The findings from 20 years of research on undergraduate education have been unequivocal: The more actively engaged students are — with college faculty and staff, with other students, and with the subject matter they study — the more likely they are to learn, to stick with their studies, and to attain their academic goals.
The existing literature, however, focuses almost exclusively on students in four-year colleges and universities. This special report provides summary highlights from a large-scale research project that examined, for the first time, relationships between student engagement and a variety of student outcomes — including academic performance, persistence and attainment — in community colleges. The bottom line for community colleges: Student engagement matters.
Student pathways increasingly rely on transfer between postsecondary institutions as greater numbers of students move between institutions, pursue multiple credentials, or return to postsecondary education. In a 2011 survey of Ontario college students, 41% reported having some post-secondary experience; the same survey also found that 19% of respondents said their main goal in applying for their current program was to “prepare for further university or college study.” Transfer of credit for prior learning is clearly an increasingly mainstream educational activity, and institutions are under increasing pressure to improve the processes by which this occurs.
Teaching with Conscience in an Imperfect World: An Invitation, by William Ayers, is a recent addition to the Teachers College ress
Teaching for Social Justice series for which Ayers is an editor. The author takes readers on a philosophical, existential, and practical journey (a motif used throughout) to explore the nature of public education in the U.S. as it presently is and as he believes it ought to be in a democratic society. Although Ayers is a distinguished scholar of education, this is not a typical academic book. Arguments are not disguised in theory and references to scholars are reserved for those of significant stature
such as John Dewey, Maxine Greene, and Paulo Freire. The language used within the book is informally punctuated with
colloquialisms and slang such as pinheaded, queeroes, ginormous, and bits and pieces. Consequently, Ayers achieves broad appeal for those inside and outside of the academy.
One night during the third year of my PhD program, I sat on my bed with a packet of tranquilizers and a bottle of vodka. I popped a few pills in my mouth and swigged out of the bottle, feeling them burn down my throat. Moments later, I realized I was making a terrible mistake. I stopped, trembling as I realized what I’d nearly done.
I called a friend and met her in a bar exactly halfway between my house and hers. That night changed things for both of us. She met the love of her life—the bartender, who she later married. And I decided I wanted to live. The morning after, I found a therapist and considered quitting my PhD.
So, the fall semester is about to begin and you’ve decided to try something new in one or more of your courses.
Maybe it’s a different quizzing strategy, a revised assignment, or a new group activity. Or perhaps you read about a note-taking technique or exam review strategy that you want to try. You want it to work—you want to make learning better for most students (hopefully better for everyone, but there’s value in being realistic). Here are some things you can do to increase the chance of success when you roll out something new in your courses.
Offering an array of support services to meet the diverse needs of post-secondary learners assumes that these services improve success by providing students with compensatory resources and opportunities for engagement (Purnell & Blank,
2004). Little Canadian research, however, has examined students’ use of support services. This study describes how campus support services are used by Ontario college students and factors that influence the uptake of those services. Results show that despite relatively high student-reported need, the majority of Ontario college students did not utilize most campus services.
Age, gender and ethnicity, receptivity to support, negative college experiences, faculty referral, studying with peers, and poor grades were associated with increased use of some services. The findings argue for a proactive service delivery
model using web-based resources to minimize location-based barriers and to more effectively promote services dedicated to student success.
Student Success Program background The three pillars SSP assumptions SSP evaluation SSP year one SSP year two Lessons learned Conclusion
In the leafy suburbs of Philadelphia, the affluent Downingtown, Pa., school system has high test scores, plenty of digital resources, and features one of the best high schools in the country.
Even so, Superintendent Lawrence J. Mussoline decided to shake things up. The 13,000-student district already offered students online courses from a vendor, but Mussoline wanted a blended- learning program taught entirely by Downingtown teachers with Downingtown-created courses.
At a time when the Excellence Gap highlights that underserved populations are not achieving at advanced levels, Effective Program Models for Gifted Students from Underserved Populations is a valuable resource for examining ways to remedy this undesirable situation. This book describes eight models that represent various curricular emphases and applies them across grades. Consequently, it is a handy resource for any educators who want to teach in ways that allow students from poverty, as well as children who are African American or Hispanic, to achieve at advanced levels. These are the children who are often underrepresented in programs or services for advanced and gifted learners
Since the 1990s, globalization has become a central phenomenon for all of society, including graduate education and particularly doctoral education. Globalization takes place in a context where doctoral education and research capacity are unevenly distributed and where a few research universities, mainly in wealthy countries, have become powerful social institutions. But all graduate education systems are increasingly part of an international context in which policy-makers — at every level — are aware of and responding to developments in higher education outside their national borders. For the first time, conditions exist for the emergence of a truly international system of doctoral education; this openness to innovation and expansion holds enormous potential for advancing a more effective future-oriented PhD.
IT HAS become a truism that we live in an age of rapid and profound change. The growth of freedom of thought, the use of the scientific method, the advance of the industrial revolution, the rise of political and economic democracy, and the everwidening applications of technology— culminating in the atomic age—are recasting the thoughts and actions of men into strange new patterns.
