Background: It would be easy to think the technological shifts in the digital revolution are simple incremental progressions in societal advancement. However, the nature of digital technology is resulting in qualitative differences in nearly all parts of daily life.
The literature on teaching and learning has improved so much over the years. Researchers are now covering important aspects of both in depth, analyzing with creative designs and exploring for practical and theoretical implications. One case in point is a 2015 syllabus review published in Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education (a cross-disciplinary teaching and learning journal that ought to be on everybody’s radar).
Ceasing need-blind admissions is a politically tenuous move for colleges and universities -- need-blind policies,
associated with meritocracy and equal opportunity, cut to the heart of institutional values that many students, staff and faculty hold dear.
But sometimes those values have run up against cold, hard finances. Admitting students without considering their need for financial aid can make it difficult to control budgets from year to year. That’s particularly true when the policy is paired with promises to meet the full demonstrated financial need of applicants. And it is that combination of policies that truly makes it possible to tell a student without money that he or she is on equal footing with a trust-fund teen during admissions decisions.
After putting in the time, money and energy to complete a degree, it can be extremely discouraging to realize you no longer want to work in that industry. If you spent the better part of four years in a classroom only to learn you don’t want to pursue the field you’re now qualified for, what do you do? Most people don’t have the time or money to go back to school and start over again — but don’t fret. There are steps to take when trying to change career paths to something not directly associated with your degree. While making the switch may be difficult, it’s not impossible. The following steps will help push you in the direction you want to go.
It is either ironic or absolutely unsurprising that while instructors love peer-review sessions for student writing, students mostly do not.
Having undergrads read and respond to each others' drafts is such a promising pedagogical idea: Students receive feedback on their writing, they get to see how others have tackled the same writing project, and the instructor doesn't have to do all the heavy lifting for once.
An in-class peer-review workshop is a part of the process for every major essay I assign. But I've made it a habit to ask my students about their previous experiences with such workshops, and their answers are almost uniformly negative. My students tell me these workshops are never useful and are a waste of time for both reader and writer. Through some combination of trial and error, dumb luck, and doing some reading on the subject, I think I've evolved some ways to ensure that peer-review sessions are helpful to students. I thought I'd share my advice here.
Significant investments are made in PSE at the provincial and federal level in Canada every year. At the federal level, the government spent over $12 billion on PSE in 2013-14.1 Annual federal investments in PSE are primarily made through the Canada Social Transfer, research support, various tax programs and the federal student financial aid system. CASA advocates on diverse issues related to improving student financial aid because it is an important mechanism for increasing access to PSE for all Canadians.
Active learning is "anything that involves students in doing things and thinking about the things
they are doing" (Bonwell & Eison, 1991, p. 2).
Felder & Brent (2009) define active learning as "anything course-related that all students in a
class session are called upon to do other than simply watching, listening and taking notes" (p.
2).
Active learning strategies can be as short as a few minutes long.
Active learning techniques can be integrated into a lecture or any other classroom setting
relatively easily. Even large classrooms can involve learning activities beyond the traditional
lecture format.
In a previous article, I wrote about the challenges and rewards of chairing an academic department and offered my postchair analysis of my performance. In this essay, I talk about the skill set needed for drama-free delivery of your curriculum and reasonably happy colleagues.
We all know the saying “the devil is in the details.” It means that sometimes the success or failure of projects, careers, parties or performances hinges on some detail that was either poorly planned or neglected. Once I took an exam to be hired by a large corporation that used bubble sheets. I brought with me, as instructed, two pencils for the task. I carefully selected them, and they were freshly sharpened and gleaming. If only I had thought to check whether they were No. 2 pencils. The proctors for the exam, who were also human resources executives, gave me that tsk-tsk look as they handed me the stubby in-house pencils. Ultimately, the wrong leads dashed my dreams of carrying a platinum card by American Express and cruising in a European luxury automobile.
As the provincial government releases new strategies for strengthening international student recruitment and retention, concerns have arisen about the stresses on international students.
Technology moves at lightning speed, Facebook’s algorithm has new rules daily and marketing strategies are ever evolving as the audiences we all seek to reach become increasingly fragmented. And yet, some of us find ourselves
in workplaces where the prevailing sentiment is don’t rock the boat—if it worked in the past, let’s not make any
major changes.
If the culture at your college is all about not fixing what’s not broken, you may have a challenge ahead of you as you
try to suggest and implement some needed change. Turn that challenge into an opportunity with these tips for
shaking things up in a change-averse environment:
Are your students stressed out, tired, and unable to focus? They’re not alone. The average eighth-grade student now spends over 25 hours a year taking standardized tests, while the average high school student reports feeling stressed 80 percent of the time.
Even kindergartners are feeling more academic pressure, spending less time on art and music and more on math, reading, and assessment compared with the late 1990s. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, childhood stress can lead to permanent changes in brain structure and function, increasing the likelihood of learning difficulties, memory problems, and chronic diseases in adult life. Meanwhile, a 2013 report by the American
Psychological Association (APA) found that the negative effects of stress persist into the high school years: 35 percent of teens lie awake at night because of stress, cutting into critical sleep time and increasing the likelihood that they’ll have concentration problems or experience feelings of sadness and depression.
ew report on transfer of struggling students from universities to community colleges finds students benefit from moving in nontraditional direction.
