Job enjoyment and stability are not mutually exclusive.
Stress does funny things to our thoughts. We’re all familiar with the fight or flight response and its ability to bring out our inner hunter or sprinter. But when we’re considering different work options, stress seems to induce an enjoy or be practical response. We assume that we can pursue either something inherently rewarding, or something stable and practical, but never the twain shall meet.
I’m not claiming that all jobs are equally stable, or that you should do what you love and expect that the money will, indeed, follow. But the assumption that enjoyment and stability are mutually exclusive is, frankly, a terrible starting point. Don’t consign yourself to a job you’ll dislike without doing thorough research, because stress can make underresearched assumptions seem really, really compelling.
Each year, the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) presents the results of its annual survey. These results give community colleges objective and relevant data about students’ experiences at their colleges so they can better understand how effectively they are engaging their students and identify areas for improvement.
This year, the CCSSE report also includes results of the first administration of the Community College Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (CCFSSE), which provides insights into faculty perceptions and practices. Because many items on CCSSE and CCFSSE are aligned, the report includes side-by-Lori Gates side views of faculty members’ and students’ responses.
National training packages have become the mandated framework for course delivery in Australia’s vocational education and training sector. Each training package contains: qualifications that can be issued, industry-derive d competencies , and assessment guidelines but do not contain an endorsed curriculum component or learning outcomes. All public and private vocational education and training providers must use training packages, or industryendorsed competencies in cases where they do not exist, if they are to receive public funding for their programs. This article describes the operation of Australia’s national training packages and considers some of their strengths and weaknesses, many of which may be shared by similar
systems elsewhere. Argues that training packages may result in poorer student learning outcomes, and that they may threaten the end of effective credit transfer between the vocational education and training and higher education sectors. Suggests that national training packages are not a good model for other countries and that Australia’s current vocational education and training policy needs to be reviewed.
I'll be the first to admit that I haven't been teaching at my best this semester. Oh, there have been some good classes. And I think I'm finally getting a handle on the one group of students who don't want to speak up in class. But in general it feels like I'm going through the motions a little bit, not fully reaching as many students as I have in the past, talking too much from the front of the room. I have a theory as to why this is happening.
This is my fourth semester at the University of Iowa teaching rhetoric to mostly first-year students. After years of adjuncting, it's great to be able to teach the same course again and again. I'm able to learn from my mistakes and improve semester to semester. Even better, prepping for class takes less and less time each semester. I keep an archive of class activities from previous semesters in Scrivener, and I can quickly arrange a few of them to make up a whole class period. It's great.
Abstract Religious colleges and universities make up a substantial segment of the higher education landscape in North America, but the incidence of sexual violence on these campuses remains understudied. This study estimates the incidence of sexual violence on independent Christian campuses using a sample of part-time and full-time undergraduate students (N = 668) from eight private Christian colleges in Ontario, Canada. Using two widely used measures of sexual violence enabled comparisons with studies of self-reported incidents at secular and public colleges and universities. The findings show that 18% of women at religious colleges reported experiencing unwanted sexual contact within the past year, compared to studies of self-reported rates on secular campuses ranging from 21.4% to 31.4%. Exploratory investigation of factors related to victimization suggests that religious colleges may provide a “moral community” that could reduce the risk of sexual violence.
Résumé Quoique les universités religieuses contribuent considérablement à l’ensemble de l’enseignement supérieur en Amérique du Nord, la fréquence des agressions sexuelles sur leurs campus demeure peu étudiée. La présente étude estime le nombre d’agressions sexuelles sur des campus chrétiens indépendants à l’aide d’un échantillon d’étudiant(e)s de premier cycle à temps partiel et à temps plein (N = 688) provenant de huit universités chrétiennes privées en Ontario (Canada). L’utilisation de deux échelles d’agressions sexuelles fréquemment utilisées a permis de comparer notre étude à d’autres études qui traitent de la fréquence d’agressions sexuelles déclarées par les victimes dans les universités laïques et publiques. Nos résultats démontrent que dans les universités religieuses, 18 % des femmes ont rapporté des contacts sexuels non désirés au cours de l’année dernière, comparativement à de 21,4 à 31,4 % des femmes des universités laïques ayant rapporté des agressions sexuelles. Des facteurs liés à la victimisation suggèrent la possibilité que les universités religieuses puissent offrir une « communauté morale » qui diminue les risques d’agression sexuelle.
Halfway through this past semester, I sent an email to a student asking him, among other things, about his poor attendance and participation in my course. In response, after some earnest apologies and promises to do better, the student wrote: “My expectation for this class was to learn how to write and read at a college level. But so often, I feel like I am taking a gender issues class and not a writing and reading course — which frustrates me.”
The class in question is called “Writing and Reading,” and is indeed focused on helping students become “college level” writers and readers. But of course, to practice reading skills you actually need to read something. So I designed a course that focuses on feminism and related issues. About half of our readings have something to do with feminism, gender, or sexuality (the other half are readings about the writing process).
