Student success is core to the enterprise of any university. What is meant by “student success” is complex and nuanced, but a key measure is provided by student retention rates: the proportion of students who continue with their studies and complete their degrees.
Carleton has made remarkable progress in improving its retention rates. For the 1992 cohort of undergraduates, only 56.5 per cent remained at the University two years after first enrolling. For the 2004 cohort, that figure had risen to 81.1 per cent. Much of this improvement can be attributed to the increase in the high school averages of students entering Carleton, as well as to
internal measures taken to encourage student success.
Can college students text and tweet their way to a better grade?
In “Mobile Phones in the Classroom: Examining the Effects of Texting, Twitter and Message Content on Student Learning,” Jeffrey H. Kuznekoff, assistant professor in the department of integrative studies at Miami University (Ohio) at Middletown, explores if texting, tweeting and note taking can be combined. The article [1] appears in the most recent edition of Communication Education, a journal of the National Communication Association.
For decades, research and public discourse about gender and science have often assumed that women are more likely than men to “leak” from the science pipeline at multiple points after entering college. We used retrospective longitudinal methods to investigate how accurately this “leaky pipeline” metaphor has described the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the U.S. since the 1970s. Among STEM bachelor’s degree earners in the 1970s and 1980s, women were less likely than men to later earn a STEM Ph.D. However, this gender difference closed in the 1990s. Qualitatively similar trends were found across STEM disciplines. The leaky pipeline metaphor therefore partially explains historical gender differences in the U.S., but no longer describes current gender differences in the bachelor’s to Ph.D. transition in STEM. The results help constrain theories about women’s underrepresentation in STEM. Overall, these results point to the need to understand gender differences at the bachelor’s level and below to understand women’s representation in STEM at the Ph.D. level and above. Consistent with trends at the bachelor’s level, women’s representation at the Ph.D. level has been recently declining for the first time in over 40 years.
Let’s focus our evaluations on the research rather than the person completing it. Earlier this month I was evaluating scientific abstracts for an international stem cell conference ( ISSCR). For readers who do not know the process, international experts from across the world get assigned to evaluate the work of their peers to help select which scientists are asked to come and
present their work at the meeting. This is typically done by a panel where average scores are calculated and the best ones are invited to give talks or present posters. The incredible thing about this particular set of abstracts was that after I’d logged on and printed them out to begin my evaluation, I noticed that there was no way of identifying who the scientist was or where they worked, meaning I couldn’t let any biases creep in to my evaluation. Amazing, right? That’s the way it should be.
This report provides a systems perspective on the state of skills and higher education in Canada and identifies areas where the sector could improve in producing highly skilled graduates. I
On Saturday, April 1, I attended a conference at the University of Toronto for Black university students aspiring to become medical doctors. Student panelists shared their stories of being either the only or one of very few Black students in their classes at the university's medical school. What struck me was that in a city and country as diverse Toronto and Canada, there are not more Black medical students. Throughout the day it was evident how the
representation of Black students at university reflected the poor outcomes for Black students in the education system throughout the Greater Toronto Area.
Metrics are used throughout Ontario’s postsecondary education system—for determining university funding, judging institutional performance, and gauging student perceptions. But metrics are not always the best tool for evaluation, and often have unintended consequences.
This is the first article in a series designed to help you create an Individual Development Plan (IDP) using myIDP, a new Web-based career-planning tool created to help graduate students and postdocs in the sciences define and pursue their career goals. To learn more about myIDP and begin the career-planning process, please visit: http://myidp.sciencecareers.org.
ONE set of circumstances distinguishes the present crucial demand for strong educational leadership from past demands: the pressures for change in school and society outweigh any in the past century. Freedom, democracy, human dignity are under fire. The repercussions of this upheaval are reaching into almost every community in the land. No other period of civilization has witnessed the kinds of changes which have occurred in the past half century and are continuing. Scarcely a single aspect of present-day society has not been altered markedly in this brief period. Building a school program to keep pace with—let alone contribute to—change requires effective educational leadership.
In writing, there’s an adage that says, "Show don’t tell." The millennial students in my creative-writing classes are
immersed in a world that constantly tells them things, and then tells them those things are important. When I walk
into our classroom, I am just another voice telling them things.
It’s hard to differentiate my voice from the thousands of others talking at them — the 24-hour news cycle, the spam
emails, or the Twitter feed of a world leader or a pop star. Faced with such an incomprehensible volume of data, it
can be overwhelming to try separating the truly important from the things falsely labelled "important." Detachment
becomes a survival strategy.
Bloom's Taxonomy was created in 1956 under the leadership of educational psychologist Dr Benjamin Bloom in order to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating concepts, processes, procedures, and principles, rather than just remembering facts (rote learning). It is most often used when designing educational, training, and learning processes.