The goal of attracting more international students is an increasingly common theme in discussions on the future of post-secondary education in Canada. The goal of making Canada a premiere destination for post-secondary students from around the world has been repeated throughout the past decade by provincial and federal levels of government and leaders in the post-secondary sector from coast-to-coast. “International students in Canada,” the Advisory Panel on Canada’s International Education Strategy noted, “provide immediate and significant economic benefits to Canadians in every region of the country.”1 The panel advocates for a doubling of the number of international students studying in Canada over the span of a decade, from just under 240,000 in 2011 to over 450,000 in 2022.
When I recently returned to my department after a decade in administration, I looked forward to reconnecting with former colleagues, getting to know the grad students, going to lectures and colloquia, teaching undergrads, and yes, even serving on departmental committees. But when I moved into my faculty office and began my work schedule, I had only one question as I looked around my department: Where did everybody go?
Almost fifteen ago, I received a “the job is yours” call and the chance to serve one of Canada’s most important and
enduring legacies, Joseph E. Atkinson’s crusades for social and economic justice.
As I prepare to pass the torch as Executive Director of the Atkinson Foundation, the advantage of 20/20 hindsight has led me to reflect on lessons learned about how to change the world, particularly through strategic philanthropy.
I joined the Foundation at the beginning of 1996, when the board was seeking a new approach to social change.
The goal was to move from receiving proposals for “good works” to becoming a proactive organization, working with
partners to advance evidence and ideas about how the future could be more just.
Over time, the labour market has shifted from one characterized by stable or permanent employment to a “gig economy” of temporary or contracted employment, where an on-demand, freelance or contingent workforce is becoming the norm. A gig can be defined as “any job, especially one of short or uncertain duration.”
This type of staffing model allows an organization to fill skills gaps by hiring on a temporary, on-demand basis. These are not the “temps” of the past; instead, they are short- or long-term contracts for personnel ranging from blue-collar light-industrial
workers to highly skilled IT, engineering, accounting and HR professionals.
This document supersedes The Full-Day Early Learning–Kindergarten Program (Draft Version, 2010–11). Beginning in September 2016, all Kindergarten programs will be based on the expectations and pedagogical approaches outlined in this document.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Ontario elementary schools strive to support high-quality learning while giving every child the opportunity to learn in the way that is best suited to the child’s individual strengths and needs. The Kindergarten program is designed to help every child reach his or her full potential through a program of learning that is coherent, relevant, and age appropriate. It recognizes that, today and in the future, children need to be critically literate in order to synthesize information, make informed decisions, communicate effectively, and thrive in an ever-changing global community. It is important for children to be connected to the curriculum, and to see themselves in what is taught, how it is taught, and how it applies to the world at large. The curriculum recognizes that the needs of learners are diverse and helps all learners develop the knowledge, skills, and perspectives they need to become informed, productive, caring, responsible, and active citizens in their own communities and in
the world.
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Dominique Oliver-Dares remembers being a first-year undergraduate student at Dalhousie University, looking around at the other students in her “humongous” introductory classes and seeing only a handful of Black students like her spread out around the room. “It was very isolating,” she recalls. “Sometimes your fellow students either know each other from somewhere else, or they might just feel more comfortable to make friends with the other students that look like them. I couldn’t engage in conversations as easily.”
In the two months since I chronicled my grief over abandoning my tenure-track dreams, I have been the recipient of all sorts of career advice — solicited and unsolicited. Lots of well-meaning people who’ve never worked outside of academe seem to have thoughts on my transition to nonacademic life.
The ever-unfolding crisis of the academic job market means The Chronicle has offered plenty of advice for Ph.D.s like me on life beyond the ivory tower. There are columns on how to transform a CV into a résumé; how to write a cover letter that doesn’t spend two single-spaced pages discussing our dissertation research; and how to show potential employers the value of
all those skills we’ve been honing in doctoral programs.
This report was commissioned by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) as part of a multi-year effort to improve the quality of education and skills training in Canada while enhancing young people’s ability to succeed in the 21st century job market. Opinions in the paper are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCCE or its members.
paranoia is widespread in Canada. Elementary pupils are coming home after receiving the “job talk” from their teachers, typically emphasizing the importance of getting good grades so they can get into a high-quality university – rarely a college, a polytechnic institute or an apprenticeship program. Parents worry about enrolling their children in the “right” schools and academic programs. There is growing concern about the transition from school to work. News media, television programs and movies offer tales of underemployed university and college graduates, intense competition for decent jobs and chronic youth unemployment.
One of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s most popular massive open online courses is adding a feature not seen in any of its other humanities MOOCs: instructors grading essays.
Learners in Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge and Consciousness, which started on Monday, now have the option to have their essays graded and reviewed by real, flesh-and-blood philosophers -- in this first case, one of MIT’s own graduate students. The goal, according to MIT, is twofold: to give learners from all over the world an introduction to basic philosophical topics and -- for those who pay $300 for an identity-verified certificate -- an opportunity to improve their written argumentation skills and to experiment with new employment opportunities for philosophers.