The purpose of this descriptive quantitative study was to examine the quality elements of online learning in a regional doctoral
program. Utilizing the six quality dimensions of Hathaway’s (2009) theory of online learning quality as a framework, the study
investigated instructor-learner, learner-learner, learner-content, learner-interface, learner-instructional strategies, and social
presence in order to explore the frequency and importance of these elements. A likert-style survey administered through Qualtrics was used to report self-perceptions of the doctoral students and faculty members. Descriptive statistics for the survey and subscales indicated alignment with the review of literature. Course design, instructor’s facilitation, and student interaction were factors impacting learning outcomes (Eom, Wen, & Ashill, 2006). Faculty participation was also found to dramatically improve the performance and satisfaction of students (Arbaugh & Rau, 2007; Hrastinski, 2009). Resultantly, five conclusions emerged from
the study. First doctoral students and faculty valued the frequency of corporate interaction, clear prompt feedback, and multiple
opportunities to learn and demonstrate learning. Secondly, instructor to learner interaction has to be an intentional practice. Third, the inclusion of learning technologies is necessary for building relationships, making connections and giving credibility to the learning environment. The fourth conclusion revealed that students were more concerned with the quality of assignments than faculty; and finally, faculty responses to students’ discussions is an area for improvement in the online program.
At the turn of the century there were many companies in business providing the delivery of ice blocks to people’s homes. Then electricity became prevalent, and the refrigerator was invented. Shortly thereafter, these ice block delivery companies went out of business. What they failed to realize was that they were not in the ice block delivery business – they were in the business of delivering personal cooling – for people’s chicken, eggs, and soft drinks. Organizations that design, develop, and deliver training are at the same precipice. If we think that we are in the business of only delivering formally developed, instructionally sound, objective-laden, extremely vetted content in extended chunks, then we will also go the way of the ice-block delivery companies. We are in the business of impact – impact for the learner and the business – in terms of behavior, performance, and, ultimately, the bottom line. Any means in which we are able to provide that should be our focus.
Immigration is a major driver of Canada’s population growth.1 Over the last century, millions of men, women, and children have travelled from abroad to work, study, and live in Canada. Those who are granted the right to live in Canada permanently comprise Canada’s immigrant population. In 2014, it is estimated that over 260,000 people immigrated to Canada.2,3 These newcomers form a diverse group, contributing to the country’s richly multicultural character. In recent decades, changing trends in immigration have shifted the demographic characteristics of the immigrant population in Canada. This chapter explores these trends from a gender-based perspective.
A
Si nous sommes sérieux au sujet de l’apprentissage en ligne accessible, nous devons parler ouvertement du handicap comme si c’était ici, maintenant - parce que c’est le cas.
Wish I had a dollar for every speech intoned by corporate leaders and politicians alike about the human capital needs of the so-called “learning society” or the “knowledge economy”. Cradle to grave learning is the key to a healthier, safer, more just and prosperous future for all of us. That’s what we’re told. And it’s all true. But public policy lags well behind the Alice in Wonderland rhetoric. “Jam yesterday, jam tomorrow but never jam today,” said Alice. Even in Ontario, with a Premier so committed to education, achieving a seamless continuum of effective learning implied by the learning society vision, remains elusive.
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?
To my memory, I have never been physically afraid of a student.
The maddest I’ve ever seen a student was one calling me a “life ruining motherfucker,” when I told the student that passing the course was mathematically impossible.
There are about 420 registered private career colleges (PCCs) in Ontario – the number is in constant flux. 60% of schools are ten years of age or younger. They serve 53,000 full time equivalent (FTE) students, or about 1 in 15 Ontario postsecondary students. Their overall vocational revenues are in the order of $360M annually. They are mostly small; 70% have total revenues under $1M and average enrolment is under 200.
Though they are private businesses operating in a competitive market, they intersect with public interests on several fronts. They must register with government and are subject to consumer protection requirements (including student contracts, tuition refund policies, contribution to a train-out fund that takes care of students in the event of a sudden closure). Their programs of study must be government-approved following an external, third-party quality review. They are subject to sanction (financial penalties, even closure) if they fail to meet these requirements.
