is to cast light on this world, as it is large, dynamic, and of key importance to country skill systems.
One of the most profound transformations in postsecondary education is coming from the realization that digital communication skills really do matter in everyday life; therefore, it is imperative that digital skills also matter in academic life. Students and enlightened faculty alike understand that the convergence of technical and creative competencies is helping to create new opportunities for a whole new generation of creative professionals. “Imagine a curriculum that is based on achieving comprehensive goals where students must create and produce a computer game, suggests Eric Converse, CEO of ATIV Software, a mobile application development company. “This requires an understanding of physics and math, programming and scripting, story and dialog writing, cinematography, art and design, music, collaboration, teamwork, and delegation.Digital storytelling has become an essential method of enhancing education in the humanities by making abstract or conceptual content more understandable. It engages students through images, audio, and video and provides a compelling way of sharing their work with their peers that, in turn, fosters more collaboration and accomplishment. The availability of increasingly sophisticated audio editing, image editing and video editing tools, such as those provided in Adobe® Creative Suite® software, has given educators and students unprecedented abilities to become master composers in nonprint media and to build digital stories in the humanities that can captivate and teach an audience and connect people like never before. In addition, competencies that have traditionally been associated with art and design professionals are now expected from professionals working in such disciplines as journalism and education. Institutions are also seeing an increasing awareness of the value that subject matter experts with deep technological ability bring to the classroom and the workplace. This realization that the sum of discipline expertise plus technology expertise is even greater than its respective parts is leading to the emergence of fields of study such as informatics, instructional design, and educationaltechnology, areas of study that claim digital proficiencies as core components.
This paper explores the impact that digital communication skills, using processes associated with digital storytelling, is having on disciplines including liberal arts, humanities, and cross-curricular humanities/ technology collaboratories. In its simplest forms, digital storytelling involves the illustration of story elements using photographs and graphics tools, sometimes using nothing more than free and open source tools that can help make an abstract idea more conceptually complete. Increasingly, however, digital storytelling has evolved to include more complex forms of digital expression requiring video skills, such as micro-documentary production. In some cases, digital storytelling is dependent upon computer programming skills for application development and augmented reality.
Table of contents
1: Background
1: Introduction
2: The evolution of 21st century digital communication skills
2: Digital storytelling for enriched communications
3: Integrated enrichment: digital humanities instruction and practice
3: English language and literature course presentations enhanced by use of Adobe CS5
3: Other notable digital storytelling initiatives
4: Summary
4: References
Vincent Tinto (1993) identifies three major sources of student departure: academic difficulties, the inability of individuals to resolve their educational and occupational goals, and their failure to become or remain incorporated in the intellectual and social life of the institution. Tinto's "Model of Institutional Departure" states that, to persist, students need integration into formal (academic performance) and informal (faculty/staff interactions) academic systems and formal (extracurricular activities) and informal (peer-group interactions) social systems.
The past few years have ushered in more strident calls for accountability across institutions of higher learning. Various internal and external stakeholders are asking questions like "Are students learning what we want them to learn?" and "How do the students' scores from one institution compare to its peers?" As a result, more institutions are looking for new, more far-reaching ways to assess student learning and then use assessment findings to improve students' educational experiences.
However, as Trudy Banta notes in her article An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators, “just as simply weighing a pig will not make it fatter, spending millions simply to test college students is not likely to help them learn more.” (p. 6)
While assessing institutional effectiveness is a noble pursuit, measuring student learning is not always easy, and like so many things we try to quantify, there’s much more to learning than a number in a datasheet. As Roxanne Cullen and Michael Harris note in their article The Dash to Dashboards, “The difficulty we have in higher education in defining and measuring our outcomes
lies in the complexity of our business: the business of learning. A widget company or a fast-food chain has clearly defined goals and can usually pinpoint with fine accuracy where and how to address loss in sales or glitches in production or service. Higher education is being called on to be able to perform similar feats, but creating a graduate for the 21st century workforce is a very
different kind of operation.” (p. 10)
This special report Educational Assessment: Designing a System for More Meaningful Results features articles from Academic Leader, and looks at the assessment issue from a variety of different angles. Articles in the result include:
• The Faculty and Program-Wide Learning Outcome Assessment
• Assessing the Degree of Learner-Centeredness in a Department or Unit
• Keys to Effective Program-Level Assessment
• Counting Something Leads to Change in an Office or in a Classroom
• An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators
Whether you’re looking to completely change your approach to assessment, or simply improve the
efficacy of your current assessment processes, we hope this report will help guide your discussions
and eventual decisions.