Over the past decade or so, the bachelor’s degree has undergone major changes in much of the world. The most important set of changes was brought on by the adoption, across Europe, of the Bologna Process. This led not only to the introduction of bachelor’s degrees in countries where no such qualification had previously existed, but also to a pan-continental harmonization (more or less) of the length of the degree, at three years. More recently, a number of universities in the United States – where a four-year degree has been sacrosanct for decades – have started experimenting with shorter degrees. At the same time that systems have been altering the length of degrees, there has also been a trend for systems in Europe and elsewhere – including Ontario and other parts of Canada – to open up degree provision to non-university Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This has broken the centuries-long monopoly of universities over the provision of granting degrees. These two major experiments in changing times and changing places are the subject of this report, which was undertaken by Higher Education Strategy Associates for the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO).
Designing an online course shares many of the same elements and processes that go into designing a traditional face-to-face course, however the online environment brings a unique set of challenges that require special attention and a different approach.
Purpose of Research: In this analysis and synthesis of our recent qualitative and ethnographic studies, we specifically describe the dimensions of local understanding that foster citizenship in the literate community for individuals commonly acted upon as hopelessly aliterate, subliterate, or illiterate due to assumptions surrounding their degree of disability. We contrast these descriptions of local understanding with U.S. education policy that mandates what we believe to be a singular, narrow, and rigid approach to early or initial written language instruction.
When presented with new material, standards, and complicated topics, we need to be focused and calm as we approach our assignments. We can use brain breaks and focused-attention practices to positively impact our emotional states and learning. They refocus our neural circuitry with either stimulating or quieting practices that generate increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, where problem solving and emotional regulation occur.
Around 9 p.m. on Friday, I opened my kitchen door to chants and flickering lights. After telling my kids to stay inside,
I scrambled over a stone wall and down a brick stairwell to find torch-bearing men and women clad in white polo
shirts and khakis, chanting "You will not replace us" and "Anti-Black." They marched in cadence, two by two, as far
as I could see.
Problem: you are a highly trained, skilled professional, but the academic job market is less than rosy.
Solution: the market for online, nonacademic courses is large and growing. For “academic entrepreneurs” willing to
retool their courses, this market represents an opportunity to build an independent business or supplement income
from teaching.
According to some estimates, by 2020 the worldwide market for self-paced online learning will be between $27.1 billion and $47.9 billion. The trends driving this growth in the United States involve shifts in the ways that companies hire and train employees, as well as changing expectations about the role of educational institutions.
Abstract
Achieving tenure and promotion are significant milestones in the career of a university faculty member. However, research indicates that racialized and female faculty do not achieve tenure and promotion at the same rate as their non-racialized and male counterparts. Using new survey data on faculty in eight Canadian universities, this article examines differences in being tenured and promoted between racialized and non-racialized faculty and between female and non-female faculty. It also investigates the extent to which explanations of human capital theory and cultural or identity taxation account for these disparities. Logistic regression confirms that controlling for human capital and cultural or identity taxation washes away the differences between being tenured and promoted for female faculty. Differences for racialized faculty remain, offering evidence of racial discrimination in the academic system.
Résumé
L’obtention de la permanence et la promotion sont des jalons importants de la carrière d’un professeur d’université. Cependant, des recherches scientifiques indiquent que les professeurs racialisés et les femmes n’obtiennent pas de permanence et de promotion au même rythme que leurs homologues non racialisés et de sexe masculin. En utilisant de nouvelles données provenant d’une enquête menée auprès de professeurs dans huit universités canadiennes, cet article scrute les différences entre les taux de permanence et de promotion des professeurs racialisés et non racialisés, ainsi qu’entre femmes et non femmes, afin d’analyser dans quelle mesure la théorie du capital humain ou celle de l’imposition culturelle ou identitaire explique
ces disparités. La régression logistique confirme qu’en contrôlant le capital humain ou l’imposition culturelle ou identitaire, les différences de permanence ou de promotion parmi les femmes disparaissent. Cependant, même avec ce contrôle, les différences demeurent pour les professeurs racialisés, ce qui fournit une preuve que la discrimination raciale existe dans le système universitaire.
nternational students have become an increasingly important dimension of Canada‘s educational and immigration policy landscape, which has led to the development of pathways from educational to working visa status. In this report we present an analysis of international student numbers, visa transition rates, processes and government policy evolution with regard to international student entry to Ontario between 2000 and 2012. The report’s findings suggest four major areas of change: increasing male dominance in the number of student entries; the rise in international student entries into the college sector; the increasing importance of international students as temporary workers post-graduation; and the profound shift in source countries for Ontario-bound international students. Policy knowledge in areas related to these issues is vital to Ontario's ability to compete for international students, who can become potential immigrants, while maintaining high-quality postsecondary educational institutions.
The Shrinking Ph.D. Job Market
As number of new Ph.D.s rises, the percentage of people earning a doctorate without a job waiting for them is up.
While all disciplines face the problem, some have particularly high debt levels.