We know students are afraid of making mistakes, often dreadfully so. And so we talk a good line about the learning potential inherent in mistakes.
But are we afraid to let students make mistakes? Is it just a problem with students not wanting to be wrong, or does our need to control learning experiences keep students from making mistakes?
One of my doctoral students just got a tenure-track assistant professorship. That’s excellent for her, but a decade ago, it wouldn’t have rated mention in a newspaper column. Of course, that was before the amount of tenure-track openings dropped like a barometer during hurricane season. Today, getting a tenure-track position feels more like a "Man Bites Dog" event.
During that same period, undergraduate enrollment at American colleges and universities continued to rise — as it has for decades. Clearly more and more students need to be taught, so where have all the teaching jobs gone?They’ve gone to the same people who have been doing a lot of our undergraduate teaching all along: contingent faculty members, meaning graduate students and adjuncts. That’s not exactly news to anyone who has been watching the faculty labor market — or to the graduate students doing so much of the work. In the humanities, we’ve seen nontenure-track jobs (NTTs) multiply year after year. As David Laurence of the Modern Language Association has shown in PowerPoint talks he’s given on the subject, the proportion of faculty jobs that are tenured and tenure-track has been dropping steadily over the past two generations.
Ontario’s Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities is currently at-tempting to increase institutional differentiation within that province’s post-secondary education system. We contend that such policies aimed to trigger organizational change are likely to generate unanticipated responses. Using insights from the field of organizational studies, we anticipate four plausible responses from universities to the ministry’s directives: remaining sensitive to their market demand, ceremonial compliance, continued status seeking, and isomorphism. We provide several policy recommendations that might help the ministry overcome these possible barriers to further differentiation.
Le ministère de la Formation et des Collèges et Universités de l’Ontario cherche à accroître la différentiation institutionnelle du système d’éducation postsecondaire ontarien. Nous soutenons que les politiques publiques visant à déclencher ce changement organisationnel vont vraisemblablement engendrer des réactions imprévues. Tirant nos connaissances des champs d’études organisationnelles, nous anticipons quatre réactions potentielles aux directives du ministère par les universités. Ainsi, les universités peuvent : demeurer réceptives aux demandes de leur clientèle, entreprendre une conformité superficielle, s’engager dans une recherche perpétuelle d’un statut supérieur ou favoriser l’isomorphisme. Nous suggérons plusieurs recommandations de politiques publiques qui peuvent aider le ministère à faire progresser la différentiation en surmontant ces éventuels obstacles.
Colleges and institutes enhance innovation by undertaking applied research that leverages their strong connections to industry and communities. These institutions provide talent, creative ideas and facilities that generate economic and social gains.
• In the past year alone, colleges and institutes worked with over 6,300 partners in all sectors, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to develop new or adapted products, services, technology and processes.
• College and institute students are an integral part of applied research activity. Students gain relevant applied research experience through interactions with industry and community partners and are employment ready.
• Increased investments in college and institute applied research will unleash the college sector’s untapped capacity to support industry and community innovation.
Georgia State University (GSU), a public university in Atlanta with nearly 33,000 undergraduates, has dramatically improved its rates of student success over the past decade. GSU’s six-year graduation rate has increased from 32 percent in 2003 to 54 percent in 2014.1 During the same period, GSU has made a concerted effort to increase enrollment for traditionally underserved students. Remarkably, the share of its students who are Pell eligible nearly doubled, from 31 percent in 2003 to 58 percent in 2013.
GSU’s success with traditionally underserved students has received broad recognition. National media outlets have touted the innovative programs undertaken at GSU,2 and President Obama praised GSU during the 2014 White House College Opportunity Summit.3 GSU is a core member of the University Innovation Alliance, and now hosts approximately 80 visits each year from representatives of other colleges and universities seeking to understand how GSU has achieved its success.4 To research this case study, we visited GSU’s downtown Atlanta campus in March 2015, spending two days meeting with 17 administrators and staff members.5
The 2016 First-Year Student Survey marks the 22nd cooperative study undertaken by the Canadian University Survey Consortium/Consortium canadien de recherche sur les étudiants universitaires (CUSC-CCREU). The 2016 survey involved 34 universities and almost 15,000 first-year university students from across Canada.
