The current Ontario government has been formulating ideas for systemic change in higher education since at least 2005, when the Rae Review was released. Some of the issues raised in that review are still with us now – and one of those issues is university differentiation, which has come up yet again via a data set (PDF) from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) and most recently in the provincial government’s draft (PDF) of a framework for differentiation (here’s a good summary by Gavin Moodie).
Background/Context: Schools have attempted to address stratification in black and Latino students’ access to higher education through extensive reform initiatives, including those focused on social supports. A crucial focus has been missing from these efforts, essential to improving the effectiveness of support mechanisms and understanding why they have been insufficient: how students experience these reforms.
During the 2014-15 academic year, 9.4 percent of all students attended more than one institution, a figure that has remained constant for the last three years. In each year shown, the mobility rate was highest for students who began the academic year at a two-year public institution. The postsecondary student one-year mobility rate is the percentage of students, across all levels of study, who enrolled in more than one institution within a single academic year (including summer and concurrent enrollments). It
provides a current indicator of the likely double-counting of institution-based annual enrollment reporting.
Universities that set up shop globally should work to uphold principles such as academic freedom, gender equity and freedom of speech -- but they sometimes compromise, scholars argue.
Nous cherchons à mesurer l’effi cience d’approches inductive ou déductive à court et à long terme sur l’apprentissage par des élèves de 1re secondaire de savoirs relatifs au complément du nom. Dans le cadre de cette expérimentation, les résultats montrent que l’approche déductive permet une appropriation signifi cativement plus grande, mais uniquement pour des aspects morphologiques. Par ailleurs, il semble que l’approche pédagogique ait moins d’incidence sur l’apprentissage que l’effet-enseignant, peu importe l’approche préconisée par l’enseignant. La discussion des résultats portera sur l’importance
de différentes variables de l’intervention éducative autre que l’approche pédagogique. Mots clés : approche déductive, approche inductive, approches pédagogiques, complément du nom, effet-enseignant, grammaire.
We attempt to measure the ef ficiency of inductive or deductive approaches to short and long-term learning of knowledge about the “complément du nom” by French as a fi rst language secondary 1 students. Our results show that, in the context of our experiment, the deductive approach allows greater appropriation of morphological aspects. Moreover, it seems that the
pedagogical approach has less impact on the learning than the teacher effect, regardless of the approach used. We will discuss our results in putting forward the importance of some conditions of the educative intervention. Keywords: complément du nom, deductive approach, grammar, inductive approach, pedagogical approaches, learning, teacher effect.
This report examines community colleges from the perspective of the faculty who deliver their public service – high quality post-secondary education and job training. The report is based on conversations with over 600 faculty at all 24 CAATs,
along with historical research and present-day inquiry into the sector’s financing, management, and operations. The report is focused primarily on perceptions by college faculty that there is a crisis of quality within the college system today.
here are three basic ways that I hear faculty talk about difficult dialogues—in-class dialogues that were planned ut did not go particularly well; in-class hot moments that were not anticipated and that the faculty member did not eel equipped to handle; and difficult dialogues that happen during office hours or outside of class.
n all three instances, faculty are challenged to use skills they may not have learned at any point in their disciplinary raining. That lack of skill can actually cause them great angst, and in the most extreme situations, cause them to avoid addressing important issues directly.
For many faculty members, instructors, practitioners, administrators and policy makers, the language used to describe and discuss online and flexible learning is confusing. What on earth is a “flipped classroom”? What is the difference between “blended learning” and “fully online” learning? Why do some programs not have “instructors” but do have “mentors, coaches and guides”? It can be confusing.
The provincial government has established policies that obligate universities to produce skilled graduates and cutting-edge research that will contribute to Ontario’s economic development. This “strategy for prosperity” seems innocuous. However, these market-based higher education policies and targeted research funding programs are narrowing the scope and function of our universities, and perpetuating the business model of higher education.
Multiculturalism is a huge part of the Canadian identity. We see it from coast to coast in the faces of our fellow citizens, a huge mosaic – not a melting pot, we proudly point out – of diversity from around the world.
In 1971, under the leadership of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, we became the first country in the world to officially adopt a multiculturalism policy. By so doing, Canada affirmed the value and dignity of all Canadian citizens. This policy became law in 1988, when Prime Minister Brian Mulroney enacted the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, ensuring, among other things, that every Canadian receives equal treatment by the government regardless of their racial or ethnic origins, their language, or their religious affiliation.
Accessibility offices are encouraging students with autism to turn to their peers for support through university life.
When accessibility specialist Jamie Penner started at the University of Manitoba in 2009, a series of eye-opening client meetings made him reconsider how the institution was accommodating students with an autism spectrum disorder. “One of my first students on the spectrum had a course in ancient history covering some battle. I asked him what the lectures were like and he really only could remember or focus on the fact that they used a certain weapon in the battles. He was paying attention, he was listening, but he got so sidetracked,” Mr. Penner recalls.
