omen and African Americans—groups targeted by negative stereotypes about their intellectual abilities—may be
nderrepresented in careers that prize brilliance and genius. A recent nationwide survey of academics provided nitial support for this possibility. Fields whose practitioners believed that natural talent is crucial for success had ewer female and African American PhDs. The present study seeks to replicate this initial finding with a different, and rguably more naturalistic, measure of the extent to which brilliance and genius are prized within a field. Specifically, e measured field-by-field variability in the
emphasis on these intellectual qualities by tallying—with the use of a ecently released online tool—the frequency of the words “brilliant” and “genius” in over 14 million reviews on ateMyProfessors.com, a popular website where students can write anonymous evaluations of their instructors. his simple word count predicted both women’s and African Americans’ representation across the academic pectrum. That is, we found that fields in which the words “brilliant” and “genius” were
used more frequently on ateMyProfessors.com also had fewer female and African American PhDs. Looking at an earlier stage in students’ ducational careers, we found that brilliance-focused fields also had fewer women and African Americans obtaining achelor’s degrees. These relationships held even when accounting for field-specific averages on standardized athematics assessments, as well as several competing hypotheses concerning group differences in epresentation. The fact that this naturalistic measure of a field’s focus on brilliance predicted the magnitude of its gender and race gaps speaks to the tight link between ability beliefs and diversity.
The quality of students’ relationships with teachers and peers is a fundamental substrate for the development of academic engagement and achievement. This chapter offers teachers and researchers a motivational framework that explains how positive
and negative student–teacher and student–peer relationships are sustained in the classroom, and strategies for creating solutions to improve relationships.
This paper examines whether intermediary bodies are useful in advancing government goals for quality and sustainability in higher education systems. It explores the evidence about intermediary bodies through case studies of England, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. It also treats the case of Ontario, whose best-known intermediary bodies have been the Ontario Council on University Affairs and the colleges’ Council of Regents.
The theoretical literature on intermediary bodies in higher education suggests that intermediary bodies are potentially useful actors in policy and administration. Many intermediary bodies were established to manage growth but in recent years have been reoriented to managing fixed or declining resources and flat or declining enrolments.
We use data for a large sample of Ontario students who are observed over the five years from their initial entry to high school to study the impact of course selections and outcomes in high school on the gender gap in postsecondary enrolment. Among students who start high school "solidly" in terms of taking the standard set of grade 9 courses (e.g., math, language, science, etc.) and performing well in these courses, we find a 10 percentage point gap in the fraction of females versus males who register for university or college (69% versus 59%). This gap is seen with respect to university registration (43% for females versus 32% for males) but not in college registration. We then show how the gender gap in university registration is related to the gender gaps at two earlier stages: (1) the first year of high school, where students can select either academic or applied track classes in core subjects including math and languages; (2) the final year(s) of high school, where students who intend to enter university must complete a minimum number of university-level classes.
The ability of postsecondary students to write and communicate proficiently is an expectation identified by many, including not only organizations such as the OECD but also other public and employer groups. There is concern, however, that students and thus employees often fail to meet expectations in these areas. To address this concern, it is necessary to understand more about the writing skills that students learn during their postsecondary education. This research project was designed to examine whether and how students are taught to write at university.
In the wake of student suicides, universities are reflecting on how to respond, and on their approaches to dealing
with mental health.
It can sometimes feel like the final days of a semester can’t come soon enough. Compounding that feeling, because
of where the Easter long weekend fell on the calendar this past academic year, the final exam period at the
University of Guelph ended on a Monday instead of the Friday before. Across the undergraduate residences,
advisers made extra efforts to check in with students to see how they were doing.
The ACHA-National College Health Assessment II (ACHA-NCHA II) is a national research survey organized by the American College Health Association (ACHA) to assist college health service providers, health educators, counselors, and administrators
in collecting data about their students' habits, behaviors, and perceptions on the most prevalent health topics.
ACHA initiated the original ACHA-NCHA in 2000 and the instrument was used nation wide through the spring 2008 data collection period. The ACHA-NCHA now provides the largest known comprehensive data set on the health of college students, providing
the college health and higher education fields with a vast spectrum of information on student health. A revised survey, the ACHA-NCHA-II, has been in use since the fall 2008 data collection period.
he government of Ontario went to some effort to showcase its planned Ontario Student Grant in its recent budget, nd with good reason: it’s an intelligent, progressive reform of student assistance, in all the ways that its previous eforms weren’t.
ather than offset the cost of tuition for every student, rich or poor, as under the province’s ill-starred “30 Per Cent ff” plan, the new plan would roll a number of existing grants and tax credits into a single grant targeted at those ost in need. Families earning less than $50,000 would essentially be tuition free, with lesser reductions for those on incomes between $50,000 to $85,000.
