Mention the “classroom of the future” and it might evoke images of an old Jetsons cartoon—Elroy and his fellow students working on tablets, following a lecture by a virtual teacher and collaborating on space-aged technology.
While there is little doubt that classrooms have become more sophisticated and digital; the physical classroom setting and furniture haven’t evolved at nearly the same pace. The tablets that are transforming the learning process still sit on top of the same style desks from the 1950s. The blackboards and chalk may have been replaced by interactive whiteboards connected to a computer or projector, but far too often, students still sit in stagnant rows looking up in the same direction at the teacher for the daily lesson.
Abstract
First-year seminars (FYS) have become increasingly prevalent in North American postsecondary institutions. The popularity of such initiatives owes much to the belief that providing unprepared students general life and academic skills can bolster engagement and thereby improve retention. In this paper we argue that, despite their good intentions, many FYS actually perpetuate the kind of disengagement they were designed to alleviate due to their reliance on a narrow, instrumental view of education. To demonstrate, we briefly outline the history and curricula of the FYS movement to draw attention to its dependence on marketplace ideals, rationales, and strategies. We demonstrate some of the ways this vision of education impoverishes the university experience and suggest that, in order to be robust, FYS must focus first and foremost on cultivating rich understandings of the broader purposes of higher education and its relation to the good life, both for and beyond one’s own fulfillment.
Résumé
Les séminaires de première année sont devenus de plus en plus répandus dans les énstitutions d post-secondaires en Amérique du Nord. La popularité de telles initiatives doit beaucoup à l’idée que le fait de fournir des aptitudes
générales et académiques aux étudiants non préparés peut renforcer leur engagement et ainsi améliorer leur taux de rétention. Dans cet article, nous soutenons que, malgré leurs bonnes intentions, beaucoup de sention. Dans cet aère année perpétuent le même genre de désengagement qu’ils essaient d’atténuer en raison de leur dépendance envers une vision instrumentale
mais étroite de l’éducation. Pour le démontrer, nous décrivons brièvement l’histoire et les programmes de ce mouvement qui vise à attirer l’attention sur sa dépendance à l’égard des idéaux de marché, des justifications et des stratégies. Nous démontrons quelques-unes des façons par lesquelles cette vision de l’éducation appauvrit l’expérience universitaire et nous suggérons que pour être robustes, les séminaires de première année doivent d’abord se concentrer à cultiver la richesse de compréhension des objectifs plus larges de l’enseignement supérieur et de sa relation au bien-vivre, pour la r ur n-viv
personnelle des étudiants et au-delà.
Disciplinary experts have a responsibility to engage in nuanced thinking about teaching and learning.
Recently, i had a conversation with a colleague that stopped me dead in my tracks. I was in the middle of extolling the virtues of SoTL (the scholarship of teaching and learning) as a research field that is multidisciplinary, accessible and increasingly relevant as we shape what higher education looks like in the 21st century.
Feeling the wonderful effects of a mid-afternoon caffeine rush, I was exclaiming that SoTL has wide appeal for many members of our learning community and provides: 1) support to inform teaching practices; 2) fresh solutions andnew ideas, such as how to jump-start a sluggish class or reach the latest generation of students or harness a new technology; 3) opportunities for cross-fertilization between research and teaching; and 4) the option to develop a secondary research field without costly infrastructure.
Over the past 30 years, higher education has transitioned from an elite endeavour to an open market. The number of post-secondary institutions around the world has increased exponentially, often through the founding of small-scale, private operations.
In such a climate, scholars and critics debate what role, if any, governments should take in founding, funding and regulating these diverse institutions.
As the Canadian situation shows, a set of diverse institutions requires a thoughtful and intentional approach at the systemic level. An emphasis on consumer protection, harmonisation and degree progression is necessary to align such complex post-secondary systems.
Teaching with digital and social technologies often produces stress and tension for teachers and students alike, but I suspect much of that comes from an unclear explanation of why a particular tool is being used and comfort, or lack thereof, with its use. Digital and social technologies are attractive in many ways and we can get excited about working with them, especially in this era where students are dubbed "digital natives." But these tools require we think about their purpose, method, and audience just as carefully as when we design an essay prompt, a problem set, or any other assessment exercise.
Algonquin College teachers call for closure of Saudi Arabia campus.
Many people question the need for special scholarships and bursaries specifically targeted at certain demographic roups, but the need for these scholarships goes beyond levelling the playing field for all students. The costs of iscrimination are not just shouldered by those on the receiving end; discrimination imposes costs to us all when it prevents some of our most productive members from playing an active role in society.
This quantitative study examined the relationship between the Big 5 personality traits and how they relate to online teacher effectiveness. The primary method of data collection for this study was through the use of surveys primarily building upon the Personality Style Inventory (PSI)(Lounsbury & Gibson, 2010), a work-based personality measure, was the instrument used to assess personality measures. In addition an evaluation instrument was developed by the researchers to evaluate classroom performance across a 10-point scale. In total 115 instructors from a large predominantly online university were surveyed through Qualtrics for personality traits and then had their courses evaluated for effectiveness and quality utilizing measures based on the Quality Matters program. Using a Pearson product moment correlation coefficient, it was found that 9 personality traits were significantly correlated with online teaching performance. While the results of this study can only be seen at this point as preliminary, it does open the door to further studies to determine if online teacher training or professional development interventions should take a different approach. Ultimately, the findings of this study demonstrated that personality does play a significant role in the effectiveness of online teaching performance.
