This report reflects the enthusiasm and commitment of students, staff and faculty in realizing the vision of environmental sustainability on Ontario’s university campuses.
The report is based on an annual survey of 20 Ontario universities conducted by the Council
of Ontario Universities (COU).
ABSTRACT
Findings from biannual American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment surveys have highlighted the prevalence of depression, suicidal ideation, and attempted suicides on Canadian university campuses and the need for comprehensive suicide prevention programs. This article explores how one large western Canadian university has attempted to implement the comprehensive framework for suicide prevention developed by the Jed Foundation. Based on recommendations included in this framework, a multi-faceted suicide prevention strategy was developed, focusing on seven broad intervention
areas:
1) enhanced student connectedness and engagement;
2) increased community suicide awareness;
3) gatekeeper training;
4) collaborative identifi cation and treatment of depression;
5) specialized training in assessment and treatment of suicide;
6) increased accessibility to counselling services for at-risk students; and
7) enhanced crisis management policy and procedures. This article reviews relevant empirical support for these seven intervention domains, provides examples of initiatives in each domain, and identifi es implications for best practice post-secondary policy.
RÉSUMÉ
Les résultats des sondages de la « National College Health Association» soulèvent la prévalence de la dépression, des pensées suicidaires, et des tentatives de suicide parmi les étudiants des universités canadiennes et le besoin de programmes compréhensifs de prévention du suicide. Dans cet article, les auteurs décrivent l’implantation, par une université à vocation de recherche de l’ouest canadien, d’un encadrement globale voué à la prévention du suicide développé par la Fondation Jed. D’après les recommandations de la Fondation Jed, l’approche multilatérale de la prévention du suicide englobe sept dimensions d’interventions :
1) une hausse d’engagement des étudiants dans les activités universitaires et parmi les communautés étudiantes ;
2) une sensibilisation augmentée par rapport à la prévention du suicide ;
3) la formation du personnel « fi ltre» dans l’institution ;
4) une approche collaborative à l’identifi cation et le traitement de la dépression ;
5) une formation spécialisé en identifi cation et traitement du suicide ;
6) un meilleur accès des étudiants à taux de risques relevées aux services
d’assistance psychologique ; et,
7) un enrichissement des politiques
et procédures concernant la gestion des risques. Dans cet article, les auteurs résument les données appuyant les interventions décrites ci-dessus, offrent des exemples des initiatives dans chacune des dimensions listées et proposent les implications pour le renforcement des compétences universitaires dans ces domaines.
Cheryl A. Washburn
University of British Columbia
Michael Mandrusiak
Adler School of Professional Psychology
Vancouver, BC
Many higher education institutions use student satisfaction surveys given at the end of a course to measure course and instructor quality. But is that really a true measure of quality? All things being equal, an instructor who teaches a rigorous course will likely score much lower than an instructor whose course is a little less demanding. Then there’s the whole timing of the satisfaction surveys. For the most part, students are simply glad the course is over (even if they liked it) and put little thought or time into completing the survey. Unless of course they know they failed, in which case you will get a detailed assessment of how you are boring, inflexible, out of touch, or otherwise unfit to teach.
No wonder surveys get such a bad rap. If end-of-course evaluations are the only surveys you use, there’s a lot more you can, and should, be doing. Done correctly, surveys can deliver tremendous insight into what’s working, what’s not, and why. This special report features 10 articles from Online Classroom, including a three-part and a five-part series that provides stepby-
step guidance on how to use surveys and evaluations to improve online courses, programs, and instruction. You’ll learn when to use surveys, how to design effective survey questions, why it’s important to ensure anonymity, and the advantages and disadvantages of Web-based surveys.
Articles in Online Course Quality Assurance: Using Evaluations and Surveys to Improve Online Teaching and Learning include:
• Online Teaching Fundamentals: What to Evaluate, parts 1-3
• Course and Instructor Evaluation: If It’s So Good, Why Does It Feel So Bad?