Rob Kelly
Editor
Academic Leader
ABSTRACT
Psychological theory and research can make key contributions to sustainability scholarship and practice, as is demonstrated here in the fi eld of higher education pedagogy. College students undergo profound changes in epistemological assumptions and in identity during their undergraduate years. Data on the Measure of Intellectual Development for students participating in learner-centred pedagogies at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, showed a trend toward more complex thinking by these students (N=153). Qualitative data on student identity development associated with transdisciplinary, project-based campus sustainability courses were collected at Canada’s University of Prince Edward Island and at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Findings revealed the identity of “learner†blending with that of “change agentâ€; a greater sense of identity in relation to the campus community and the different perspectives of its stakeholders, the sustainability movement; and a sense of empowerment backed up by practical skills. Sustainability poses new challenges for intellectual-moral development and identity development. Psychological theory gives insights into how pedagogies should be designed to challenge students just beyond their level of intellectual, moral, and identity development, in order to expose them to intellectual-moral growth and identity alternatives conducive to the complexities of sustainability advocacy and practice.
RÉSUMÉ
Les théories psychologiques ainsi que la recherche peuvent apporter d’importantes contributions clés à la recherche et à la pratique de la durabilité, comme cette étude le démontre dans le domaine de la pédagogie dans l’éducation
supérieure. Les étudiants collégiaux subissent de profonds changements en terme de réfl exion épistémologique et d’identité lors de leurs années d’études au premier cycle. Nous présentons d’abord des données se rapportant à la Mesure du Développement Intellectuel (Measure of Intellectual Development) pour des étudiants de Western Washington University à Bellingham dans l’état de Washington aux Etats-Unis qui ont participé à des pédagogies centrées sur l’apprenant ; les résultats démontrent une tendance à une pensée plus complexe chez ces étudiants (N=154). Ensuite, nous analysons des données qualitatives sur le développement de l’identité des étudiants de l’Université de l’Île-du-Prince-Édouard au Canada et des étudiants de Western Washington University aux États-Unis qui ont assisté à des cours sur la durabilité sous forme de projets transdisciplinaires appliqués au campus universitaire ; les résultats révèlent la superposition de l’identité de « l’apprenant » et de celle d’ «agent
de changement », mais aussi un sentiment identitaire plus fort envers la vie de campus et les différentes perspectives de ses partenaires, le mouvement de la durabilité, et enfi n un sentiment de confi ance consolidé par un savoir-faire pratique. Les théories psychologiques éclairent la manière dont les nouvelles pédagogies devraient être conçues afi n de stimuler les étudiants juste au-delà de leur niveau de développement intellectuel, moral et identitaire, pour les exposer à des alternatives identitaires, et soutenir leur engagement envers des identités d’un genre nouveau en matière de durabilité.
Promoting public discussion of key educational issues
With this report, CEA provides a context for rethinking schools to drive dialogue and critical thinking about the challenges we face in educating all students to take their place in a world of dynamic social, technological and economic change.
CEA encourages reflection and welcomes your feedback on the following questions:
. When it comes to education, what matters most to Canadians?
. Does Canada have a clear picture of what a good school system looks like?
. What are the goals of our education systems in the 21st century?
. Who should decide what children and youth in Canada learn?
. What ideas do people trust when it comes to education, and how do they come to trust new ideas?
