The landscape of higher education has significantly changed. Methods of instructional delivery, student profiles and degree offerings have transformed traditional brick and mortar institutions. Distance educational courses and programs, either fully online or hybrid, have been a major contributing factor in this shift. While a high percentage of students take classes online, adult learners particularly benefit from the flexibility and accessibility offered by online education. Yet, adult learners are more likely to be intimidated because of their lack of familiarity with this new learning paradigm. This article examines online and adult learners programming as well as strategies to address their needs, and presents the results of an evaluation that examined the effectiveness of an Online Adult Learner-Focused Program. The program was developed at a small public college in the southeast area of the United States and consisted of 97 respondents. The results of the study found various levels of student satisfaction with online adult the objectives of the program. Implications and recommendations for instructors, program coordinators and administrators are also discussed.
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.
Readers of Faculty Focus are probably already familiar with backward design. Most readily connected with such researchers as Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe, and Dee Fink, this approach to course construction asks faculty to initially ignore the specific content of a class. Rather, the designer begins the process by identifying desired learning goals, and then devising optimal instruments to measure and assess them. Only thereafter does course-specific content come into play—and even then, it is brought in not for the sake of “covering” it, but as a means to achieve the previously identified learning objectives. Courses designed this way put learning first, often transcend the traditional skillset boundaries of their discipline, and usually aim to achieve more ambitious cognitive development than do classes that begin—and often end—with content mastery as the primary focus. Although the advantages of backward design are manifest, it’s probably still the exception to, rather than the rule of, course planning.
The student pulled her test tube out of the ice bucket for the 10th time, and then slumped in despair at the sight of the clear liquid.
She shoved the sample back into the ice and put her head in her hands. Nestled in the ice next to her own, her classmates’ test tubes were full of fluffy white crystals, the result of a four-hour lab on recrystallization. Clearly, at some point in the afternoon, this student had done something different from her peers, and now not a speck was visible in her test tube.
The recrystallization lab is like most of the experiments we do in my "Chemistry 3A" section: There is a single desired outcome, intended to teach a chemical concept or a laboratory technique. But of course experiments can go awry in myriad ways, as anyone who has spent any time in a laboratory knows.
One of the biggest challenges to face universities in an era of globalisation is the increased reliance on part-time instructors. Recent PhD graduates are less and less likely to find full-time, permanent work and are forced into casual teaching positions with low salaries and no benefits.
It’s not surprising that the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields are capturing the imagination of university students. The tech sector has enjoyed a long boom — its social media platforms and digital disruptors have made mouth-watering profits, overtaken century-old companies, and revolutionized our daily lives, whether it be ride-hailing apps or disease-diagnosing smartphones. The science and engineering fields, for their part, are
pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, developing neural implants, electric vehicles and super-materials like graphene, which could help everything from water purification to spinal regeneration.
Students see in the STEM educational track the chance to solve social challenges, make money, or both. Preferential visa access for STEM graduates in many countries, including the United States, along with fears of rising automation in a growing number of professional jobs, add further gloss to technical degrees.
As academics who’ve made it to the tenure track, what can we do to help the adjuncts and underemployed Ph.D.s who haven’t? I mean, instead of just gaslighting them and insisting that the dismal faculty job market "was ever thus."
I received my Ph.D. from the University of Southern California’s English department in spring 2011. This past fall, I started work as an assistant professor of interdisciplinary studies at California State University-Dominguez Hills. It’s my dream job, teaching a student population I love in my home city of Los Angeles. Between 2011 and 2017 I was an adjunct at multiple colleges and universities in the Los Angeles area.
In this ongoing series focused on flipped and active-learning classrooms, we’re taking a deeper look into how to create successful learning experiences for students. We’ve examined how to encourage students to complete preclass work, how to hold students accountable for pre-class work, and how to connect pre-class work to in-class activities. Now let’s focus on the challenge of managing the in-person learning environment
Ontario is awarding a total of $51 million to support world-class studies and research talent at leading institutions across the province, laying the foundation for Ontario's future knowledge-based economy.
This funding will help sharpen Ontario's competitive edge by fostering discoveries; leading to new technologies, treatments and cures for cancer patients and other diseases while supporting high quality, knowledge-based jobs for Ontarians. It will also drive the province's ability to attract and retain the best and brightest research talent.
Ontario’s professors and academic librarians are on the front lines of Ontario’s universities. They are uniquely positioned to assess the performance of the sector, and to identify trends that affect the quality of university education.
To take advantage of this insight, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) surveyed Ontario faculty to gauge their opinions on the quality of university education in our province. The survey was also designed to assess the priorities of university faculty, particularly in regards to the balance of teaching and research in their work.
The survey was conducted online between March 21, 2012 and April 16, 2012. Responses to the questionnaire were received from over 2,300 faculty members, with a total of 2,015 complete responses from professors and academic librarians from all Ontario universities and a full range of disciplines. The following report presents the survey findings and provides additional commentary about key results.