• Getting Evaluation Data through Surveys: What to Consider before Getting Started
• Using Surveys to Improve Courses, Programs, and Instruction, parts 1-5
If you’re dedicated to continuous improvement, this special report is loaded with practical advice that will help you create more effective surveys before, during, and after your course ends.
Many higher education institutions use student satisfaction surveys given at the end of a course to measure course and instructor quality. But is that really a true measure of quality? All things being equal, an instructor who teaches a rigorous course will likely score much lower than an instructor whose course is a little less demanding. Then there’s the whole timing of the satisfaction surveys. For the most part, students are simply glad the course is over (even if they liked it) and put little thought or time into completing the survey. Unless of course they know they failed, in which case you will get a detailed assessment of how you are boring, inflexible, out of touch, or otherwise unfit to teach.
No wonder surveys get such a bad rap. If end-of-course evaluations are the only surveys you use, there’s a lot more you can, and should, be doing. Done correctly, surveys can deliver tremendous insight into what’s working, what’s not, and why. This special report features 10articles from Online Classroom, including a three-part and a five-part series that provides stepby-
step guidance on how to use surveys and evaluations to improve online courses, programs, and instruction. You’ll learn when to use surveys, how to design effective survey questions, why it’s important to ensure anonymity, and the advantages and disadvantages of Web-based surveys.
Articles in Online Course Quality Assurance: Using Evaluations and Surveys to Improve Online Teaching and Learning include:
• Online Teaching Fundamentals: What to Evaluate, parts 1-3
• Course and Instructor Evaluation: If It’s So Good, Why Does It Feel So Bad?
• Getting Evaluation Data through Surveys: What to Consider before Getting Started
• Using Surveys to Improve Courses, Programs, and Instruction, parts 1-5
If you’re dedicated to continuous improvement, this special report is loaded with practical advice that will help you create more effective surveys before, during, and after your course ends.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Many recent immigrant adult students (RIAS) are highly trained in their source countries and anticipate finding suitable employment upon arriving in Canada. (In this study, RIAS are defined as individuals over 24 years of age who have been living in Canada as permanent residents or citizens for less than 10 years.) There is mounting evidence, however, that in recent years the process of obtaining meaningful employment has become significantly more difficult for RIAS in particular. As a consequence, increasing numbers are turning to the Canadian postsecondary education (PSE) system to obtain more credentials and work experience as a means of gaining better access to employment. However, current research suggests that after entering universities and colleges, newcomers such as recent immigrants face a number of unexpected barriers to educational success, including lack of proficiency in either of Canada’s official languages; non-recognition of foreign transcripts and prior work experience; financial constraints; and insufficient knowledge concerning how the Canadian PSE system operates.
With increasing numbers of RIAS attending Ontario PSE institutions, there is growing concern that their learning needs may not be met, leading to decreased academic and employment success. Unfortunately, it appears that most PSE institutions have not identified RIAS as a group with unique learning needs. Academic success in PSE requires that students be fully
engaged and that they have access to resources that enhance engagement. There is a paucity of research concerning the degree to which RIAS are engaged in both academic and nonacademic components of Canadian PSE. Although all PSE institutions provide a variety of student services, there is no evidence that RIAS utilize them or that any particular benefits accrue in terms of promoting academic and social integration to even those RIAS who do use student services. This multi-institutional research study was conducted with the financial support of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). The study objectives included the following:
• developing a preliminary scale to measure RIAS engagement, consisting of academic and non-academic involvement in PSE,
• describing the demographic and institutional factors that influence RIAS engagement within their academic environment,
• identifying the unique immigration challenges of RIAS in PSE programs,
• identifying service needs and utilization patterns of RIAS, and
• developing recommendations for educational policy and service delivery changes within the Ontario PSE system.