ABSTRACT. I argue in this article that responsible leadership (Maak and Pless, 2006) contributes to build- ing social capital and ultimately to both a sustainable business and the common good. I show, first, that responsible leadership in a global
stakeholder society is a relational and inherently moral phenomenon that cannot be captured in traditional dyadic leader–follower relationships (e.g., to subordinates) or by simply focusing on questions of leadership effectiveness. Business leaders have to deal with moral complexity resulting from a multitude of stakeholder claims and have to build enduring and mutually beneficial
relationships with all relevant stakeholders. I contend, second, that in doing so leaders bundle the energy of different constituencies and enable social capital building. Social capital can be understood as actual or potential resources inherent to more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual recognition (Bourdieu 1980). By drawing on network analysis I suggest,
third, that responsible leaders weave durable relational structures and ultimately networks of relationships which are rich in ties to otherwise unconnected individuals or groups.
I am pleased to report that Humber had another strong year as we embrace and deliver on our new strategic plan: Strengthen, Sustain, Maximize. Leading up to the launch of this plan last fall, Humber experienced unprecedented growth.
From 2008-2013, full-time postsecondary enrolment increased by 43% compared to the provincial increase of 25% over the same period. As we approach our 50th anniversary, we continue to innovate and collaborate in order to bring our
students the highest quality education delivered by faculty and staff committed to their success.
We do this by living the values of a learning organization. That means fostering an organizational culture that encourages curiosity, creativity, innovation and collaborative problem solving. All skills necessary to succeed in today’s increasingly
interconnected and global world.
CACUSS is pleased to support the second edition of this guide to “Researching Teaching and Student Outcomes in Postsecondary Education.”
The first edition was a useful resource for our members in working collaboratively to understanding academic and co-curricular learning in postsecondary contexts. The guide offers an accessible introduction to the issues and techniques in conducting research and we believe that it is a good resource for student affairs staff who are considering a research project to measure outcomes in their departments, programs, or campus.
Student affairs professionals are involved in various research and assessment projects seeking to understand the student experience. We are asked more and more frequently to provide evidence of how our work impacts student learning, wellbeing, development and success rates. In addition, the need to refine programs, build outcomes-based plans and engage with faculty on academic initiatives to support student success also persists.
We congratulate the authors and collaborators on their work in updating this useful tool.
I am a Research Assistant on a project entitled Writing Instruction Using an Online Assignment Planner. I am here to invite you to participate in this study. This study is designed to assess how teachers and students use the Assignment Planner in large classes
The 2015 Engineers Canada Labour Market Study provides supply and demand projections for 14 engineering occupations. The report highlights a large and growing need to replace retiring engineers as they exit the workforce. This is particularly relevant for civil, mechanical, electrical and electronic engineers as well as computer engineers. Replacement demand for engineers
is an important theme that will be relevant for the next decade as the baby boom generation retires.
Canadian universities are granting an increasing number of engineering degrees to Canadian and international students and creating new entrants to these occupations. Ontario and Quebec universities are granting many of these degrees. However, economic activity is shifting to western Canada and shifting the demand for engineers in that direction. Engineers Canada would like to highlight the growing importance of inter-provincial migration for engineers. In addition, federal government immigration policy such as the new Express Entry program is important to help streamline international migration of engineers to meet the country’s future workforce requirements.
Responding to trends in research, National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) institutional data and curriculum renewal processes, several recent initiatives at the University of Toronto focus on the complementary role of the teaching assistant (TA) as part of a teaching team. Particularly, these initiatives focus on the establishment of learner-centred environments, support for deep student learning, and the development of core skills and competencies for both undergraduate and graduate students.
This study examined the influence of two teaching assistant (TA) models – the Advanced University Teaching Preparation Certificate (AUTP), offered by the University of Toronto’s Teaching Assistants’ Training Program (TATP), Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation, and the Writing Instruction for TAs (WIT) Program, offered in the Faculty of Arts & Science. Both of these TA models aim to improve undergraduate student learning by ensuring that TAs are integral members of the teaching team and that they receive sufficient training and guidance in order to effectively support deep student learning. Both of these TA models utilize peer training as a core dimension.
