Abstract: The unprecedented transformations which took place in the last few decades in contemporary society impose a permanent revision of the training methods of the future teachers. On the European and international level, we notice a change in the perception of the teaching profession. There is a more acute problem of focusing on the qualification at standards of higher quality in their preparation through the assimilation of key skills. From this point of view, the institutions of higher learning have great responsibility in the training of professionals in the didactic field, so that they can accumulate the skills which are sufficient and necessary to continuous training, according to the principle of lifelong learning. The orientations towards the professionalization of the teaching profession impose a training level of the learners which can adapt to social changes, and to the transformations at the level of the profession through permanent accumulation in lifelong learning.
Key words: education, competences, teaching, critical thinking, reforming.
Based on its 50 years of experience serving developing countries through education, capacity-building, training and mentoring in a range of fields, CBIE respectfully offers the following input and recommendations.
In contemporary higher education there is a growing demand for academ-ics to increase their publication output. This requirement raises the question of how institutions can best support a sustainable academic writing culture, which is needed to challenge the assumption that all academics know how to write for publication. This case study examines two models used in a Faculty of Education to support writing groups for academic staff. From the analysis of reflective journals, interviews, and field notes, we identified four factors that influence the success of writing groups, as well as six conditions that sup-port the development of sustainable academic writing. We have learned from the study that the success of a writing group is predicated on a collaborative practice that blends relational, communal, and institutional forms of sustain-ability in a purposeful, engaged, and reflexive way.
PwC has been retained by Colleges Ontario to provide an independent assessment of the fiscal sustainability of the Ontario college sector over the next decade to 2024-25.1 To that end, we have analyzed the current fiscal condition of Ontario’s 24 public colleges (collectively referred to hereafter as “colleges”) and conducted interviews with senior executives at each college to augment our understanding as to how recent economic and demographic trends have affected colleges’ financial condition, as well as the challenges and opportunities they foresee, for their respective college, over the course of the next decade.
Trusting people is not easy for any of us, but it may be particularly difficult for administrators.
It entails a degree of letting go that may feel uncomfortable for people used to being in charge. It also requires a fair
amount of courage, since you never really know what other people are going to do — and in this case, what they do
might very well reflect negatively on you.
You heard about it happening to others. Perhaps the victim was a graduate student in a seminar, or an administrator at a high-stakes meeting. Maybe it was a young scholar at an academic conference where passions for a subject tend to run high and unbridled egos may roam. But you never really thought it would happen to you — until it does. Blindsided. Maybe the full impact didn't sink in until after the fact: You’d been smacked by an academic sneer.
Mentoring is one of the many aspects of faculty positions that are not generally taught, even though it is crucial in higher education. Faculty members are expected to advise undergraduates, graduate students and colleagues, although rarely with any support or recognition for this work. As a result, faculty members often mentor as a response to how they were mentored: a cold and distant adviser may serve as a cautionary tale or a role model.
Step into any college lecture hall and you are likely to find a sea of students typing away at open, glowing laptops as the professor speaks. But you won’t see that when I’m teaching.
Though I make a few exceptions, I generally ban electronics, including laptops, in my classes and research seminars.
That may seem extreme. After all, with laptops, students can, in some ways, absorb more from lectures than they can with just paper and pen. They can download course readings, look up unfamiliar concepts on the fly and create an accurate, well-organized record of the lecture material. All of that is good.
In 2008, University of Manitoba professors Stephen Downes and George Siemens taught a course on learning theory that was attended by about 25 paying students in class and by another 2,300 students online for free. Colleague Dave Cormier at the University of Prince Edward Island dubbed the experiment a “massive open online course,” or MOOC.
Many colleges and universities want to attract a more diverse work force and foster greater inclusivity in their faculty and administrative ranks, but don't know how. The Chronicle wants to help, so we've recast the weekly On Hiring newsletter and we're sharing stories, news, and data from around the web aimed at helping hiring managers and recruiters make better, more informed decisions about diversity hiring at their institutions and across higher education generally. Here are some highlights from this week's newsletter. If you'd like to receive the new and improved On Hiring and Diversity newsletter, sign up here.
How should colleges cater to professors nearing retirement? With 10,000 Americans turning 65 each day the population of tenured faculty is growing older—at some prestigious universities, one in three academics are 60 or older.[1] Between 1995 and 2015, the number of post-secondary aged 65 or older tripled, shooting from 4.4 percent to 11.6 percent according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (figures include teachers at trade schools as well as colleges).[2] This demographic shift may allow universities to retain the deep knowledge base of older faculty, but also open up a wealth of questions: about the need for adequate positions for younger faculty;[3] and about planning for this older cohort as they edge towards retirement.[
In the early 1970s, Rosalind Driver, then a graduate student in education at the University of Illinois, had a peculiar notion. To understand how children learn important scientific concepts,she argued, we first need to grasp how they see the world before they start school. Children do not come into their first science classrooms as blank slates, with no sense of the natural world or of the way objects move in space. Talking with children, Driver showed, often revealed that they had quite fully developed (if incorrect) ideas about scientific phenomena.