The study also included exploration of the following research questions:
1. To what extent do RIAS become engaged with the academic community at the PSE institutions that they choose to attend?
2. What demographic and institutional factors influence their degree of academic engagement of RIAS?
While much of the world is understandably focused on the current recession, there is a looming demographic and labour market
crisis which has the potential to shake the very foundations of our society and economy. Our population is aging; as the baby boomer generation advances into the age of normal retirement, there will be a significant decline in the proportion of our opulation in the prime working years (15 to 64). Using Ontario Ministry of Finance data, the projected shortfall in the availability of workers is shown to rise to at least 200,000, and to as high as 1.8 million by 2031,depending on our levels of population growth.
Even in the midst of a recession, we have to understand that a labour shortage looms. Unfortunately, this is only half of the bad news. At the same time as our population is aging, the requirements of the labour market are changing. With the emergence of our knowledge economy, the proportion of the labour force requiring some form of education or training beyond high school will increase dramatically.
Using a variety of Canadian and U. S. estimates,it is concluded that by 2031 we will need 77% of our workforce to have post-secondary credentials (apprenticeship, university, college, industry, professional). Overall, we now stand at about 60%, with our younger population (25 to 34 years of age) at just over 66%. So, we will need both a larger workforce and increased skills. For potential solutions, increasing the size of the population (immigration) with more skilled workers could help, but it will not solve the problem. Increasing the participation rates of those currently under-represented in the labour force is another option that needs to be explored, as do ways of accelerating graduations, increasing employer-provided training, improving literacy rates, and creating a more unified educational system. But what is most clearly needed is a change in our society’s attitude towards post-secondary education.
We have to accept attainment of post-secondary education or training as the expectation for all but a small minority of Ontarians. Without effective action, we face a future with large numbers of unskilled workers looking for jobs that require skills they do not possess, and a large number of jobs that will go unfilled. The time for action is now. It will take planning, hard work, cooperation, and difficult decisions to secure our future. An alternative outcome is simply unacceptable.
Rick Miner Report
One in five Canadians will experience a mental health [glossary] problem this year1 and the onset of the symptoms of mental ill health often occur between the ages of 15 and 24.2 These numbers tell us that many students in post-secondary education will experience mental health problems while they are attending college or university.
Ontario post-secondary institutions report a large increase in the number of students with mental health disabilities registered with their Offices for Students with Disabilities (OSD) [glossary]. Some students come to university or college with a diagnosed mental health condition such as depression or anxiety. Other students develop symptoms of mental ill health gradually while they are at school and may not realize that they need professional help.
If you are reading this Guide, you may be a student who has already been diagnosed with a mental health disability, be in the process of being diagnosed, or perhaps you are a parent/guardian of a student. Our goal is to help simplify the post-secondary experience for students with mental health disabilities by providing “need-to-know” information that is accessible and relevant. The Guide is written in a question-and-answer format and is addressed directly to students with mental health disabilities – so we use “you” throughout the text.
How prepared are today’s entering undergraduates for the challenges that lie ahead of them?
This annual report goes beyond the usual metrics of standardized test scores and high school transcripts to explore a wide range of non-cognitive attitudes that influence college readiness, such as students’ levels of self-discipline and confi dence in their abilities. The report is based on student survey responses drawn from a sizable national sample of entering undergraduates in 2012.
Among the highlights:
• Nearly 30 percent of incoming freshmen nationally in 2012 reported they “usually get bored and quit after a few minutes” when they try to study;
• Only 59 percent of incoming freshmen reported that they have developed a solid system of self discipline
for keeping up with schoolwork;
• Nearly 60 percent of incoming freshmen expressed openness to receiving help with improving their study habits;
• Fully 45 percent of today’s incoming freshmen nationally agreed with the statement, “Math has always been a challenge for me”;
• Only 42 percent of incoming, first-generation freshmen indicated, “I have a very good grasp of the scientific ideas I’ve studied in school”;
• Nearly half (49 percent) of incoming freshmen indicated being receptive to help with improving their math skills;
• Nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of incoming male freshmen wondered if a college education “is really worth all the time, money, and effort”;
• Three-quarters (75 percent) of incoming freshmen ages 25 and older reported being settled on their career direction vs. fewer than two-thirds (64 percent) of traditional-age freshmen; and
• Almost 40 percent of incoming, first-generation freshmen indicated they had “very distracting and troublesome” financial problems—a proportion that has generally held steady over the last six years.