The following research reports detail the results of programs or inventions designed to increase the retention of post-secondary students. This bibliography is intended as a sample of the recent literature on this topic, rather than an exhaustive list. For inclusion, articles or reports generally described experimental research studies of PSE retention programs. Preference was given to larger scale projects focused on colleges in jurisdictions outside of Ontario (in several cases, progress reports from ongoing, large-scale initiatives were also included). Where possible, links to the original research are provided.
• One of the best ways to improve the quality of care for Northern and Aboriginal communities is to strengthen the number of Northern and Aboriginal health professionals, and in particular nurses who form the largest category of health care providers in these regions.
• Although improvements in the number of Aboriginal nurses have been made in the past 15 years, additional efforts and strategies are needed to reach proportional representation in Saskatchewan and Canadian health workforces.
• Distributed, off-campus educational opportunities are an important way of educating residents of Northern and Aboriginal communities and establishing a local skilled workforce.
• New technologies are also making the delivery of high-quality nursing programs in rural and remote locations feasible.
U of T responds to a rise in mental health needs on campus.
This qualitative case study investigated how adult graduates of online Bachelor's degree programs describe the online aspect of their degree. Online education is promoted as a method for adult students to access the benefits of a college degree. Therefore, it is important for prospective online students, higher education institutions and policy makers to understand how online degrees are valued in society and by online graduates.The primary method of data collection was interviews of 24 graduates. The setting of this study, a well-regarded research university primarily known for its traditional campus-based programs, helped to isolate perceptions of the online delivery modality. All participants in the study held a high opinion of their online degree and of the university. However, the participants also recognized that some people have a negative opinion of online degrees. The participants described two strategies for dealing with encounters with people with negative perceptions of online degrees. Slightly more than half of the participants were forthcoming and open about earning a degree online. However, a large minority of participants were concerned about negative perceptions of online degrees. These participants often did not volunteer information about the online aspect of their degree to other people unless specifically questioned. Additional research is recommended to further explain the extent to which perceptions of online degrees are associated with the online delivery mode rather than other factors and to investigate the effect of delivery mode and institution type on the economic impact of an earning a Bachelor's degree later in life.
I had coffee a few weeks ago with another displaced administrator at my university. Like me, he had arrived within the past decade to build something new and different. To some extent, he had succeeded. But, also like me, he had been informed that his leadership services would no longer be required beyond this year.
When he invited me, he asked if I would be uncomfortable meeting in one of the more popular campus coffee spots. "It’s in the shadow of the main administration building," he warned via email.
Mount Royal University (MRU) has a long-standing history of student-centered leadership and learning. We are known to be an institution that cares about the success and the health of our students, and we have strong services that support mental health promotion and respond well to mental health issues and concerns. In addition to excellent service providers, MRU has many positive practices and policies in place to support students. Recent trends suggest that the prevalence of mental health issues is on the rise among young adults. More students are entering into university with pre-existing mental health conditions, more are seeking help, and often issues are complex and multifaceted. Given that rates of mental illness are on the rise, and given that our student population has reported stress levels higher than other students at post-secondary institutions in North American, a review of our student mental health practices and procedures was warranted.
Losing a faculty member always hurts, but many administrators believe they have little control over whether professors move on. A new effort seeks to provide meaningful data.
Six months after the Ontario government announced a new funding model for the province’s universities, questions are being raised about whether the framework is flexible enough to respond to the challenges facing both Ontario’s more remote regions as well as its booming Greater Toronto Area.
Currently, universities and colleges receive funds tied to their enrolment. Under the new plan, institutions will have to keep enrolment within several percentage points of a target that is now being negotiated between each school and the provincial government. Funding will not be available for enrolment growth beyond that target.
colleges have opened campuses in Saudi Arabia that don’t allow women.
On Wednesday, Colleges and Universities Minister Reza Moridi said decisions on the operation of a
campus, including student composition, are up to each college’s board of governors.
But late Thursday, after a lot of criticism on social media about the male-only campuses, the minister had a
change of heart about Ontario colleges teaching courses that deliberately exclude women.
The Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines, established by the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, maintain that adults should get at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every week in order to maintain their optimal health.1 However, only 15 per cent of Canadian adults meet these guidelines. Of equal concern, Canadians spend 10 of their waking hours each day being sedentary. Even when adults meet the recommended guidelines for physical activity, it is important for them to limit their sedentary time in order to improve or maintain their health.
At least one university has explicitly restricted students’ use of editors for their assignments.
Over the last several years, staff members at the Centre for Academic Communication at the University of Victoria
reported to administrators some curious conversations taking place around editing. The centre offers free services
to students to assist them with reading comprehension and writing, but staff members are instructed not to correct
students’ work, only pose questions. Students, however, had different expectations and complained when centre
staff wouldn’t “fix up” their papers.
Professors, too, misunderstood the role of the centre; some sent students there because they wanted staff to
improve their students’ work. What’s more, the centre received calls from parents asking how much editing they
could do on their children’s papers without it being considered cheating.
Since the mid-1980’s, student unions across Canada and within the United States have been advocating to governments and Universities-alike for increased safety measures for those affected by sexual violence and harassment. Student unions have played a crucial role in creating campus culture and social expectations. We have also been at the forefront of programming and processes around staff training to combat sexual violence, gendered-violence, and sex-based harassment, bystander intervention, and health and protective services. We offer important peer-to-peer and survivor services as well, recognizing that survivors prefer to seek peer support. Therefore we offer much to be listened to on this topic and have been given great opportunities over the past year to speak to some of these issues.