In the fall of 2015, Toronto’s four universities collaborated on a massive data collection effort -StudentMoveTO – with the goal of collecting detailed data about where students live and travel throughout the day, as well as what factors influence how they schedule work, studies, and daily activities.
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 The blackboards and chalk may have been replaced by interactive whiteboards connected to a computer or projector, but far too often, students still sit in stagnant rows looking up in the same direction at the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.
The Ontario government has indicated its intention to negotiate individual mandate statements with each of Ontario’s public postsecondary institutions and to amend funding formulas to focus resources on what each institution does best. These actions signal the government’s desire to pursue a policy of greater institutional differentiation within the Ontario public postsecondary system. The purpose of this paper is to inform and assist the development of a differentiation framework for the university sector by describing the diversity of Ontario universities on variables that other jurisdictions have used to differentiate their university systems. These variables are important to consider first because they are globally accepted, and therefore influence the way the rest of the world will judge the Ontario system and its quality.
We live in a world filled with physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual violence. This violence has, unfortunately, toxic consequences for us. It is definitely not a question of what doesn’t kill you makes you strong; it is a question of what doesn’t kill you leaves you scarred. This short article, directed at parents and teachers, highlights the emotional and psychological violence children experience at school. As the article suggests, this violence is ubiquitous and damaging.
Teacher evaluation is a major policy initiative intended to improve the quality of classroom instruction. This study documents a fundamental challenge to using teacher evaluation to improve teaching and learning.
When was the last time you went more than a few hours into your workday without interacting with someone at your company? If you’re like the majority of the workforce, limited interactions are a rarity and collaboration is ongoing.
The way your team communicates greatly impacts the performance of your employees and your organization.
However, less commonly understood is the psychology behind how we collaborate.
The psychology behind workplace collaboration can be tied back to the day-to-day interactions that take place at virtually any organization. How your employees interpret the work they do and the way they collaborate with others ultimately determines their success, investment, and engagement in the company. And when your employees are
engaged, your company wins.
All post-secondary teachers and students use educational technology– whether for classroom-based, blended or fully online learning and teaching.
This three-part series, Three Pillars of Educational Technology: Learning Management Systems, Social Media, and Personal Learning Environments, explores the Learning Management System (LMS), social media, and personal learning environments – and how they might best be used for enhanced teaching and learning.
Investigation into Cambrian College’s administration of its Health Information Management Program and the oversight provided by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities
Students waste about one-fifth of class time on laptops, smartphones and tablets, even though they admit such behavior can harm their grades, a new report [1] found.
The average student uses those devices for “nonclass purposes” -- in other words, texting, emailing and using social media -- 11.43 times in class during a typical day. Since the survey was first conducted in 2013 [2], the number of times students check their devices has increased from 10.93, according to the results.
“But why do I have to go? School is not fun!” That quote is from a first-grade child, asking his mom why he has to go every single day to this place that he was told was going to be a lot of fun, but has not lived up to the hype. If he could articulate further, he might say, "I am only six. I like to have fun, but school is not fun and from what I can tell, it's going to get worse every year, not better."
"If you look closer," sang Smokey Robinson, “it’s easy to trace the tracks of my tears.” Clearly he never experienced the flow of tears at the end of a semester.
Whenever midterm and final exams loom, students’ tears during faculty office hours become as commonplace as requests for extra credit and do-overs. Low grades produce desperation and despair. In deciding how to respond, professors first must identify the reasons for the crying because not all tears are equal.
Some students cry because they lack the necessary skills to succeed in the course. Others are dealing with the stresses of life and, particularly if they're young, haven't developed coping mechanisms. There are tears from students who are dealing with the very real traumas of microaggressions, racism, homophobia, rape, and the failure of their institutions to recognize those pressures or listen to their voices. And there are tears that surely produce less empathy — from the grade grubbers crushed by a B or the slackers who simply didn't do the reading but know how to turn on the waterworks.
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has called for a 33% increase in the number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) bachelor’s degrees completed per year and recommended adoption of empirically validated teaching practices as critical to achieving that goal. The studies analyzed here document that active learning leads to increases in examination performance that would raise average grades by a half a letter, and that failure rates under traditional lecturing increase by 55% over the rates observed under active learning. The analysis supports theory claiming that calls to increase the number of students receiving STEM degrees could be answered, at least in part, by abandoning traditional lecturing in favor of active learning.
When approached for a letter in the bleak midwinter of recommendation-writing season, many of us wish for responsible ways to say, like Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, “I prefer not to.” Yet in weak or guilty moments, we may accede to a student’s plea and then spend hours racking our brains for something to say.
