Students are the innovators of the future, and to succeed they need access to modern, high-quality programs at Canadian educational institutions. Universities and colleges are built to educate students, develop global citizens, support research, and foster a sense ofcreativity that will benefit Canadian society both socially and economically.
Colleges and institutes contribute to the research and innovation cycle in Canada through applied research. More specifically, they directly contribute to applied research through enhanced research infrastructure, involvement of faculty and students, and the creation of partnerships with the business, industry and social innovation sectors. Colleges and institutes receive the majority of their funding from the Government of Canada.
For the 2013-14 fiscal period, $85,124,512 were granted, up 19% from the previous year. At $78,275,654, funding from the private sector rose 9% from 2012-13 levels, making it the second greatest source of external funding for applied research.
Technology has changed just about every facet of our economy and society — from how we travel to how we bank to how we communicate with each other. But perhaps no part of the economy has been as fundamentally transformed as our nation’s workforce.
The MOOCs frenzy that was sparked by a few elite US institutions in 2012 alerted universities worldwide to the opportunities and threats of online learning (Daniel, 2012). As higher education faces up to this new reality, 'blended learning' has become the most common term for institutional strategies to address it. 'Blended' is a conveniently flexible word that can be applied any mixture of classroom activity and online instruction, although 'blended teaching' would be a more accurate descriptor of the evolving institutional approaches to course delivery. How students really learn is more mysterious (Israelite, 2015).
“Faculty need to be equal partners in order to meet the challenges facing college education today, and to ensure that the CAATs continue to fulfill their original mandate of access, quality, and service to diverse communities. Being equal partners with college administration and the provincial government means faculty having a strong voice within the classroom, within the governance of each institution, and when setting priorities for the system as a whole.”
Research is reviewed in a rigorous manner, by expert peers. Yet teaching is often reviewed only or mostly by pedagogical non-experts: students. There’s also mounting evidence of bias in student evaluations of teaching, or SETs -- against female and minority instructors in particular. And teacher ratings aren’t necessarily correlated with learning outcomes.
Independent college students, once considered “nontraditional,” now constitute the majority of students in the United States. As of 2012, just over half of all U.S. college students were independent (51 percent)—meaning they had at least one defining characteristic outlined in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), including being at least 24 years old; married; a graduate or professional student; a veteran; an orphan, in foster care, or ward of the court; a member of the armed forces; an emancipated minor; someone who is homeless or at risk of becoming homeless; or having legal dependents other than a spouse (Federal Student Aid n.d.; IWPR 2016a).
In our second annual student survey, Maclean’s reached more than 17,000 students at almost every university campus across the country. They told us how often they’ve cheated as well as how much time they spend studying, partying, working and on extracurricular activities. It is one of the largest surveys of its kind and provides a wideranging snapshot of student life on university campuses across the country in real time.
Respondents also told us whether they feel their school has prepared them for the workplace, offering insight into which universities—and which programs—are doing the best job preparing students for the real world. St. Francis Xavier came out on top for this one measure, with 53% of students strongly agreeing they had the skills and knowledge needed for employment. For some programs, the results were even better, with 71% of St. FX nursing students saying they’d been well prepared. We also asked whether the schools helped with writing ability, with St. Thomas ranking first on that front. In addition, we surveyed professors to see whether incoming university students had the academic skills needed for success.
Abstract
Informal mid-term feedback processes create opportunities for students and academics to have a dialogue about their progress and to make any necessary or reasonable mid-stream corrections. This article reports on an action research project designed to see what impact mid-semester feedback might have on the classroom experience. The underlying motive for the study was to generate institution-specific “proof” which might encourage other academic staff to conduct informal mid-semester informal feedback exercises with their students.
End-of-semester data shows that both students and lecturers found the exercise to be a positive
experience. Students appreciated being able to voice their problems and opinions at a time when
mid-course corrections were possible. Lecturers felt there was an improvement in
the lines of communication, resulting in a friendlier teaching and learning environment.
SUMMARY—The term ‘‘learning styles’’ refers to the concept that individuals differ in regard to what mode of instruction
or study is most effective for them. Proponents of learning-style assessment contend that optimal instruction requires diagnosing individuals’ learning style and tailoring instruction accordingly. Assessments of learning style typically ask people to evaluate what sort of information presentation they prefer (e.g., words versus pictures versus speech) and/or what kind of mental activity they find most engaging or congenial (e.g., analysis versus listening), although assessment instruments are extremely diverse. The most common—but not the only—hypothesis about the instructional relevance of learning styles is the
meshing hypothesis, according to which instruction is best provided in a format that matches the preferences of the
learner (e.g., for a ‘‘visual learner,’’ emphasizing visual presentation of information).