In recent years, we’ve been exposed to increasing amounts of headlines about the possibility of machines becoming more intelligent than human beings, and even wresting control over the planet from us entirely. These threatening predictions, which may or may not yet come true, are the result of significant developments in the computer science field called artificial intelligence (also known as AI).
A recent surge in the number of students applying to colleges and universities is creating heavy administrative
burden and increasing competition to attract top applicants. The National Center for Education found that enrollment at academic institutions has grown from 25% in 1970 to 40% in 2014 for adults between the ages of 18 and 24. Even this year, universities across the country like UCLA, Princeton, and Williams College in Massachusetts reported up to a 25% increase in applications. This increase is leading many institutions to modernize their digital infrastructure – converting from a decades-old paper system that has become inefficient in the modern age to streamlining communication between students,
faculty, and staff electronically. Laserfiche is leading this change and institutions are seeing transformative results.
Can a new institutional leader succeed after making damaging remarks that are informally shared?
The essay explores how the dynamics of competition and collaboration among Ontario’s higher education institutions contribute to the system’s differentiation strategy. The essay implements a content analysis approach to the Strategic Mandate Agreement submissions signed between the Ontario Government and the Ontario Colleges and Universities in 2014. The study finds that the dynamics of competition for students, resources, and prestige are influenced by government policies and decisions, which have created a uniform environment where all institutions respond similarly to challenges and opportunities. As a result, system homogeneity prevails. Moreover, Ontario institutions are very internally diversified; yet, their future directions have a limited impact on the entire system differentiation.
The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees Americans freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and the right to petition the government without retribution. The ways in which the First Amendment has been interpreted and applied over time have formed the contours of our modern society, determining the types of expression that American institutions and citizens will and will not defend, as well as the role of the press and media in supporting an informed society.
IT HAS become a truism that we live in an age of rapid and profound change. The growth of freedom of thought, the use of the scientific method, the advance of the industrial revolution, the rise of political and economic democracy, and the everwidening applications of technology— culminating in the atomic age—are recasting the thoughts and actions of men into strange new patterns.
International learning experiences are invaluable for students. Those who undertake education outside their country of residence develop leadership, self-reliance, language skills, intercultural understanding, sensitivity to local and global issues, and specialist skills when they participate in work placements and field schools. Employers also say that international experience gained through education makes a positive contribution to the workplace.1
Both students and educators have long recognized the value of learning abroad. Despite this, and the fact that almost all Canadian colleges and universities offer education-abroad opportunities (including semester exchanges, short-term study abroad, field school, and service learning), relatively few post-secondary students actually participate. Only 3.1 per cent of full-time university students2 and 1.1 per cent of full-time college students3in Canadian have gone abroad for part of their studies. Compared to some OECD countries, these figures are slim. In Germany, for example, fully 25 per cent of students in bachelors and masters programs have participated in a study abroad experience, and the country hopes to raise this number to 50 per cent by 2020.4
What some universities are doing to weave indigenous peoples, cultures and knowledge into the fabric of their campuses.
The Government of Ontario’s Reaching Higher plan was a visionary document that provided needed funding to Ontario’s postsecondary system. However, it was not sufficient to overcome the long history of university under-funding in our province. Its impact was also eroded by unanticipated increases in enrolment and the current economic downturn.
Released: 2015-11-06
After four months of little change, employment increased by 44,000 (+0.2%) in October, bringing the number of people employed in Canada to over 18 million for the first time. The unemployment rate declined by 0.1 percentage points to 7.0%.
Compared with 12 months earlier, employment was up 143,000 (+0.8%), with all of the gains in full-time work. During the same period, the total number of hours worked grew by 0.7%.
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.
You have picked up this book for a reason! Perhaps this is required reading for a course you are taking or teaching in a post-secondary or continuing education context. Or you may be an instructor, learner, or leader (formal or informal) in another work and learning context— someone who facilitates the learning of adults—and you seek a deeper understanding as to how adults learn.
You may be a nurse, social worker, teacher, instructor at a community or vocational college, community worker, human resource consultant, training and development specialist, sports coach, career counsellor, or art teacher at a community recreation centre. Regardless of how we identify and where we are located, we assume, unless we are working in complete isolation, that our work and learning involves being with other adults and engaging in ongoing, formal professional development
or informal learning activities. If any of these roles or contexts resonates with you, what you are interested in, or what you hope to do in the future, we invite you to partic- ipate in a conversation—a dialogue—as we reflect, make meaning of, and navigate our individual and collective pathways as lifelong adult learners.