While competency-based education is growing, standardized tools for evaluating the unique characteristics of course design in this domain are still under development. This preliminary research study evaluated the effectiveness of a rubric developed for assessing course design of competency-based courses in an undergraduate Information Technology and Administrative Management program. The rubric, which consisted of twenty-six individual measures, was used to evaluate twelve new courses. Additionally, the final assessment scores of nine students who completed nine courses in the program were evaluated to determine if a correlation exists between student success and specific indicators of quality in the course design. The results indicate a correlation exists between measures that rated high and low on the evaluation rubric and final assessment scores of
students completing courses in the program. Recommendations from this study suggest that quality competency-based courses need to evaluate the importance and relevance of resources for active student learning, provide increased support and ongoing feedback from mentors, and offer opportunities for students to practice what they have learned.
The need for online and blended programs within higher education continues to grow as the student population in the nited States becomes increasingly non-traditional. As administrators strategically offer and expand online and blended programs, faculty recruitment and retention will be key. This case study highlights how a public comprehensive university utilized the results of a 2012 institutional study to design faculty development initiatives, an online course development process, and an online course review process to support faculty participation and retention in online and blended programs. Recommendations based on this case study include replicable strategies on how to increase faculty participation and retention in online and blended programs using collaboration, support, and ongoing assessment. This case study is a compendium to the 2012 Armstrong institutional study highlighted in the article "Factors Influencing Faculty Participation & Retention In Online & Blended Education."
The line between collaboration and cheating is fuzzy. It’s still clear at the edges, but messy in the middle. When students are working in groups, searching for a solution to a problem, looking through possible answers for the best one, or sorting out material to include in a presentation, that’s collaboration. When one student in the group solves the problem and everyone else copies the answer, that’s cheating. When one student fails to deliver material she or he’s been assigned and the rest of the group covers, that’s cheating.
Evelyn Christner has a job — actually, four jobs — with low pay, negligible sick time, no vacation or health insurance, no retirement plan, no guarantee of work and zero long-term job security. Christner doesn't serve french fries or run the cash register at a convenience store; she teaches anthropology and sociology to college students.
Part-time adjuncts like her, who freelance without the benefits of tenure or even regular employment, make up the majority of college instructors in the U.S. Tight budgets are pushing colleges and universities to rely increasingly on adjuncts (sometimes called associate or contingent faculty members), but their lives often are a far cry from the ivory-tower image of traditional academe.
Instructors of large classes must contend with numerous challenges, among them low student motivation. Research in evolutionary biology, echoed by work in other disciplines, suggests that aspects of the classroom incentive structure – such as grades, extra credit, and instructor and peer acknowledgment – may shape motivations to engage in studies and to collaborate with peers. Specifically, the way that incentives are distributed in relative quantity (the slope of competition; the proportion of benefits earned through performance relative to peers) and space (the scale of competition; the proportion of peers with whom one is competing) may affect strategies to cooperate or to compete with others.
This fall, I will be one of three lecturers teaching my department’s professional development course, where we help new graduate-student instructors learn the ropes, concurrently as they teach rhetoric for the first time. Many of them have never been in front of a college classroom. So I've been thinking a lot this summer about what they’ll be facing and how I might help prepare them.
Despite great diversity in community colleges across the nation, most are facing declining resources that threaten to cripple the quality of programs and services provided. The Great Recession exacerbated trends that were already obvious in many colleges, including dwindling state appropriations, shrinking property values, and demands to restrain tuition increases to protect our long-cherished mission of accessibility. In many cases, rural community colleges have been hardest hit due to aging, tax resistant populations, barriers rooted in generational poverty, and shortage of growth-oriented businesses and industries. While resources have declined, deferred maintenance has increased, resulting in deteriorating buildings, laboratories that do not reflect industry standards, and infrastructure issues ill-suited for training skilled workers who can compete in our high tech, global society.
Cet article évalue l’état de l’éducation aux médias au Québec. Pour ce faire, il présente et défi nit d’abord cette notion, pour ensuite en schématiser les ancrages problématiques dans le Programme de formation de l’école québécoise (PFÉQ). Cet article soulève également la question de la formation des enseignants, notamment par une analyse des formations offertes aux professeurs dans les universités québécoises et par la synthèse de quatre entrevues de groupe réalisées auprès d’enseignants de niveaux primaire et secondaire. La synthèse effectuée permet de problématiser la mise en oeuvre des intentions éducatives
du PFÉQ en matière d’éducation aux médias à la lumière des perspectives exprimées par des enseignants et des enseignantes. Nos travaux indiquent un soutien minimal offert par le système scolaire québécois se traduisant par la rareté des formations, des ressources et des appuis institutionnels.