The past decade has witnessed an explosion in online learning opportunities for post-secondary students throughout the United States. The university has developed a Faculty Online Observation (FOO) model to allow for an annual observation of online adjunct faculty with a focus on five major areas of facilitation. To test the effectiveness and support of the FOO, a survey related to the observation areas was administered to online faculty and students. The results determined a number of areas of agreement and non-agreement between the groups. The findings will provide valuable information for future training and professional development needs of online instructors, and processes of teaching based on perspectives of instructors, course developers, students, and discipline managers.
Inside Higher Ed’s fourth annual survey of college and university faculty members and campus leaders in educational technology aims to understand how these groups perceive and pursue online learning and other issues related to technology-enabled education.
International students are valuable members of a university community, and bring a range of benefits to Ontario. These include economic impacts - contributing $2.9 billion to the provincial economy and creating just under 30,000 jobs1 – as well as contribu
ing to diverse and vibrant classrooms and communities.
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.
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.
This article examines regional differences in the math and reading skills of immigrant children aged 15 based on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). It also examines regional differences in high-school and university completion rates among young immigrants who came to Canada before the age of 15 using National Household Survey (NHS) data. Throughout the article, comparisons are made with the children of the Canadian-born (third- or higher-generation Canadians). In Canada, the average PISA math score of immigrant students aged 15 was similar to the score of third- or higher-generation students. The average PISA reading score of immigrant children was slightly lower than the score of third- or higher-generation children. In almost all regions, immigrant students had lower PISA reading scores than third- or higher-generation students. With respect to PISA math scores, immigrant students performed better than third- or higher-generation students in the Atlantic provinces and British Colombia, but performed less well in Quebec and in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Young immigrants aged 20 to 24 were more likely to have a high school diploma than their third- or higher-generation counterparts (93% versus 87%). Young immigrants aged 25 to 29 were also more likely to have a university degree (40%, compared with 26% of third- or higher-generation individuals in this age group). Manitoba and Saskatchewan (29%) and Quebec (32%) had the lowest proportions of immigrants aged 25 to 29 with a university degree. In contrast, British Columbia (44%) and Ontario (41%) had the highest proportions. Regional differences in the source countries of immigrants explained, in part, why some regions had higher university completion rates than others.
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.
An intervention is a counseling action an instructor may use to support a student who struggles to work productively in an online writing instruction (OWI) course. Interventions may increase retention and graduation rates at institutions as well as increase student and teacher satisfaction (Allen, Bourhis, Burrell, andMabry, 2002; Archambault and Crippen, 2009; McCombs, Ufnar, and Shepherd, 2007; O'Dwyer, Carey, and Kleiman, 2007; Stein, Wanstreet, Calvin, Overtoom, and Wheaton, 2005; Sun, Tsai, Finger, Chen, and Yeh,2008). In Moore's (1993) Theory of Transaction Distance, interventions are called "advice and counsel," and they are a crucial component of the program structure element in the theory. Many researchers recommend early identification and intervention for struggling students (Archambault et al., 2010; Simpson, 2004). For example, Simpson (2004) found that early interventions following Keller's (1987) ARCS model (Attention,Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction) were effective in helping students complete a course. In addition,Simpson found that such interventions could be cost effective; however, there are many open variables when calculating cost. As researchers and online instructors, the authors recommend early intervention activities performed by email and text messaging at many opportunistic intervention points during the course of the instruction. As well, developing an intervention strategy prior to course beginning to assist in planning and preparation is advocated and recommended.
In November 2013, the Ontario Undergraduate
Student Alliance (OUSA) asked students to comment on their experience with summer and in-study employment. Of particular interest were: the number of jobs students were working during these terms; whether or not these opportunities were within a student’s field of study; and whether they positively impacted their academic performance.
Results of OUSA’s 2013 Ontario Post-Secondary Student Survey (OPSSS) were further broken down based on institution and field of study for questions of particular interest. This was done to easily compare the responses from these distinct groups to see how consistent the undergraduate employment experience was across academic disciplines and universities.
