Postsecondary education in Alberta is one sector that appears to be booming from the bust in energy prices.
Amid thousands of oil-patch layoffs and a wider economic slowdown, many professionals are exchanging their briefcases and welding sticks for knapsacks and pencils to head back to school.
Enrolment skyrocketed this fall at Bow Valley College in downtown Calgary, a city that has been hit hard by the wave of layoffs. Fall registrations are up by 11 per cent to their highest level in five years, said spokeswoman
Nicole McPhee.
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.
Engagement can prevent struggling students from dropping out, and re-engagement in learning can help struggling students who have dropped out return to school and graduate. This chapter presents a case study about a struggling student who dropped
out and then came to Eagle Rock School and Professional Development Center, became engaged in her learning, and graduated. The authors provide policy and practice recommendations as well as a discussion of factors that affect engagement.
A message in bold and italics emblazons the home page of the Lakehead University Student Union food bank’s
website. “We are in desperate need of food!!!” it reads. “Any amount that you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks to everyone who helps out!!!” The page urges students at the Thunder Bay, Ont., school to get in touch if they
have “an emergency need for food.” The urgency of the post reflects a troubling new trend on university campuses. As
post-secondary education costs continue to rise, students are finding it increasingly difficult to afford food. Across the
country, food-bank visits are up, and a new study shows almost half of 450 students surveyed at Lakehead lack food
security.
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
The word “crisis” is often used to describe the peer-review system, not only in terms of quality of reviews but also quantity. To hear some academics tell it, fielding peer-review requests is a nearly full-time job. But preliminary research on the input-output balance in peer review suggests there is no real crisis, at least as far as quantity is concerned. That is, the professors who are writing the most get asked to review the most, meaning the system is in balance -- sort of.
Background/Context: Schools have attempted to address stratification in black and Latino students’ access to higher education through extensive reform initiatives, including those focused on social supports. A crucial focus has been missing from these efforts, essential to improving the effectiveness of support mechanisms and understanding why they have been insufficient: how students experience these reforms.
There was no substantial deterioration in the earnings and employment patterns of young postsecondary graduates between 2005 and 2012—a period that included the economic recession of 2008 and 2009. A new study found that this outcome held even when graduates from specific fields of study were examined. Using linked data from the 2006 Census, the 2011 National Household Survey, and tax data from 2005 to 2012, the study examined Canadian-born 25- to-34-year-old men and women with a high school diploma, college certificate or bachelor's degree. Annual wages and salaries as well as full-year, full-time employment rates were compared before and after the recession of 2008 and 2009. Full-year, full-time employment involves at least 49 weeks worked per year, mainly for 30 hours or more per week. The dollar figures are expressed in 2012 constant dollars to account for inflation.
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.
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.
As a new academic year approaches, universities across Canada are struggling to develop policies in response to the legalization of recreational cannabis. Many uncertainties remain, and while universities differ in how they plan to deal with cannabis on campus, they tend to agree on one thing: it’s complicated.
Employers and higher ed institutions have acknowledged the value that this type of experience could bring to the
country’s workforce. But only 3.1% of full-time university students and 1.1% of full-time college students have studied abroad as part of their postsecondary education.
Existing research shows that Canadian students are generally interested in studying abroad, yet they face a number of obstacles. These obstacles have been categorized as the four Cs: cost, curriculum, culture, and circumstance.
A number of studies suggest that student evaluations of teaching are unreliable due to various kinds of biases against instructors. (Here’s one addressing gender.) Yet conventional wisdom remains that students learn best from highly rated instructors; tenure cases have even hinged on it.
What if the data backing up conventional wisdom were off? A new study suggests that past analyses linking student achievement to high student teaching evaluation ratings are flawed, a mere “artifact of small sample sized studies and publication bias.”
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.
Forty one Canadian postsecondary institutions self-selected to participate in the Spring 2016 ACHA National College Health Assessment and 43,780 surveys were completed by students on these campuses.
For the purpose of forming the Reference Group, only Canadian institutions that surveyed all students or used a random sampling technique are included in the analysis. This report includes only data from 7,240 students at 10 schools in Alberta, Canada. All schools collected data via the ACHA-NCHA web survey. The mean response was 19% and the median was 17%.
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.
We all know raising children is different from teaching undergraduates. Yet as a father of four children — now all grown — I have learned much from parenting that I have been able to apply to the college classroom.
In particular, raising four teenagers taught me a lot about how to reach, engage, and motivate teenage students. The trick to effective parenting, I’m convinced, is to allow children to exercise their agency — encouraging them to make good choices through a clear system of rewards and punishments, with the emphasis on the former. I believe that’s true in teaching, as
well.
Collaboration: a popular idea in the modern workplace, school, and government. Effective group-work is a skill of increasing importance, visible in the classroom with group assignments, projects, and even tests becoming more prominent and contributing to an increasing portion of students' grades. At the university-level, student unions function on successful collaboration: among student leaders both within and outside of the union, with full-time staff, university administration, stakeholders, and any other campus and community partners.
What does it actually take to teach a college class nowadays in our age of distraction?
For some faculty, the answer is technology — PowerPoints, laptops, visual aids. But technology is itself a distraction. And what if you are the kind of teacher who likes chalk and blackboards, discussions around a table, and hard-copy texts and handouts. How do you get, and keep, their attention?
Entering the room to the obligatory unsettledness at the beginning of every class period, you wonder: How long would it take them to settle down if you didn't say anything?
Executive Summary
The upcoming (Fall 2014) undergraduate student referendum on the desirability of a Fall Break and recent adoption of a Fall Break on a three-year trial period by Wilfrid Laurier University have independently re-ignited the discussion at the University of Waterloo. Fourteen Ontario universities currently have a Fall Break, varying from 2-5 days in length. UW is among a small
number of institutions within Ontario who do not currently have one.
The primary challenge to arranging a Fall Break is finding sufficient space to schedule: 60 teaching days, a minimum of 2 pre-exam study days, and a minimum of 12 exam days while finishing by December 22. This challenge seems relatively easy to accomplish most years but is complicated by the occasional late Labour Day holiday.