Landing a postdoc, particularly for the social sciences and humanities, is increasingly difficult as Keisha N. Blainrecently noted in Inside Higher Ed. Many postdocs are as competitive as tenure-track jobs.
But if you are one of the lucky few to receive a postdoc, what’s next?
I’m finishing my one-year National Center for Institutional Diversitypostdoc at the University of Michigan. I’m fortunate enough to have a postdoc that requires no teaching or service, and provides a generous research budget. I’m also a sociologist, so my perspective reflects that of a scholar in the social sciences and humanities. Still, no matter if your postdoc is for one year or three, or whether you are teaching, in a lab or on your own, I’ve developed some tips that
I think can help you make the most of your postdoc.
Based on recent polling commissioned by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, an overwhelming majority of Ontarians (69.3%) believe that the current practice of increasing postsecondary tuition fees by five percent annually is unfair. When prompted to evaluate different policy alternatives, 59.6 percent agreed that the government should freeze tuition, while 70.8 percent agreed that all future increases should be tied to inflation. OUSA believes that this data indicates that a change to Ontario’s current tuition framework to either a lower increase or a freeze would be strongly supported by the public.
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between each of the five personality factors in the Big Five Inventory (BFI) and online faculty student evaluations. Faculty members from the School of Criminal Justice (CJ) and the School of Information Technology (IT) from an online university were asked to complete the BFI (44 item personality inventory). There were 179 valid BFI surveys returned with matched student evaluation data. There were small correlations between some of the five factors and student evaluations for all subjects. However, when separated by school, there were no statistically significant correlations for faculty inIT but there were significant correlations with moderate effect sizes for faculty in CJ.Keywords: Big Five Inventory, Student Evaluations, Online Instructors Relationship Between Personality Characteristics of Online Instructors and Student Evaluations
Like any big institution, the Toronto District School Board has problems with equity. And as at any big institution, those problems are familiar.
Put broadly, Toronto public schools are places where wealthy and/or white students are more likely to have their individual needs met, and succeed, while poor and/or Indigenous and black students are most likely to be suspended, and drop out. The playing field is not level.
And it’s well-established that specialized programs are sites of that inequity, largely filled with Toronto’s most privileged children (save those who go to private schools), the ones from homes stocked with art supplies, whose parents know how to successfully advocate for their kids.
On October 17 1990, the members of the Canadian Federation of Students presented the first edition of its alternative funding model for post-secondary education. The proposal, entitled Strategy for Change, articulated students’ concerns about public funding for post-secondary education, as well as problems with federal student financial assistance programs.
In the intervening seventeen years since the first version of this document was published, federal funding and student aid policies have changed substantially, as have many provincial approaches to post-secondary education. Perhaps the single over arching trend is the federal government’s retreat from a leadership role in broad higher education policy.
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.
"I had a career," she told me, her eyes welling with tears. "I took care of my kids and myself, and I didn’t need anyone’s help … and now, I’m here," she said, referring to Oregon State University’s Human Services Resource Center, a facility for low-income students which I directed until last year. As she spoke, the floodgates opened, and I handed her a box of tissues. She told me she had not eaten and was worried about being evicted. She said she could not get a job to support her family without a degree.
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.
Gender disparities appear to be decreasing in academia according to a number of metrics, such as grant funding, hiring,
acceptance at scholarly journals, and productivity, and it might be tempting to think that gender inequity will soon be a problem of the past. However, a large-scale analysis based on over eight million papers across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities reveals a number of understated and persistent ways in which gender inequities remain. For instance, even where raw publication counts seem to be equal between genders, close inspection reveals that, in certain fields, men predominate in the prestigious first and last author positions. Moreover, women are significantly underrepresented as authors of single-authored papers. Academics should be aware of the subtle ways that gender disparities can occur in scholarly authorship.
Statistics Canada is moving to reinstate its Full Time-University and College Academic Staff System survey, and to include information on part-timers.
The data it will reveal is bound to shed much-needed light on a growing challenge that is already well-recognized but far too infrequently discussed in academia: the recent surge in numbers of underemployed PhD graduates at Canada’s universities.
Institutions have made their best efforts to encourage graduates to think beyond university jobs, and have directed more toward careers in government and the private sector. Yet serious challenges within the system remain — for recent PhDs themselves, for the renewal of the academy, and for Canada’s future research potential.