Abstract
A number of factors have been identified in the research literature as being important for student success in university. However, the rather large body of literature contains few studies that have given students the opportunity to directly report what they believe contributes to their success as an under- graduate student. The primary purpose of this study is to explore students’ descriptions of the personal resources that they use to succeed while attempt- ing to reach their goals as well
as those personal characteristics or obstacles that keep them from reaching their goals. Prominent themes supportive of student success included having a future orientation, persistence, and executive functioning skills such as time management and organization. Results also demonstrate that stress, inadequate academic skills, and distractions are detrimental to student success in university. This study is unique in that it gathers the content data directly from the population of interest; it is one of the few qualitative studies of undergraduate students’ self-generated percep tions. Implications for university administrator and academic counsellors and directions for future research are discussed.
Résumé
Des travaux de recherche ont déjà relevé certains facteurs comme étant importants pour la réussite des étudiants de niveau universitaire. Mais bien qu’abondante, la recherche n’a cependant pas donné aux étudiants de premier cycle la possibilité de communiquer directement leur avis quant aux raisons de leur réussite. Le but principal de cette étude est d’explorer les descriptions que les étudiants font des ressources personnelles qu’ils utilisent pour atteindre leurs objectifs et, ubsidiairement, les caractéristiques personnelles ou les obstacles qui les empêchent d’atteindre leurs objectifs. Parmi les thèmes importants menant à la réussite des élèves on trouve l’orientation vers l’avenir, la persévérance et des compétences exécutives telles que la gestion du temps et l’organisation. Les résultats démontrent également que le stress, des compétences académiques inadéquates et les distractions représentent des obstacles à la réussite des études universitaires. Cette étude est unique car elle collige les données directement de la population concernée. Elle est aussi l’une des rares études qualitatives portant sur la perception des étudiants de premier cycle. On y examine les conséquences pour les administrateurs universitaires et les conseillers scolaires, de même que les orientations possibles de futures recherches.
More than half of the college students who visited their campus counseling centers during the 2015-16 academic year reported symptoms of anxiety, according to a survey by the Association for University and College Counseling Center Directors.
This marks the seventh year in a row that anxiety has been the top complaint among students seeking mental health services. This year, 51 percent of students who visited a counseling center reported having anxiety, followed by depression (41 percent), relationship concerns (34 percent) and suicidal ideation (20.5 percent). Many students reported experiencing multiple conditions at once.
On February 25, 2016, the Ontario government announced a major redesign of the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) with the goal of making postsecondary education more accessible, affordable and cost transparent. In launching the redesign, the government said that “for Ontario to thrive in the knowledge-based economy, the government needs to ensure all members of society are given the opportunities, as well as the tools, they need to succeed” (Ontario Ministry of Finance, 2016).
OSAP is Ontario’s umbrella financial-aid program for students at publicly-assisted colleges and universities and approved private institutions. OSAP is jointly funded by the province and the federal government, and offers students combinations of repayable (loan) and non-repayable (grant) assistance for eligible education related and living costs on a needs-tested basis.
This pilot study examines alternative entrance pathways into York University undergraduate degree programs for students who apply from outside the formal education system. These alternative pathways are designed to facilitate university access for students from under-represented populations (for example, low-income, first-generation, Aboriginal, racialized minorities, differently abled, newcomers to Canada, sole-support caregivers, students with incomplete high school education, or some combination of the preceding).
There’s mounting evidence suggesting that student evaluations of teaching are unreliable. But are these evaluations, commonly referred to as SET, so bad that they’re actually better at gauging students’ gender bias and grade expectations than they are at measuring teaching effectiveness? A new paper argues that’s the case, and that evaluations are biased against female instructors in particular in so many ways that adjusting them for that bias is impossible.
Moreover, the paper says, gender biases about instructors -- which vary by discipline, student gender and other factors -- affect how students rate even supposedly objective practices, such as how quickly assignments are graded. And these biases can be large enough to cause more effective instructors to get lower teaching ratings than instructors who prove less effective by other measures, according to the study based on analyses of data sets from one French and one U.S. institution.