Part 2: How Social Media Support and Expand Teaching and Learning
All post-secondary faculty and students use educational technology– whether for classroom-based, blended or fully online learning and teaching.
This three-part series, Three Pillars of Educational Technology: Learning Management Systems,
Social Media, and Personal Learning Environments, explores the learning management system (LMS), social media, and personal learning environments – and how they might best be used for enhanced teaching and learning.
Preamble
This investigation arose as a result of the Brock University Administration’s handling of a series of complaints laid under the University’s Respectful Work and Learning Environment Policy [RWLEP]1 against five members of Brock University (henceforth referred to as the respondents), namely Drs. Ana Isla and Cathy Van Ingen (members of the Brock University Faculty Association), Dr. June Corman (then Associate Dean of Social Studies and hence not a member of the Faculty Association), and teaching assistants Ian Wood and Tim Fowler (members of CUPE Local 4207). The complaints were filed by Brock University Roman Catholic Chaplains, Brs. Raoul Masseur and German McKenzie.
The increases in tuition and fee prices in 2015-16 were, like the increases in the two preceding years, relatively small by historical standards. However, the very low rate of general inflation makes this year’s increases in college prices larger in real terms than those of 2014-15 and 2013-14. Significantly, and perhaps counter to public impressions, price increases are not accelerating over time. However, the average published tuition and fee price of a full-time year at a public four-year institution is 40% higher, after adjusting for inflation, in 2015-16 than it was in 2005-06.The average published price is 29% higher in the public two-year sector and 26% higher in the private nonprofit four-year sector than a decade ago.
Background/context: Over the past 40 years, the composition of the professoriate has changed substantially across all institutional types. Once predominantly tenure track, now nontenure-track faculty (NTTF) constitute more than 70% of the faculty. While these major changes have occurred, we know little about key stakeholders views (accreditors, policy makers, presidents) of these changes.
Purpose: In this article, we explore the following research question: What are the beliefs systems (logics) related to the changing professoriate of the key entities within the higher education organizational field?
Algonquin College teachers call for closure of Saudi Arabia campus.
Teacher education programs must help teaching candidates to link the moral purpose that influences them with the tools that
will prepare them to engage in productive change.
Teaching at its core is a moral profession. Scratch a good teacher and you will find a moral purpose. At the Faculty of Education, University of Toronto, we recently examined why people enter the teaching profession (Stiegelbauer 1992). In a random sample of 20 percent of 1,100 student teachers, the most frequently mentioned theme was "to make a difference in the lives of students." Of course, such statements cannot be taken at face value because people have a variety of motives for becoming teachers. Nonetheless, there is a strong kernel of truth to this conclusion.
A new study out of Yale University confirms a notion college and university administrators have held for years -- that substance abuse is linked to a decline in student grades -- but this study also reveals a number of trends among college students that surprised its authors.
Researchers at Yale University and the Institute of Living in Hartford, Conn., found that students who drank a moderate to heavy amount of alcohol actually had similar grade point averages to those who consumed little or no alcohol. However, students who used moderate to heavy alcohol as well as marijuana saw their grades plummeting.
The study tracked more than 1,100 students at two unnamed colleges in Connecticut over the course of two years, beginning with their first semester of freshman year. The students involved in the study answered a series of questions about their patterns of substance use every month.
To the authors’ surprise, very few students reported using marijuana while abstaining from alcohol -- so few, in fact, that they could not draw conclusions about that subgroup of students.
Before choosing a supervisor, get to know them—and get to know yourself.
Ask any of my family members and they will tell you that my middle name should be “indecisive.” I am in a constant battle with the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” of life. When choosing my undergraduate institution I couldn’t make a decision, so I did what any rational person would do: I rolled a fuzzy dice. Even numbers were one institution and odd numbers were the other. I rolled an even number and based on that one moment in time, the next four years of my life were decided (please note, I do not recommend this method for others).
"Alternative facts" have gotten quite a bad rap lately, which — while understandable — is a shame. Because virtually any argument worthy of the name involves competing sets of facts. That's why it's an argument, not a hug-fest. And to pretend otherwise is actually counterproductive, especially if we want our students to be able to engage in constructive arguments.
Take trial lawyers, for example. To exonerate their clients, defense attorneys often present alternative theories, based on alternative facts, most of which are actually facts. Perhaps the accused can prove he was never at the crime scene, even though his blood was found on the victim. In its deliberations, the jury must weigh these seemingly disparate facts — although what they may really be judging is which lawyer made the better argument. Much the same is true of political debates.