Her crucial — and radical — insight was that learning is dependent on preconceptions. We learn by revising our understanding of things.
The recontextualizing of the campus chaplaincy – both as a non-denominational spirituality and as a form of mental health care – can be a problem even as it has helped to renew attention to the office.
In the Fall of 1999, after serving 14 years as a United Church minister, Reverend Tom Sherwood figured it was time for a change. He left his suburban Ottawa congregation for Carleton University to become campus chaplain. “At the time, I was the school’s only full-time religious professional working with 20,000 students,” he says. “But I was prepared for it.”
While the ethos of providing counselling and spiritual guidance proved to be similar to his work in his previous congregation, a number of things were specific to the student population. “Everything’s hard to do the first time, and lot of those firsts happen in university. Your first grandparent dies, your first friend dies, you attend your first funeral. People very successful in high school may for the first time experience failure or perhaps not being the smartest in the class.” Drawing on his experiences as a pastor and a former graduate school residential fellow, Dr. Sherwood settled into campus life.
I got lucky this semester. I’m teaching two undergraduate courses, and in both of them, my students have bonded in a way that makes my job easier. They start talking to each other before class begins, and are still talking as they walk out the door. They are excited to share their views on the readings and participate eagerly in class discussions. It’s great.
I’m not under the illusion that I had much to do with creating that dynamic. Sometimes a group of students just clicks. But I recognize how a sense of community among students helps me — when students enjoy coming to class, when they trust each other, when they seem to genuinely like each other, they are more likely to learn more.
Real learning is a trip to an unknown destination. It involves revising your previous beliefs in ways that can be
difficult, frightening, or painful. A cohesive and supportive community can ease that process for students. Even when
faculty aren’t as lucky as I’ve been this term, we should be looking for ways to build such a community — one that
offers a safe environment for students to do the sort of experimentation and risk-taking that is necessary for learning
to occur.
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to offer junior scholars a front-to-back guide to writing an academic, theoretically positioned, qualitative research article in the social sciences.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on formal (published) advice from books and articles as well as informal (word-of-mouth) advice from senior scholars.
Findings – Most qualitative research articles can be divided into four major parts: the frontend,
the methods, the findings, and the backend. This paper offers step-by-step instructions for writing each of these four parts.
Originality/value – Much of the advice in this paper is taken-for-granted wisdom among senior scholars. This paper makes such wisdom available to junior scholars in a concise guide.
Keywords Qualitative research, Theoretical contribution, Writing an article
Paper type Technical paper
Whenever a leadership transition is in the works, there is a fair amount of gossip about who will stay and who will go. Will the incoming leader vote everyone off the island and bring in a new team to ensure the loyalty of all lieutenants? Or will there be an effort to retain those who can support a smooth transition from the past to the future?
After witnessing quite a few leadership transitions — both inside and outside of higher education — I've discovered some secrets of the folks who seem to have Herculean staying power. I call them the "protected people."
This year, my first in a Ph.D. program, I counted how many times I said "Sorry!" in a single day and found that the tally reached upwards of 30. Each "Sorry," pronounced with bubbly inflection, was an apology for more than whatever I was ostensibly apologizing for: speaking in seminar, again, even though that’s what you’re supposed to do in seminar, or disagreeing, again, even though the discipline of philosophy trades in opposition. These local apologies were part of a global apology for existing in the male-dominated discipline of analytic philosophy: for being the wayward creature I am, 5-foot-2 and female but brash and contrarian.
The timing is right for a sustainability dialogue in Ontario. The Ontario Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development (MAESD) has been working on a trifecta of key postsecondary policy levers for which institutional and system sustainability are an essential consideration. These include the next round of Strategic Mandate Agreement negotiations, a funding formula review and the recently announced tuition fee framework. We can — and should — use these tools to mitigate sustainability risk moving forward.
The department chair is a complex middle-management position located at the organizational fulcrum between faculty and senior administration. This qualitative study sought to develop a deeper understanding of chairs’ experi-ences when enacting their dual roles as managers and scholars. Using a ba-sic interpretative study design, we interviewed 10 department chairs from a medium-sized Canadian university. The participants identified three interre-lated areas of challenge: managing position, managing people, and managing self. We discuss the tensions and ambiguities inherent within these themes, along with specific recommendations for supporting this position.
About half of the refugees who have arrived in Canada from Syria have only a high-school education. Others lack proof that they completed higher education or must find a way to validate degrees from a country plunged into conflict. If they have their credentials, they must often upgrade them to meet the accreditation requirements of professional bodies here, or face working in jobs for which they are overqualified.