While we want to instil discipline and responsibility in our students, there is also pedagogical value in compassion.
It’s that time of year again, when panicked students start asking for extensions. They will send desperate emails and come knocking with trepidation on our office doors. They will arrive with excuses and cite extenuating circumstances, and faculty far and wide will have to make tough decisions about whether or not to accept late work.
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) recognizes that all members of the University community should be able to work, tach, and learn in an environment where they are free from harassment, discrimination, and violence. Sexual activity without consent is sexual assault. Sexual assault is a criminal offence in Canada.
Two weeks ago, I received a rape threat in my campus office.
I am an academic, an instructor of political science, a researcher, and an administrator, and I received an anonymous phone call describing in explicit and vulgar detail exactly how and where the man on the phone would rape me.
The police were called, my phone number was removed from the university website, and I have taken steps to remain safe in my office, but the vulnerability remains.
he vulnerability. I was made to feel vulnerable in my office — my professional space — which is perhaps the one place in my life where I feel most empowered and assertive.
As I sat in my office the next day, I wondered how many of my male colleagues have received an anonymous rape threat on their office phones. As a woman in academe, I am held to the same standards as my male counterparts, and yet I am also being threatened with sexual violence while I am working. Just add that to the list of things female academics must deal with, all while still teaching, publishing, and serving their departments and universities.
Nature of Leadership
Effective leadership is a key factor in the life and success of an organization
Leadership transforms potential into reality.
Leadership is the ultimate act which brings to success all of the potent potential that is in an organization and
its people.
Leaders propose new paradigms when old ones lose their effectiveness.
Picture it — a group of young people hurriedly making their way to Parliament Hill to meet with MPs
and senators.
Maybe it sounds unlikely, but it happened earlier this month, when student lobbyists had nearly 200
meetings with decision-makers to argue their case for accessible post-secondary education.
The Trudeau government says it’s focused on the promise of innovation and human potential.
Universities are a key part of the conversation — but would the Canadian Federation of Students’
idea of free tuition make Canada more
innovative?
For many years, critics of the SAT have cited a verbal question involving the word "regatta" as an example of how the test may favor wealthier test-takers, who also are more likely to be white. It's been a long time since the regatta question was used -- and the College Board now has in place a detailed process for testing all questions and potential ques questions that may favor one group of students over another.
(Toronto, August 19, 2016) – For the first time in Ontario, McDonald’s employees can now receive credits towards
a college business diploma, thanks to a new agreement between Colleges Ontario and McDonald’s Restaurants of
Canada Limited.
The agreement will create a provincewide partnership with McDonald’s Canada, a leading Canadian business, to
establish a prior-learning recognition system. McDonald’s employees, who have completed specific McDonald’s training, will be eligible to be granted the equivalent of first-year credit for a business or business administration program at one of twenty-four (24) public colleges in Ontario. This may lead to significant cost-savings for eligible employees by reducing the number of courses and time required to earn a diploma – with potential savings of up to $4,500.
Small and simple ways to improve your academic writing
Ontario students are supportive of the provincial government’s recent decision to create an Ontario Online Institute. This endeavour could significantly advance access, especially for traditionally underrepresented groups facing financial, physical, social, cultural, and geographic barriers which prevent them from attending a traditional post-secondary institution. Moreover, such an Institute could provide increased flexibility for the thousands of current students looking to blend online learning with an in-class education.
This short piece addresses the question: “What strategy-based knowledge do we possess that will be effective in addressing the needs of the lowest performing 20% of students in large education systems?”
My first and most important response is that in order to improve part of the system you have to focus on the entire system — raise the bar and close the gap for all. But let me start with a single school example.
There hasn’t been a lot written recently about test anxiety, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer an issue for a significant number of students. Those of us who don’t suffer from test anxiety—and I’m betting that’s most faculty— can find it hard to be sympathetic. Life is full of tests, and students need to get over it. Besides, if students have studied and prepared, there’s no reason for them to feel excessively anxious about a test.
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.
Despite research interest in the motivations, experiences and challenges of Ontario postsecondary students who have transferred from college to university, there has been too little in-depth quantitative analysis on these topics. This study contributes to the literature by documenting transfer between York University and Seneca College – two institutions whose strong partnership has encouraged a high volume of transfer in both directions – over a period of 12 years (2000-2012).
When considering LGBT rights and equality, many people nowadays think they’re the just thing to do. What’s often
overlooked is how such social changes actually benefit straight people as well.
Mike simply does not understand parametric statistics. He uses an app to connect to Uber-U and a tutor is online
from Chicago, Illinois, in just three minutes from the moment Mike asks for help. The tutor is offering an hour at a time support. After three hours of this tutoring, Mike completes the online assessment, passes this component of his statistics course and earns 0.33 credits towards his statistics course at ABC University. ABC accepts this credit because the transactions involved –
tutoring, online assessment, grading – are all recorded in the very detailed transaction record, which Uber-U uses, and which is compatible with their learning platform system. Six weeks later, Mike is struggling with a chemistry problem and makes a call to Uber-U. Five minutes later, a tutor from Nicosia, Cyprus, connects via FaceTime and spends an hour and a half with Mike. He completes the rich simulation assessment online, passes, and secures 0.25 credits towards his chemistry course, which is again automatically accepted by ABC. He uses Uber-U for a total of 42 credits towards his 120 credit degree.
The ubiquity of online meeting software has made it increasingly easy for professors to include live online class sessions to both brick-and-mortar and online courses. I have learned in recent years that live online class sessions not only increase flexibility for students and the professor but can also be a powerful tool in creating community and engaging students in a range of dynamic learning opportunities. That said, I have also learned that in order for online class sessions to be more than just office hours or students passively listening to lecture, three careful considerations for course design and pedagogy are needed: structuring learning activities, communicating the expectations for participation and rational behind it, and grading.
I have been doing some reading and thinking about hard courses. Courses need to be challenging, but when they become too hard, students stop trying and little learning results. So how do we find that sweet spot between hard and not too hard? More importantly, how do we create that sweet spot in our own courses through the decisions we make about content, assignments, and exams?
A new course teaches undergraduates in the humanities how to market themselves for the new economic normal
What if, rather than offer platitudes about the value of the liberal arts to students who are justifiably anxious about their economic future, we actually taught them to market themselves and their degrees with integrity? What if, alongside teaching our disciplines, we taught students to identify and articulate the usefulness of their educational choices?
Higher education's approach to fostering students' innovation potential has focused mostly on developing innovation leadership among a select cadre of students, originally in entrepreneurship and more recently in social sector innovation. But what about the rest of our graduates: what capability do all our graduates need if they're going to engage effectively with innovation in the workplace? Can elements of this capability be adapted to enhance their roles as community members and global citizens as well?
In order to develop the capability for workplace innovation in all our students, we're going to have to begin tackling the challenge in the space where all of them already participate – within our teaching and learning environments.