No matter how much we debate the issue, end-of-course evaluations count. How much they count is a matter of perspective. They matter if you care about teaching. They frustrate you when you try to figure out what they mean. They haven’t changed; they are regularly administered at odds with research-recommended practices. And faculty aren’t happy with the feedback they provide. A survey (Brickman et al., 2016) of biology faculty members found that 41% of them (from a wide range of institutions) were not satisfied with the current official end-of-course student evaluations at their institutions, and another 46% were only satisfied “in some ways.”
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.
Enrolments in Canadian public postsecondary institutions (colleges and universities) reached more
than 2 million in the 2013/2014 academic year, up 1.2% from a year earlier.
Interleaving is not a well-known term among those who teach, and it’s not a moniker whose meaning can be surmised, but it’s a well-researched study strategy with positive effects on learning. Interleaving involves incorporating material from multiple class
presentations, assigned readings, or problems in a single study session. It’s related to distributed practice—studying more often for shorter intervals (i.e., not cramming). But it is not the same thing. Typically, when students study and when teachers review, they go over what was most recently covered, or they deal with one kind of problem at a time.
Experienced and new teachers shared what they learned in the spring about how to make mentoring work during the pandemic.
This article measures gender pay gaps in Ontario’s public post-secondary education sector from 1996 to 2016 using the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Data. We find gaps widening among all faculty ranks. Men were paid on average 2.06%, 2.14%, and 5.26% more than their women colleagues for all employees, university teaching staff, and deans, respectively. We also conduct a Blinder- Oaxaca decomposition to measure the source of gendered salary differentials. Pay gaps persist during this time period despite controlling for the literature’s most common explanations, including the “pipeline effect.” Our results additionally
imply that women’s years of experience in academia do not mitigate the observed pay gaps. Suggestions for future research include increasing the scope of our study to factor in finer details such as labour productivity.
As a minority group on university campuses, the unique needs of mature students can be easily overlooked. It is important that the term “mature students” does not disguise the heterogeneity of this group: “…it is erroneous to speak of ‘the adult learner’ as if there is a generic adult that can represent all adults.”1 However, amongst this varied group of students, there are common
concerns that they share. This policy sets out students’ priorities in increasing the visibility of mature students on campus as well as optimizing their educational experience.
Mature students need more recognition of the different hurdles they face in achieving success. These can include situational barriers like a lack of time, lack of money, health issues, or dependant care,2 as well as attitudinal or dispositional barriers, including the fear of failure or alienation. Lastly, they also face systemic barriers such as restrictive course offerings and
availability of instructors or support services outside of regular business hours.3
I was once invited to a costume party by graduate students where the theme was “what you would be doing if you hadn’t gone to grad school”. Although I never attended the party, in hindsight I would probably have dressed as a pharmaceutical sales rep for the mood stabiliser medication that I am currently taking. Something akin to the character Jamie Randall in the film Love & Other Drugs.
Question: What are the merits of a tenure-track job at a small college versus a term/clinical position at a major research university (R1 or R2)? I’m on the tenure track at a liberal-arts college, but on a very low salary. I have a possibility of a "clinical professorship" — a renewable term position — at an R1 university where I would earn a lot more money. But term/clinical positions are not guaranteed job security even at fancy institutions, right? Aren’t those jobs thought of as second class in the higher-education caste system? Any insights you can provide would be appreciated.
New analysis offers more evidence against the reliability of student evaluations of teaching, at least for
their use in personnel decisions.
Joe Biden has a secret weapon in his bid for the presidency: He is the first Democratic nominee in 36 years without a degree from an Ivy League university.
This is a potential strength. One of the sources of Donald Trump’s political appeal has been his ability to tap into resentment against meritocratic elites. By the time of Mr. Trump’s election, the Democratic Party had become a party of technocratic liberalism more congenial to the professional classes than to the blue-collar and middle-class voters who once constituted its base. In 2016, two-thirds of whites without a college degree voted for Mr. Trump, while Hillary Clinton won more than 70 percent of voters with advanced degrees.
Women leaders make a difference in terms of having more female faculty members, at least in the humanities,
according to a new working paper from the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute.
Data “suggest that the gender of an institution’s president is both a large and statistically significant factor increasing the share of women in full-time, tenure-track positions” in the humanities, the paper says. “A single president who remains in office for 10 years could increase the share of full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty that is female by 36 percentage points.”
This publication, “Norms for Global Perspective Inventory,” is divided into four parts.
Part One: Demographic information for undergraduate students included in our national norms, based on a sample of 19,528 four year college and university undergraduate students who completed the GPI from November 2012 – June 2014, are presented in pages 2 – 3.
Part Two: Frequency distributions and means of items of the six global perspective taking scales
are listed on pages 4 – 6. The mean or average score of the scales is presented in the top right
hand corner of the table – highlighted in yellow. The frequency distribution and mean of each item
of the three experience scales – Curriculum, Co-curriculum, and Community – are presented on pages
7 and 8.
Part Three: Means of global perspective taking scales and items for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors are presented on pages 9 - 14. The mean or average score of the scale of all undergraduates is presented in the top row of the table – highlighted in yellow.