Mots-clés : conditions de travail, éducation aux médias, formation des enseignants, littératie
médiatique, Programme de formation de l’école québécoise
L’éducation aux médias dans le Programme de formation de l’école québécoise 2
Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l’éducation 38:2 (2015)
www.cje-rce.ca
Abstract
This article provides an assessment on the state of media education in the province of Québec. It introduces and defines the notion of “media education,” and then maps its problematic roots in the Québec Education Program (QEP). The article also raises the issue of teacher training in media education and offers an analysis of current university programs and professional development opportunities available for teachers. Finally, it presents the results of four group interviews conducted with teachers working at primary and secondary levels. The article questions the implementation of the QEP educational
aims with regard to media education in the light of perspectives expressed by teachers. It highlights minimal support offered by the school system, resulting in a scarcity of training and resources as well as poor institutional support.
Keywords: media education, media literacy, Québec Education Program, teacher training,
work conditions.
Abstract
In 2001–2002, the authors of this article interviewed 31 ethno-culturally diverse doctoral students about their experiences in a sociology of education program at a Canadian university. Approximately 10 years later, in a second
qualitative study, we had the chance to conduct semi-structured interviews with 13 of the former students to find out what had happened to them in the intervening years. Two of the 13 had become tenured academics, three were
on the tenure track after years in temporary positions, and most of the others worked in the contingent sector of the academic labour market. Bourdieu’s concepts of “habitus” and “field” are particularly useful for our analysis, and
we explore the tensions between these concepts for our participants.
Résumé
En 2001–2002, les auteurs de cet article ont interviewé 31 doctorants d’origines et de cultures diverses au sujet de leurs expériences d’études en sociologie de l’éducation dans une université canadienne. Environ 10 ans plus tard, dans une deuxième étude qualitative, ces mêmes auteurs ont eu la possibilité de diriger des entrevues semi-structurées avec 13 des étudiants de la première cohorte d’entrevues (aujourd’hui diplômés) afin de découvrir ce qui s’était passé sur le plan professionnel entre les deux entrevues. Deux d’entre eux étaient devenus des titulaires universitaires permanents, trois autres étaient en voie d’obtenir une permanence après des années dans des postes temporaires, tandis que la plupart des autres travaillaient dans le secteur indéterminé du marché du travail universitaire. Les concepts de Bourdieu ont été particulièrement utiles pour la présente analyse. En effet, pour les participants de l’étude, les auteurs explorent les tensions entre « habitus » et « champ ».
The retirement patterns of senior faculty are an issue of ongoing interest in higher education, particularly since the
2008-09 recession. If a significant share of tenured faculty works past “normal” retirement age, challenges can arise for institutional leadership focused on keeping the faculty workforce dynamic for purposes of teaching, research and service. Buyout packages and phased retirement programs have been common responses to encourage faculty retirement, but colleges and universities are increasingly interested in alternative and complementary strategies to manage faculty retirement patterns.
The Survey of First-Year University Students was co-ordinated by the Department of Housing and Student Life at the University of Manitoba and represents the fourth co-operative study of undergraduate education completed by The Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium. The nineteen universities participating in this year’s survey were Acadia University, Brandon University, Carleton University, Concordia University, Dalhousie University, Laurentian University, McMaster
University, Memorial University, Nipissing University, Queens University, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Simon Fraser University, St. Francis Xavier University, University of British Columbia, University of Lethbridge, University of Manitoba, University of Ottawa, University of Waterloo, and Wilfrid Laurier University.
No validated tools assess all four competency domains described in the 2011 report Core Competencies for Interprofessional Collaborative Practice (IPEC Report). The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a tool based on the IPEC Report core
competency domains that assesses the interprofessional attitudes of students in the health professions.