Abstract Since the 1990s, enrolment in postgraduate programs has increased significantly in Canada. In more recent years, this has led to concerns regarding overproduction and the labour market outcomes of those with postgraduate education. Women have played an important role in this growth, but questions remain as to whether women’s progress into the highest levels of education has helped ameliorate their wage disadvantage relative to men. Using the 2011 National Household Survey, this study finds large wage premiums for completing master’s and doctoral degrees for both men and women, especially in younger cohorts; however, there are important differences by field of study. The gender wage gap is smaller for women with master’s degrees than for those with bachelor or doctoral degrees. Occupational differences account for more of the gender wage gap than field of study, suggesting that after degree completion, university-educated women sort into occupations that are lower paid than their male counterparts’.
Résumé Depuis les années 90, les inscriptions aux programmes de deuxième et de troisième cycles universitaires ont augmenté de façon importante au Canada. Récemment, des inquiétudes ont été exprimées quant à la surproduction de diplômés et à ses conséquences sur le marché du travail. Bien que les femmes aient occupé un rôle important dans l’augmentation de ces inscriptions, il est encore impossible de savoir si l’avancement de celles-ci vers les niveaux académiques les plus élevés a contribué à l’amélioration de leurs conditions salariales, par rapport à celles des hommes. À l’aide de l’Enquête nationale auprès des ménages 2011, la présente étude conclut que les salaires des femmes, tout comme ceux des hommes, sont bonifiés après l’obtention d’une maîtrise ou d’un doctorat, surtout chez les cohortes plus jeunes. Par contre, d’importantes variations existent en fonction du domaine d’étude. Pour les femmes possédant une maîtrise, l’écart salarial entre sexes est moindre que pour les femmes possédant un baccalauréat ou un doctorat. L’écart salarial est davantage dû aux variantes sur le plan professionnel que celles des domaines d’étude, postulant donc qu’après avoir obtenu un diplôme universitaire, les femmes se lancent vers des professions moins rémunérées que ne le sont celles de leurs homologues masculins.
Background/Context: The assessment of students, along with teachers and school systems, has largely taken place within a context of positivist science. An enormous range of scholarship now challenges the positivist paradigm, offering a social espistemological alternative. This alternative invites a re-examination of assessment processes and their policy implications.
In the past year, national discussions about glass ceilings in politics and in the board room, and sexist news coverage of the Olympics, have brought the subject of gender equity to the forefront of the American consciousness in compelling ways. Higher-education institutions are no strangers to the issue, as they struggle to meet their own aggressive gender-equity goals.
With women making up only about 26 percent of all college and university presidents, there’s a lot of ground to cover. But in the Minnesota State system, we think we may have identified the secret sauce. The recent addition of seven new presidents has resulted in almost 50 percent of our presidents’ being female — 14 out of 30.
In addition, the presidents of all the colleges and universities have elected four women to represent them on the executive committee of the Minnesota State Leadership Council, a body consisting of all the campus presidents as well as the chancellor’s cabinet.
The rapid turnover of technology and ever expanding network of data and information which underpin the knowledge economy have led to a reevaluation of the importance of knowledge to the economic process. Economists now conclude that human capital - the ideas, skills, and expertise of people - is a fundamental driver of economic growth. Demand for employees that possess a mix of both “hard” and “soft” skills is rising as companies respond to intensified global economic competition.
The significance of literacy for postsecondary success has been demonstrated in numerous research reports showing that attrition and underachievement are strongly linked to low levels of language proficiency (Jennings and Hunn, 2002; Perin, 2004). It has also been shown that Canadian adults with lower literacy levels have significantly lower employment rates and incomes, higher rates of unemployment, and are less likely to be engaged in their community than Canadian adults with higher literacy levels (Statistics Canada, 2005). On a national scale, literacy is a key factor in economic growth, productivity and innovation (Coulombe, Tremblay and Marchand, 2004).
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.
ackson started speech class barely audible. A thin, Latino teen, with an Abe Lincoln beard, ear gauges the size of silver dollars, and a loose, enigmatic smile, you couldn’t help liking him. If you could hear him, that is.
ut the other night, hot off winning a video game tournament, he demonstrated how to play Street Fighter Five, his assion. He leaned toward the audience, core muscles taut, arms swinging, and illustrated in ringing tones the omplex moves and strategies of an expert gamer.
t was the first time I saw video games as something akin to playing cello, rather than a brain-dead addiction. fter the speech, he mentioned that people had asked him to give them lessons, and I said he should charge oney. $25 an hour would be cheap compared to violin teachers who charge $60 an hour. I could see his eyes grow big as thoughts whirled behind them.
The decade since 2004 has brought profound reexamination of the role and results of developmental programs in community and technical colleges around the country. Pushed by the emerging student success and completion agenda, colleges have dealt with intense scrutiny and a demand for the redesign of these programs.