The government of Ontario has signalled the need for Ontario’s publicly funded universities to seek additional productivity gains while sustaining access and quality in light of fiscal constraints. It has identified differentiation as a key policy driver to achieve these goals.
Implementation of these provincial directions likely involves consideration of how universities deploy their faculty to meet their differentiated teaching and research mandates. In fact, a preliminary examination by HEQCO of productivity in the Ontario public postsecondary system suggested that how universities deploy their faculty resources may be one of the most promising
opportunities for universities to increase their productivity (HEQCO, 2012).
The authors address three questions: (1) What are the foundational practices of team-based learning (TBL)? (2) What are the fundamental principles underlying TBL’s foundational practices? and (3) In what ways are TBL’s foundational practices similar to and/or different from the practices employed by problem-based learning (PBL) and cooperative learning (CL)? Most of the TBL vs. CL and PBL comparisons are organized in relation to the size of and strategies for forming groups/teams, the strategies for ensuring that students are familiar with the course content, the nature of the group/team assignments, the role of peer assessment, and the role of the instructor.
Student wellness is an essential component of academic success in higher education and subsequent opportunities in the labor market. The Ohio State University Office of Student Life’s Student Wellness Center uses a model that includes nine key dimensions of wellness: career, creative, emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, physical, social and spiritual.
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.
Ensuring students with special needs are receiving the best education is one of the greatest challenges facing school districts around the country. It is a challenge to organize, staff and operate successfully. It is a challenge to determine how best to provide the required curriculum and content but ensure that it is individualized to meet the instructional needs of the student with special needs. It is a challenge to determine how best to evaluate and assess progress. And it is a challenge for the bottom line — special education programs are expensive. Teachers must have better tools if they are to cost effectively engage and teach students who have special learning needs. The toolkit needs to be well stocked with a variety of capabilities to meet the needs of students across the disability spectrum. The breadth and depth of the toolkit allows for teachers to effectively differentiate instruction for students.
Recent advances in technology, and the accompanying curricula that utilize these advances, are rapidly filling that
toolkit with programs that can provide benefits to students with special needs.
Designing an online course shares many of the same elements and processes that go into designing a traditional face-to-face course, however the online environment brings a unique set of challenges that require special attention and a different approach. Faculty charged with developing their own online courses can find learning the new technology particularly frustrating, and those who are not early adopters to technology might resist the process entirely. Indeed, many institutions are realizing that the development and delivery of online courses is an increasingly complicated process, requiring both a specialized pedagogy and a technological expertise – and it’s rare to find both qualifications in the same person. In the article “The Collaborative Approach to Developing Online Courses,†the author explains how one university adopted a centralized and standardized approach to the design, development, and management of online programs that respects the talents of both instructional designers and faculty by allowing each to work in their own specialty. As a result, courses have the same quality standards and a more consistent look and feel. This special report features eight articles pulled from the pages of Distance Education Report, and covers a variety of different aspects of online course design. Some of the articles you will find in
the report include:
. The Collaborative Approach to Developing Online Courses
. Building Course Quality Systematically
. Who Ya Gonna Call When a Course Needs Help?
. Developing a Course Maintenance Process for Your Online Courses
. What Learning Object Repositories Mean for Your Program
Whether you’re developing a new online course from scratch, or updating one that’s starting to show its age, this report will give you new ideas to consider.
One of the deepest current concerns in higher education is to find ways to more fully involve students in learning. Astin (1977, 1984) found that greater degrees of involvement with the programs and activities of the campus influence student satisfaction with college, academic achievement, and persistence toward graduation. Involvement, "the amount of physical and
psychological energy that the student devotes to the academic experience" (1984, p. 297), includes five postulates, two of which are critical in understanding our task of building community on a college or university campus: "The amount of student learning and personal development associated with any educational program is directly proportional to the quality and quantity of student involvement in that program. The effectiveness of any educational policy or practice is directly related to the capacity of that policy or practice to increase student involvement" (p. 298).