On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued an apology to the for-mer students of Canada’s Indian residential school system, calling it a “sad chapter in our history.” That chapter is part of a broader story: one in which the Canadian government gained control over Aboriginal land and peoples, disrupted Aboriginal governments and economies, and sought to repress Aboriginal cultures and spiritual practices. The government, often in partnership with the country’s major reli-gious bodies, sought to ‘civilize’ and Christianize, and, ultimately, assimilate Aboriginal people into Canadian society. The deputy minister of Indian Affairs predicted in 1920 that in a century, thanks to the work of these schools, Aboriginal people would cease to exist as an identifiable cultural group in Canada.
The purpose of the study was primarily concerned with exploring the major issues that are confronting presidents of higher education and determining if transformational or transactional leadership practices and concepts are warranted in addressing their issues. The study attempted to determine if presidents or institutions of higher education are taking the path to success and if they take charge with a transformational or transactional leadership style.
This chapter discusses the implications of the NNEST lens in the context of teacher education programs in TESOL. In particular, it focuses on a discussion of two key issues: avoiding the monolingual bias in describing languages and language variation; and, avoiding a monolingual bias in developing teaching methods. In discussing the first issue, the chapter
identifies some of the limitations in how language and grammar are often described in limited ways and how this can be expanded by using an NNEST lens. The chapter describes the three dimensional framework of language variation in some detail and discusses its implications for language teaching. The chapter then discusses why local languages are not included in much of the theorisation and practice of TESOL and argues that there are historical as well as theoretical reasons why local languages have been excluded in TESOL. The chapter describes one way in which teachers can consider integrating local languages in their classrooms.
Until a couple of years ago, Emma Thompson thought she would study theatre or music in university. She had been involved in musical theatre and decided to attend a specialized Toronto arts high school.
But in grade 11, a physics teacher sparked her interest in science. He helped her look for summer internships and choose the kind of high-school courses top engineering or science programs would require. So this fall, Ms. Thompson applied to half a dozen such university programs and is now waiting to hear which have accepted her. Already, Ryerson University has offered early admission.
The federal program that helps First Nations and Inuit people attend college or university has registered an 18.3 per cent decline in the number of students it funds since 1997, according to documents obtained by the NDP through Access to Information and shared with CBC News.
The slump is striking given the population growth in those communities over the same time period. (The First Nations population alone has grown 29 per cent since 1997.)
Culturally authoritative texts such as Text Revision of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual-IV [DSM-IVTR](
American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2004) describe literate impossibility for individuals with disability labels associated
with severe developmental disabilities. Our qualitative research challenges the assumptions of perpetual subliteracy
authoritatively embedded within the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2004). U. S. education policy also confronts, at least rhetorically, assumed
hopelessness with reading and writing remediation in schools. Most recently, the federal government has directed national
concern toward issues of literacy acquisition and child failure through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). One
description of NCLB provided by the U.S. Department of Education (2004) suggested universal literacy was a primary objective.
However, our research suggests that the NCLB statute appears to emphasize a restrictive standardization as the route to
universal literacy that would in fact leave out many people with severe developmental disabilities.
The inverted classroom will no longer be the exception to the rule
Eighty per cent of information will be delivered by massive open online courses, online courses, video and video-call
sessions from experts in the field – methods that do not require attendance in class.
As a consequence, valuable time in class will be used not for lecturing but for question and answer sessions, activities, exercises, case studies and peer group feedback.
Contact-hour teaching will be based on active participation and exercises focusing on the personal benefit to the
students, motivated by their interests instead of their careers.
Students will have to take responsibility for their learning. This inverted classroom approach will represent an
emancipatory process – empowering students to count on their individual strengths. Communication skills,
teamwork and self-development will be of great value, even in a world of digital individualisation.
As I've mentioned before, my 7-year-old daughter takes piano lessons. One of the biggest challenges has been getting her to play for herself, not for her parents. Often I'll ask her how she thought she played a song and I'll get a shrug in return. She plays, but she doesn't listen to herself play. That lack of listening, I fear, is a sign that she's just playing because we're making her.
Many of the teaching tips I've suggested in this column have been meant to encourage your students to take responsibility for their learning. For active-learning strategies to really work, I've argued, we need students to buy in completely to our courses. They need to want to learn for themselves — not for us or a grade. To accomplish that, we can invite students to take some control over the syllabus. We can turn course policies into collaborative projects, in which students have an equal say in determining important aspects of the course. We can encourage students to articulate their goals for the course, rather than just expect them to meet ours. And we can design our courses to make sure we haven't foreclosed any of those possibilities.