This paper presents an empirical analysis of the Ontario-led strategic man-date agreement (SMA) planning exercise. Focusing on the self-generated stra-tegic mandates of five universities (McMaster, Ottawa, Queen’s, Toronto, and Western), we asked how universities responded to this exercise of strategic visioning? The answer to this question is important because the SMA process is unique in Ontario, and universities’ responses revealed aspects of their self-understanding. We adopted an organizational theory approach to understand the structure and nature of universities as organizations and explored how they might confront pressures for change. Analysis of the universities’ own proposed strategic mandates found elements of both conformity and striking differentiation, even within this sample of five research-intensive university SMAs. Directions for further work on this planning exercise and on higher education reform more generally are discussed.
Engagement in a continuous, systematic, and well-documented student learning assessment process has been gaining importance throughout higher education. Indeed, implementation of such a process is typically a requirement for obtaining and maintaining accreditation. Because faculty need to embrace learning assessment in order for it to be successful, any misconceptions about the nature of assessment need to be dispelled. One way to accomplish that is to “rebrand” (i.e., change perceptions) the entire process.
American colleges are educating more international students than ever before, according to a new report, “Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange,” released by the Institute of of International Education. The widely anticipated report finds that nearly 1 million international students—many of them from countries such as China, India, Kuwait—were educated in the United States in the 2014-15 school year, up 10 percent from the previous year. These students typically arrive with the means to pay the full price tag for college.
While the 974,926 international students who studied in American colleges last school year accounted for only about 5 percent of the country’s entire higher-education population, their numbers are increasing rapidly with high concentrations in certain states, colleges, and majors. The significant increase in students from overseas highlights the need to understand more about their behavior, income, and impact on higher education—and how the country’s universities should capitalize on the trend without
compromising the education of in-state students and residents.
In this interview, Zwieback deconstructs why it’s so tempting to blame a person or team for every mishap. To counter this habit, he outlines principles and tactics to help dynamic companies shift from identifying culprits to learning to make improvements that matter. Any fast-growing company that seeks to adapt with real accountability and honesty will gain from Zwieback’s methodology to prioritize resilience over punishment.
Life is filled with opportunities that either come along or are created. Regardless of how an opportunity is presented, it is important to make the best of the situation. I have the great fortune to serve in my second year as the president of Lone Star College-North Harris. LSC-North Harris is located in Houston, Texas, one of the six colleges that make up Lone Star College. I believe that serving as president of the college is a great opportunity, coupled with tremendous responsibilities. The college has a great history and was the original college of Lone Star College. Prior to his current role, Lone Star College’s chancellor, Dr. Stephen C. Head, was the president of LSC-North Harris.
Art is one of the most underutilized resources in today’s ELA classroom. The Roman poet Horace claimed, “A picture is a poem
without words” meaning art and written word are different mediums of expression. Art offers students a break from written words while continuing to develop the same skill set needed to be successful readers through challenging students to think both critically and analytically.
Over the years, academic freedom has been both recognized and constrained, based on the particular historical context.
Academic freedom, like freedom itself, is not absolute. There are conditions and qualifications around both the theory and exercise of this pivotal university concept. Some of these constraints pertain to particular historical circumstances and are no longer germane or legitimate. Other limitations are understandable and defensible. How do we know which is which? History, I think, can be our guide.
It was the 10th or 11th week of semester, a time when I’d gotten to know my students – or at least their names and faces – fairly well. I knew what most of them thought about the topics we’d covered, I knew the sounds of their voices. I knew some of their opinions on climate change, and some of their thinking on genetically modified food.
And so it was pretty odd to see someone new in class that day.
We were covering diversity in science. Looking at why far too many of our professors look, to put it bluntly, like older versions of us. White. Male. Heterosexual. Dashing.
And here was a new face. Was he…angry? Was he threatening? Did his shirt actually say “White Fight”? What does that mean? Was he tweeting what I was saying?
Instructors commonly cope with a missed test or failed exam (this may also apply to quizzes) by letting students drop their lowest score. Sometimes the lowest score is replaced by an extra exam or quiz. Sometimes the tests are worth different amounts, with the first test worth less, the second worth a bit more, and the third worth more than the first two—but not as much as the final.
Universities have a major role to play in closing Canada’s Indigenous educa tion gap and supporting the reconciliation process. The Indigenous community in Canada is young, full of potential and growing fast – but still underrepresented at universities across the country. Our shared challenge is to ensure that all First Nations, Métis and Inuit students can achieve their potential through education, which will bring meaningful change to their communities and to Canada as a whole.
Canada’s universities recently adopted a set of principles to improve Indigenous student success and strengthen Indigenous leadership throughout the university community.