As spring semester winds down on college and university campuses across the country, faculty thoughts often turn to what we’re doing over the summer — research, course redesign, family vacations, recharging, perhaps teaching a course or two. But then academic reality rears its head and our thoughts are forced from their Summer Happy Place to somewhere far more mundane: The Assessment Mire.
If where you teach is anything like my university, in addition to the assessment work we do for our own courses (grading piles of student essays, projects, and tests) there is often a layer of institutional assessment on top of that. We use various assignments to assess the outcomes in our institution’s core curriculum, for example, and then we aggregate the data to see how students across the university are doing with the core’s various dimensions.
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.
Study explores faculty members' views on scholarly communication, the use of information and the state of academic libraries and their concerns about students' research skills.
A 2015 survey of Faculty Focus readers found that the number one barrier preventing faculty from implementing the flipped classroom model and other active learning experiences into their courses is TIME. Faculty reported they don’t have time to plan extra learner-centered activities, due to increasing responsibilities, and they don’t have time to implement the activities in class
because there’s too much content to cover.
Background/Context: The literature on emotional and social intelligence, based on the the-oretical constructs of several authors, identifies self-awareness as a core skill for leadership development. However, there is very little research or theory on how one might develop a ped-agogy of self-awareness for leaders.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: This study describes an innovative leadership development program in self-awareness in the Summer Principals Academy at Teachers College. It describes both the theoretical and practical pedagogy of self-awareness training. What follows is a description of that pedagogy and some preliminary research results based on the journals and feedback of 45 students who completed the program in 2006.
Theories of transformational and charismatic leadership provide important insights about the nature of effective leadership. However, most of the theories have conceptual weaknesses that reduce their capacity to explain effective leadership. The conceptual weaknesses are identified here and refinements are suggested. The issue of compatibility between transformational and charismatic leadership is also discussed. Finally, some methodological problems involving construct validation and the theory testing are identified, and suggestions for future research are provided
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.
In my educational leadership work, I’ve talked with administrators and faculty from across the country who are interested in creating safer and more supportive, engaging, and inspiring school
environments.
But we are confronted with the challenge of disengagement in America’s schools. Simply put, schools are places here too many kids do not want to be. And when this happens, they vote with their feet to leave, or stay and truggle, dissociate, or worse. A Gallup study showed that 24 percent of fifth graders were disengaged. That percentage grew to 39 percent for middle school students and 56 percent of students in high school. (And that 56 percent doesn’t include all those disengaged youths who had already dropped out.)
Our teaching persona is expressed in how we go about shaping the learning environment. A purposeful integration of our teaching persona helps link students with content in subtle ways. This matters because we’re after an expression of teaching persona that plays a constructive role in creating a learning environment where learners thrive and teachers flourish.
Mental health is a pressing concern for post-secondary students in Canada. The 2016 National College Health Association survey of Canadian post-secondary students demon-strates that a significant number of students are experiencing mental health problems and illnesses: 44.4% of surveyed students reported that at some point in the previous twelve months they felt “so depressed it was difficult to function”; 13% had seriously considered suicide; 2.1% had attempted suicide, and 18.4% reported being “diagnosed or treated by a professional” for anxiety. 1 The growing prominence of mental health issues among post-secondary students is not limited to Canada – it has been noted by practitioners
Whether we can actually teach students critical-thinking skills is one of the most overlooked and misunderstood issues in higher education today, argues John Schlueter.
What is your learning style? Identifying your learning style serves you and helps you use it to your advantage to learn new skills efficiently. Your learning style is your approach to learning based on your preferences, as well as your strengths and weaknesses. Learners can be grouped into main categories:
Those who learn through reading and writing prefer to read and write rather than listen. In fact, they enjoy reading books and can follow written directions with ease. Visual learners learn best through maps and diagrams as opposed to verbal directions. While auditory learners prefer verbal directions and enjoy working in groups and discussing information. They remember best
through listening and may find it difficult to work quietly. These type of learners often read with whispering lip movements.
A new study appears to offer additional evidence that drivers are less likely to brake for African-American pedestrians trying to cross the street, a phenomenon known as “walking while black.”
Researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas also found that the disparity is greater depending on whether the pedestrian is in a high- or low-income neighbourhood: the average number of vehicles to pass by a black pedestrian who was already in the crosswalk was at least seven times higher compared with a white pedestrian in the wealthier neighbourhood, the study’s lead researcher said.
Individualized programs, less coursework and scrapping comprehensive exams some of the options discussed at
Future of the Humanities PhD conference in Ottawa.
At the final panel discussion of the two-day Future of the PhD in the Humanities conference held at Carleton
University May 17 and 18, a trio of senior administrators took aim at the structure of PhD programs and completion
times. Despite it being the final event, the room was packed, prompting one speaker to quip that this is proof of how
eager the academic community is to review the state of doctoral education in Canada.