It’s hard for a scrupulous teacher to resist the fear that, in declining to write a recommendation, you may be torpedoing someone’s professional life. Ultimately, though, a student’s application materials will speak for themselves and the professional world will make its own judgment, fairly or not. Disappointment, even heartbreak, is a reality from which even the deserving can’t always be shielded. And you aren’t obligated to make a case for a student whom you can’t, in good conscience, support.
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is now the law of the land.
Replacing No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) does more than realign the federal government’s role in education. It also elevates technology’s use in education in unprecedented ways. These changes require new thinking from leaders at the school, district and state level.
We’re releasing this handbook as states prepare their initial plans for state accountability requirements and other provisions of the new law. At the time of this writing, many states appear to be gravitating toward familiar models, albeit with considerable improvements in data, targeted interventions and instructional strategies that reflect the law’s emphasis on flexibility and local control. But there are opportunities for more dramatic transitions in what accountability means and how it is measured in schools, as well as in new models of teaching and learning. Technology plays a vital role in these areas, and ESSA provides new ways to help states and districts make these visions a reality.
It’s hard to believe that we have less than a month left until September. The beginning of the month of August marks the acceptable time to get ready for back to school. For many this may simply involve picking up some pencils, notebooks, a new backpack, and possibly some fresh new kicks.
However, for those joining the 447,000 Ontarian undergrads, this checklist goes way beyond object necessities. Being a fifth year student, I pretty much got the drill locked down when preparing for the upcoming year. Look over my class schedule and plan accordingly, check in on my finances and budget for the upcoming year, and finally list out methods in which I plan to upkeep my personal wellness. At this point, I wouldn’t say I’m an expert in fulfilling each step, but it is nice to be moving towards a general direction. This definitely was not the case in my first year.
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.
College presidents’ partners and spouses aren’t all wives hosting receptions in the president’s house.
Many work jobs outside of their role as presidential partners. A growing number are men. And many say the expectations placed upon them by a college or university influence their spouse’s decision to work as the institution’s president.
A new study from University of Minnesota researchers examines the role of the presidential spouse or partner at a time when it is becoming increasingly complex and challenging. Researchers called the survey, which was released Monday after being presented at the Council of Independent Colleges’ Presidents Institute last week, the “largest and most diverse known sample of presidential partners to date.” The results of the study, which involved the leaders of public and private colleges, were earlier presented at a CIC meeting.
The not-for-profit (NFP) and charitable sector in Canada represents an average of 8.1 percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP), employs over 2,000,000 people and boasts over 170,000 NFP organizations, of which 85,000 are registered charities (Imagine Canada, 2012-2013). While from a donor perspective, Canadians gave approximately $10.6 billion in 2010 (Turcotte, 2012). In Ontario, there are over 46,000 NFPs, contributing over $50 billion to the GDP and engages over 5 million volunteers annually (The Partnership Project: Strengthening Ontario’s Not-For-Profit Sector, 2011). From a post-secondary education perspective, Canadians donated $117 million to “Universities and Colleges” and $309 million to “Education and Research” in 2010, totaling $426 million dollars. This represents 4 percent of the $10.6 billion donated (Turcotte, 2012). These two categories were combined in order to account for higher education institutions that teach, research and provide other educational services such as continuing education and vocational training. While the distribution of these funds between all individual institutions is not readily available, the author’s analysis of tax return information between universities and colleges in the Greater Toronto
Area (GTA) reveals the universities dwarf the colleges in acquiring these private dollars. The author has compiled a chart, based on 2010 CRA returns for universities and colleges in the GTA which further illustrates the disparity between these institutions. The following chart compares university and college fundraising results (Appendix A).
HubSpot is 9 years old. I consider that we spent our first 6–7 years in “startup” mode, where we got through
product/market fit and got our customer economics to work. Over the last few years, we’ve been in “scale-up” mode, where we’re adding fuel into our engine and growing fast in a great market with nice barriers to entry. It turns out that many of the skills I need as the leader of a scale-up are much different than the skills I needed as the leader of a startup. This article attempts to lay out some of the skills and tools I’ve needed to develop in this scale-up phase.
Women in the sciences who earn PhDs are less likely than their male counterparts to pursue tenure-track positions at research universities. Moreover, among those who become STEM researchers, men have been found to publish more than women. These patterns raise questions about when sex differences in publication begin. Using data from a survey of doctoral students at one large institution, this study finds that men submitted and published more scholarly works than women across many fields, with differences largest in natural/biological sciences and engineering. Potential contributing factors are considered, including sex differences in faculty support, assistantships, family responsibilities, and career goals.
Keywords: career development; doctoral students; equity; faculty development; gender studies; graduate education; higher education; publications; regression analyses; research; secondary data analysis; sex; STEM; survey research; women’s issues