Part Four: Means of global perspective taking scales and each item in the scale by four different
types of institutions (Private or Public; BA/MA or Doctorate) are presented on pages 15 - 20.
A fifth of Canadian postsecondary students are depressed and anxious or battling other mental health issues, according to a new national survey of colleges and universities that finds more students are reporting being in distress than three years ago.
Reports of serious mental health crises such as depression and thoughts about suicide also rose.
In the minds of students and the general public, the primary activity of a university is the pursuit of learning: a place where teachers teach, and students learn. It seems obvious that the core mission of the university is the transmission of knowledge, and in the popular imagination, simply placing bright eager minds in close proximity to leading professors will enable this alchemical process to happen. However, the reality of the practice and place of learning in today’s university is much more complicated.
Abstract
This study aimed to better understand campus mental health culture and student mental health coping strategies, and to identify the mental health needs of students as well as gaps in mental health services within postsecondary education. A videovoice method was used to identify and document health-related issues and advocate for change. Forty-one interviews were conducted with campus stakeholders at five universities. Five themes involving mental health emerged from the campus interviews: the stigma of mental illness; campus culture related to mental health; mental health services available and barriers to mental health services on campus; accommodations for students’ mental health needs; and student mental health coping strategies. A documentary was developed to advocate for better mental health. We conclude that although Canadian campuses are raising awareness about mental health issues, there is not enough mental health infrastructure support on campuses; in particular, accessibility to campus mental health resources needs improvement.
Résumé
Cette étude vise à mieux comprendre la culture de la santé mentale au sein de différents campus ainsi que les stratégies d’adaptation adoptées par les étudiants, puis à relever les besoins des étudiants et les lacunes quant à l’offre de services en santé mentale des institutions postsecondaires. Nous avons eu recours à la méthode « videovoice » dans le but d’identifier et de documenter les problèmes de santé mentale, puis de plaider en faveur d’un changement. Quarante-etune entrevues ont été réalisées auprès d’intervenants sur les campus de cinq
différentes universités. De ces entrevues, cinq thèmes liés à la santé mentale ont émergé, soit la stigmatisation liée à la santé mentale, la culture des campus, la disponibilité des services en santé mentale et les obstacles de l’offre de tels services, les accommodements offerts par les campus, et les stratégies d’adaptation des étudiants. Nous avons élaboré un documentaire qui plaide en faveur de la santé mentale. Nous concluons que, bien que les campus canadiens sensibilisent leurs étudiants à ce sujet, il y a absence de soutien en termes d’infrastructure pour la
santé mentale sur les campus. En effet, l’accès des ressources en santé mentale doit particulièrement être amélioré sur les campus.
Background/Context: The increasing number of districts implementing mentoring and induction programs suggests that policymakers are aware of the need to increase the support available to new teachers. The argument underlying many of these programs is based, at least partly, on assumptions about beginning teachers’ emotional responses to their work. Yet while considerable research has studied the effects of induction programs, few researchers have rigorously collected data on how beginning teachers’ affective experiences seem to impact their career plans.
The need for online and blended programs within higher education continues to grow as the student population in the United States becomes increasingly non-traditional. As administrators strategically offer and expand online and blended programs, faculty recruitment and retention will be key. This case study highlights how a public comprehensive university utilized the results of a 2012 institutional study to design faculty development initiatives, an online course development process, and an online course review process to support faculty participation and retention in online and blended programs. Recommendations based on this case study include replicable strategies on how to increase faculty participation and retention in online and blended programs using collaboration, support, and ongoing assessment. This case study is a compendium to the 2012 Armstrong institutional study highlighted in the article "Factors Influencing Faculty Participation & Retention In Online &Blended Education."
I have been wanting to write about tired teaching for some time now. Concerns about burnout are what’s motivating me. Teachers can reach a place where teaching does nothing for them or their students. They don’t just wake up one morning and find themselves burned out; they’ve moved there gradually, and it’s a journey that often starts with tired teaching.
There’s nothing on the subject in my big file of articles and resources. I can’t remember having read about it, and I’m not sure how much we even talk about it. We do talk about being tired. Teaching is relentless. It happens every day, several times a week—or potentially 24/7 if it’s online. And it’s demanding. There’s so much more than the actual teaching. There’s considerable planning involved before each class. Plus, we need to spend time with students—those who want to talk, those needing
help, and those with questions or, sometimes, complaints. There are assignments to grade and feedback to provide—
all carrying the expectation of a quick turnaround. With multiple courses to teach, we do get tired, but I think we regularly confuse physical fatigue with the more serious emotional tiredness that comes from a heavy workload of always being there, always giving, and always juggling multiple balls in the air.
Background/Context: Based on archival material, the following paper analyzes the political strategies of the early OECD stakeholders in transforming schooling from a cultural to a technological system and how they were in need of standardizing different existing patterns of thoughts or institutional behaviors in the member countries. The European standardization process observable in the early 1960s, triggered by the OECD, affected the organization of the educational policies on a ministerial level designed to influence the national school systems according to a specific ideology.