The focus of this paper is on the importance of early educational engagement in the retention of postsecondary students. Tinto (1975, 1987) argues that greater academic and social integration in college leads to higher rates of retention. Empirical tests of the claim have been mixed and a frequent criticism of such studies is that the variables used to construct the academic
and social integration measures are not consistent across studies, making it difficult to replicate the results of individual studies. Questions on the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), however, offer a way around the difficulty of generalization. NSSE, administered nationally to freshmen and seniors by the Center for Postsecondary Research and Planning at Indiana University, is designed to measure student engagement. Since many of the questions about engagement are concerned with various aspects of students’ integration, by using the questions on NSSE to measure social and academic integration we hope to provide an easy and replicable way to examine the effect of integration on student retention.
If we don’t move quickly, Canada risks seeing many of these young, bright minds take their talents elsewhere.
Ambitious, skilled and often multilingual, international students are a great source of talent. They fill jobs and create
new ones through innovation and entrepreneurship — Silicon Valley is a prominent, international example. Research by the Conference Board of Canada shows immigrants help expand and diversify Canada’s global trade. International students could do the same, helping Canada trade in markets such as Asia, where economic growth is greater than in the U.S. and EU — Canada’s largest trading partners.
A widely held belief in Canada, as in many countries, is that expanding access to tertiary education is integral to improving national productivity. It also plays into the Canadian sense of
equality of opportunity and the just society.
In addition, Canada is not alone in beginning to experience a decreasing labour force participation rate as the baby boomer generation enters retirement. Even the country’s large immigration flows are not sufficient to compensate for the labour force shrinkage. This puts additional pressure on productivity; across the 20 largest members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, this would need to increase at an average of 0.4 per cent
per year to offset the loss of gross domestic product per capita.
Study looks at the reasons why people pirate scholarly articles from peer-to-peer research sharing communities -- it's more convenience than ideology.
Would you believe me if I told you that young Canadians likely had a major impact on the outcome of the 2015 Canadian general election?
Probably not. That’s because we have continually heard over and over that young people are politically disengaged. Few pay attention to politics. Few vote. And there is plenty of evidence that supports these claims. Elections Canada estimates that during the 2011 federal election, only 39% of Canadians aged 18 to 24 showed up at the polls. In 2008, it was 37%, down from 44% two years earlier.
But the 2015 Canadian election may have been the start of a political awakening of a new electoral powerhouse in Canada.
The combination of work and study has been hailed as crucial to ensure that youth develop the skills required on the labour market so that transitions from school to work are shorter and smoother. This paper fills an important gap in availability of internationally-comparable data. Using the 2012 Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), it draws a comprehensive picture of work and study in 23 countries/regions. Crucially, it decomposes the total share of working students by the context in which they work (VET, apprenticeships or private arrangements) and assesses the link between field of study and students’ work. The paper also assesses how the skills of students are used in the workplace compared to other workers and identifies the socio-demographic factors and the labour market institutions that increase the likelihood of work and study. Finally, while it is not possible to examine the relationship between work and study and future labour market outcomes at the individual level, some aggregate correlations are unveiled.
A generation ago, college administrators eager to enhance their institution’s international profile might have set up a handful of study abroad programs and sought to host a few overseas students each year. These limited initiatives were often delegated to international programs offices that were understaffed and under-resourced. Those days are long since past. On campuses large and small, urban and suburban, public and private, university leaders increasingly understand the importance
of raising the international profile of their institutions and preparing all students with the attitudes, skills, and knowledge that will serve them well in a rapidly shrinking world.
When I visit with teachers employed in public schools, I often hear, “You are already where I want to be. College. That’s where we all want to be.”
Many public school teachers consider pursuing master’s degrees with the goal of someday teaching college. Unfortunately, many of them are under misconceptions. More than once, someone has applied for a position at Howard College who was not aware of certain realities. For those who have considered teaching at a community college, here are a few things of which to be aware.
This article examines the differences in the location of study of immigrant adults aged 25 to 64 with a university education (i.e., with at least a bachelor’s degree). It provides results by period of immigration (pre-1990, the 1990s, and the 2000s) and provides a more in-depth analysis of factors that are linked to the location of study for the most recent cohort of immigrants (i.e., those who immigrated in 2000 or later).
