The idea of “productivity” in higher education is becoming a concern for some policymakers and observers of Ontario’s universities. This interest is fuelled by the province’s challenging deficit situation, which has put a premium on “doing more
with less”. Productivity is featured in the Government of Ontario’s recent discussion paper, Strengthening Ontario’s Centres of Creativity, Innovation, and Knowledge, and was a prominent focus of the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities
strategic mandate agreement process.
Work-integrated learning (WIL) has been identified as a key strategy for supporting Canada’s postsecondary education (PSE) system in responding to an increasingly dynamic, globalized, knowledge-based economy. Ontario in particular has been described as a “hot bed” of co-operative education (Ipsos Reid, 2010). However, while there is a common belief that WIL improves employment outcomes (see Gault, Redington & Schlager, 2000; Kramer & Usher, 2010), research on this topic has generally been specific to certain programs and types of WIL (Sattler, 2011).
Young Canadians in a wired world
THE MOST RECENT National Science Foundation (NSF) “Survey of Earned Doctorates” raises eyebrows, not because it paints a predictably bleak picture for the job prospects of humanities PhD students, but because people are surprised that prospects for engineering and science PhDs aren’t looking so good either.
The Venezuelan economy is in free fall. A drop in oil prices and a collapse in confidence in the country’s leadership have caused the economy of the once affluent South American country to contract by 50 per cent since 2013, according to the International Monetary Fund, and inflation to hit 13,000 per cent.
To some people, “reconciliation” is the re-establishment of a conciliatory state. However, this is a state that many Aboriginal people assert has never existed between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. To others, “reconciliation,” in the context of Indian residential schools, is similar to dealing with a situation of family violence. It is about coming to terms with events of the past in a manner that over-comes conflict and establishes a respectful and healthy relationship among people going forward. It is in the latter context that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (trc) has approached the question of reconciliation.
To the Commission, “reconciliation” is about establishing and maintaining a mutu-ally respectful relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in this country. For that to happen, there has to be awareness of the past, acknowledgement of the harm that has been inflicted, atonement for the causes, and action to change behaviour.
Engineering is synonymous with design. It is a skill that is inherently understood by experienced engineers, but also one of the most difficult topics to teach. McMaster University’s first-year Design & Graphics is a required course for all engineering students. The course has taught hand-sketching, 3D solid modeling, system simulation, 3D rapid prototyping, and culminated in a project in gear train design that requires a combination of the core course topics. Students chose their own three-member teams and lab sections were randomly assigned one of three modalities for completion of the design project: Simulation (SIM), in which they produced and verified a design using a simulation tool; Prototyping (PRT), in which they used a 3D printer to create a working plastic model of a design; or Simulation and Prototyping (SIM+PRT), in which they used both tools to complete a design.
Over the past two decades, and across the nation, the university has been undergoing profound changes. These
structural changes underpin an emergent philosophy of the new university today -- one that should give pause to anyone concerned about the direction of higher education.
For much of the 20th century, and especially after World War II, the university served as the vehicle of upward mobility, the principal pathway to securing a middle-class and eventually upper-middle-class life. Yet that prevailing 20th-century model of the university began to give way in the late 1980s, slowly at first and then more dramatically and visibly with the onset of the new millennium.
A fraternity member from the University of Oklahoma is otaped chanting a racist sont. At the University of Missouri, a slow response to racial slurs and graffiti fueld protests and led to the resignation of top administrators.
“Stereotype threat” is a well-known social psychological construct in which people live down or up to the expectations others have of them based their gender, race, age, or other such characteristics. As professors we are careful — or we should be — not to translate our personal beliefs about students’ capabilities into our expectations of how they will perform academically, but we rarely think about how students’ expectations of us affect our performance.
In particular, faculty who are women and/or members of racial minority groups run the risk of becoming stereotype threatened: feeling anxiety about whether they will either confirm or disprove students’ stereotypical beliefs.
If you don’t think students — or all people — have ideas about what a professor looks and sounds like, try this exercise: Ask a few people who don’t know you’re an academic to describe the “average” professor. Undoubtedly they will paint a picture of an older white male who may or may not be wearing a tweed jacket.
Much of our work as educators consists of designing and delivering experiences in which students can develop their understanding and application of concepts and skills in our disciplines. Given that we have only 16 weeks with our students, we need various ways for deepening and expanding these formative experiences in our field. Visiting experts can be a wonderful way of developing expertise, and leveraging online tools like Skype and Zoom can open up powerful possibilities for new collaboration and conversation.
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.
Canada needs to take an integrated and innovative approach to enhancing student mobility, according to participants at a workshop held December 2014 by Universities Canada. The workshop – held in Calgary and attracting university and private sector leaders – called for Canada to step up its efforts to get university students moving beyond their province and beyond our borders.
A requirement for quality assurance is becoming more prevalent in higher education today as institutions are being asked to demonstrate that they are providing robust, meaningful learning experiences for students. Many institutions are adopting curriculum review frameworks as part of their overall quality assurance strategy. Three leaders at various levels who were engaged in a year-long curriculum review process share reflections about their experiences and challenges while conducting an undergraduate program review. Their theoretical framework for an effective curriculum review process is shared in
this paper. The leaders offer institutional, faculty, and course level insights, and make five recommendations for a collaborative curriculum review process: (1) setting clear expectations; (2) maintaining open, consistent communication; (3) incorporating multiple levels of leadership; (4) engaging various groups of stakeholders; and (5) implementing through actionable items.
In 2008, University of Manitoba professors Stephen Downes and George Siemens taught a course on learning theory that was attended by about 25 paying students in class and by another 2,300 students online for free. Colleague Dave Cormier at the University of Prince Edward Island dubbed the experiment a “massive open online course,” or MOOC.
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.
As I contemplate my syllabi for a new semester, I possess renewed hope for students eager to discuss anything at 8 a.m., yet I have taught long enough to know that I will simply appreciate clean clothes and brushed teeth. As reality sets in, I add to my grading criteria an element that I hope will encourage engagement from even the most timid learners.
Often labeled “participation points,” this topic has been explored from myriad perspectives in any number of books and articles published in the last 20 years. Some approaches to participation include using discussion to facilitate teaching and learning, implementing standard-based grading to eliminate participation points, or creating rubrics for participation to make standards visible to the students.
If the Myers-Briggs assessment didn't do it, Susan Cain’s Quiet certainly did. The word “introvert” has become
common parlance. People now correct themselves if caught using the word “shy.” Cain has helped to develop
nuance and sensitivity around introversion (e.g., introverts don’t hate people, we need alone time to recharge, we
are great thinkers). But has higher education recognized the significance of this personality theory in order to better
support introverted students’ learning and success?
OUSA’s policy on system growth is a broad based look at the future structure and function of Ontario’s post-secondary system. Throughout the past decade, Ontario has seen unprecedented growth in undergraduate enrolment across universities and colleges, successfully achieving the highest provincial post-secondary attainment in Canada. OUSA is supportive of the
Ontario government’s work towards the goal of a more prosperous society and workforce.
With a mandate to prepare students for the labour market, ‘communication’ figures prominently among the essential employability skills that Ontario’s colleges are expected to develop in students prior to graduation. As a result, many colleges have instituted measures to help shore up the skills of students who are admitted to college yet who do not possess the expected ‘college-level English’ proficiency. Several have addressed this challenge by admitting these students into developmental communication classes, which are designed to build their skills to the expected college level.