As a teacher, every now and then we come across a class with an abundance of energy. Sometimes so much energy that teaching
seems like an impossible mission. Students fidget with their hands, feet, dance in their stools and engage in constant side
conversations with their classmates.
Any time is a good time to tell a secret or share an interesting dinosaur fact. (Don't we all love learning about dinosaurs?) Last
year, I inherited a first grade class that fit the description above. They were curious, they were bright, but it was clear from day one that they needed help to channel their excess energy. I didn’t want or expect them to sit statue-still; much to the contrary. I always encourage active learning, collaboration, and ongoing participation in the classroom.
Small and simple ways to improve your academic writing
This paper proposes a new measure of skills mismatch that combines information about skill proficiency, self-reported mismatch and skill use. The theoretical foundations underling this measure allow identifying minimum and maximum skill requirements for each occupation and to classify workers into three groups, the well-matched, the under-skilled and the over-skilled. The availability of skill use data further permit the computation of the degree of under and over-usage of skills in the economy. The empirical analysis is carried out using the first wave of the OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) and the findings are compared across skill domains, labour market status and countries.
Enrolment declines
Capacity constraints
Budget pressures
Image programs
Student attrition
Service complaints
Environmental shifts
Educational research shows that close student-faculty interaction is a key factor in college student learning and success. Most literature on undergraduate mentoring, however, focuses on planned programs of mentoring for targeted groups of students by non-faculty professionals or student peers. Based on the research literature and student and faculty testimony from a residential liberal arts college, this article shows that unplanned “natural” mentoring can be crucial to student learning and development and illustrates some best practices. It advances understanding of faculty mentoring by differentiating it from teaching, characterizing several functional types of mentoring, and identifying the phases through which a mentoring relationship develops. Arguing that benefits to students, faculty, and institutions outweigh the risks and costs of mentoring, it is written for faculty who want to be better mentors and provides evidence that administrators should value and reward mentoring.
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%.
As Canadian universities and colleges face increasing pressure to provide better mental-health services on campus, students are looking to give schools fresh ideas on how to tackle the issue.
Over the past decade or so, we have witnessed the rise of transnational higher education and a call to internationalise higher education in Asia. In an increasingly borderless world, some Asian countries have begun the quest to become regional educational hubs by establishing university cities and inviting overseas universities to implement offshore programmes or set up offshore campuses.
We live in a stressful world, and the stress is heightened for students and educators when it’s time to prepare for high-stakes tests. When test scores are tied to school funding, teacher evaluations, and students’ future placement, the consequences of these stressors can be far-reaching.
From a neurological perspective, high stress disrupts the brain’s learning circuits and diminishes memory construction, storage, and retrieval. Neuroimaging research shows us that, when stresses are high, brains do not work optimally, resulting in decreased understanding and memory. In addition, stress reduces efficient retrieval of knowledge from the memory storage networks, so when under pressure students find it harder to access information previously studied and learned.
Two major developments in the financial management of higher education have occurred more or less contemporaneously: incentive or performance funding on the part of government and incentive-based budgeting on the part of institutions. Both are based on fiscal incentives. Despite their several inherent and interconnected similarities, incentive funding and incentive-based budgeting have been viewed and appraised on parallel tracks. This study investigates their convergence. In doing so, it sharpens the definitions of both, identifies their respective track records, and discusses problems that are chronic to both. The study concludes that although incentive funding and incentive-based budgeting are sometimes at cross-purposes, they are func-tionally interconnected. The study uses Canada as an example because it is the jurisdiction that so far has seen the most extensive mutual deployment of performance funding and incentive-based budgeting.
PHILADELPHIA -- Professors identify limited English proficiency and different academic preparation or expectations as the two biggest academic challenges international students face, according to results of a survey of DePaul University faculty presented Tuesday at the NAFSA: Association of International Educators conference.
Now that more that 75 percent of the instructors teaching in higher education in the United States do not have tenure, it is important to think about how the current political climate might affect those vulnerable teachers. Although we should pay attention to how all faculty are being threatened, nontenured faculty are in an especially vulnerable position because they often lack any type of academic freedom or shared governance rights. In other words, they are a class without representation, and they usually can be let go at any time for any reason. That type of precarious employment, which is spreading all over the world to all types of occupations, creates a high level of professional insecurity and helps to feed the power of the growing managerial class.