As an instructional technologist at the University of Washington’s School of Social Work, Tom Baer is no stranger to
working with faculty who struggle to understand the role of instructional designers. It’s not unusual for him to encounter instructors reluctant to give up their go-to lecture or PowerPoint Presentation, unsure of online learning’s effectiveness or resistant to a change in teaching style.
Enrollment in online courses at colleges and universities continues to grow, along with the need for IDs who help design curriculum and implement digital tools. IDs work closely with faculty members and subject experts to create measurable learning objectives, produce course content and craft engaging activities. But during the process, faculty may give IDs the cold shoulder for fear of having to give up control or appearing less knowledgeable in front of their students.
According to the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS), immigrants accounted for 21% of Canada’s overall population, and among those who immigrated to Canada between 2001 and 2011, 41% held a bachelor’s degree or higher. Yet immigrants are less likely than the Canadian-born to be employed, and those who are employed are more likely to be overqualified relative to their occupation. They are also less likely to be working in an occupation that matches their field of study. The degree to which immigrants experience these disadvantages varies according to how long they have been living in Canada, with more established immigrants (those who have lived in Canada 10 years or more) showing higher employment rates and education-to-occupation match rates than immigrants who have not been in Canada as long.
As a minority group on university campuses, the unique needs of mature students can be easily overlooked. It is important that the term “mature students” does not disguise the heterogeneity of this group: “…it is erroneous to speak of ‘the adult learner’ as if there is a generic adult that can represent all adults.” 1 However, amongst this varied group of students, there are common concerns that they share. Mature students need more recognition of the different hurdles they face in achieving success. These can include situational barriers like a lack of time, lack of money, health issues, or dependant care,2 as well as attitudinal or dispositional barriers, including the fear of failure or alienation. Lastly, they also face systemic barriers such as restrictive course offerings and availability of instructors or support services outside of regular business hours. 3 Our Mature Student Policy sets out students’ priorities in increasing the visibility of mature students on campus as well as optimizing their educational experience.
I have a PhD in the Humanities and I'm employed.
Gainfully employed, in fact - in every sense of the word, for myself, my employer, my communitym and those I work on behalf of. And I' no employed as a professor, thought I confess that's what I wanted todo when I started my graduate work, and I;ve swum in academic waters since earning my doctorate.
Right near the core of education, just past tolerance and just short of affectionate connectivity, is the idea of
empathy. University of California Berkley's Greater Good Science Center explains empathy:
The term "empathy" is used to describe a wide range of experiences. Emotion researchers generally
define empathy as the ability to sense other people's emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine
what someone else might be thinking or feeling.
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.
The contemporary university has grown to be a fairly complex institution sustained by many competing interests, not all of which are directly concerned with promoting the work of study, broadly conceived. My concern in the fol- lowing is with the quality of the subjective experience of studying that universities are still meant to provide. By subjective experience I mean the
mindful engagement that is study, and my focus is on such study as it is found in undergraduate programs leading to undergraduate degrees. Given the threat of a growing indifference between professors and students concerning their shared engagement in courses offered at the undergraduate level (offered because of professors’ institutional obligations, taken because of students’ degree requirements), I reconsider the subjective investment of mindful engagement that these courses nevertheless represent.
What annoys me about the teaching profession, more than anything else, is the constant grousing about students. A certain slice of the faculty seems to enjoy complaining about how bad their students are — especially, of course, today’s students, who are clearly worse than any other generation in history. I’ve been hearing the same gripe for my entire 33 years of college teaching.
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.
Abstract: The paper presents the results of the second stage of training academia in designing e-learning courses in a foreign language. An action research conducted during such staff development project showed high appreciation of continuous mutual support, need for established channels for sharing, and raised confidence in designing own electronic courses by young specialists.
Key words: Staff Development, e-Learning, Higher Education, Language Teaching.
As industries evolve and demographics change, the need for education continues to grow.
We, as a global society, spend quite a bit of money on higher education – BMO Capital Markets estimates that the United States alone spends approximately US$1.7 trillion on educational services – including about US$600 million on post-secondary education – and GSV Advisors estimates that worldwide spending is quickly approaching US$5 trillion.
That’s a lot of cash. And yet, as we spend more money on education, and as universities create new degree and certificate programmes, employers are asking for graduates with different skills than the ones we teach and some students struggle to get jobs, leaving many unemployed or underemployed.