It’s been said that no one dreams of becoming an academic leader when they grow up. It’s a tough job that’s only gotten more challenging as budgets shrink, public scrutiny rises, and responsibilities continue to grow. It requires a unique skill set – part field general, part mediator, part visionary, and part circus barker – to name just a few. But what does it really take to be an
effective leader?
Featuring 13 articles from Academic Leader this special report seeks to answer that question and provide guidance for anyone in a campus leadership role. For example, in the article “Leadership and Management: Complementary Skill Sets,” Donna Goss
and Don Robertson, explain the differences between management and leadership, and share their thoughts on how to develop leadership skills in yourself and others.
In “Zen and the Art of Higher Education Administration,” author Jeffrey L. Buller shows how the Buddhist practice features many principles for daily life that could benefit academic leaders. Such advice includes “Walk gently, leaving tracks only where they can make a difference.” In “Techniques of Leadership,” authors Isa Kaftal Zimmerman and Joan Thormann outline specific
leadership skills for effectively running meetings, building consensus, and communicating across the institution.
The article “A Formal Approach to Facilitating Change” explains how Northwestern University’s Office of Change Management is structured as well as its operating principles for effectively managing change at the university. The key is to articulate how a change can benefit those directly affected and others not directly affected, to be accountable, and to provide clear criteria for
measuring success Other articles in the report include:
• Factors That Affect Department Chairs’ Performance
• Changing Roles for Chairs
• Becoming a More Mindful Leader
• Creating a Culture of Leadership
• There’s More to Leadership than Motivation and Ability
Academic leadership roles are constantly changing. We hope this report will help you be a more
effective leader during these challenging times.
Rob Kelly
Editor
Academic Leader
For Canada to succeed, all Canadians must have the opportunity to develop and use their skills and knowledge to the fullest. So said the government of Prime Minister Paul Martin in the Speech from the Throne that opened the 37th Parliament of Canada in February 2004: “Investing in people will be Canada’s most important economic investment.”
Such an investment is critical. The new economy demands an increasingly educated and skilled workforce. To remain globally competitive, Canada needs to invest in raising the overall level of education and skills across the country. As well, Canada faces a shortage of skilled workers over the next 10 years, due to both retirement and the country’s low population
growth rate. To replace our aging workforce, Canada needs to look beyond traditional sources for future employees.
Ontario firms and organizations are being challenged to increase productivity through innovation in order to compete on the fiercely competitive world stage and improve the quality of life of Ontarians. Yet, Ontario suffers from innovation gaps
that place its productivity and prosperity goals at risk.
Ontario’s 24 Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology have long been recognized for their contributions to career-oriented education and training programs that have strengthened the Ontario economy throughout the latter part of the 20th century.
Poised on the threshold of the 21st century, college-based applied research and development (R&D) and business and industry innovation activities are of ever increasing importance to the achievement of Ontario’s productivity and prosperity
goals.
Colleges recommend that, beginning in 2006/07, the Government of Ontario establish a new, forward-looking provincial research and innovation policy framework and launch three strategic programs to bolster college capacity to support
business and industry through applied R&D, innovation and commercialization activities over the next decade, at a cost of $50 million over first five years.
Much attention over the past decade has been given by policy makers to the importance of data-driven decision making and evidence-based practices in education (Aguerrebere, 2009; Cilbulka, 2013; CCSSO, 2012; Duncan, 2009, 2010, 2012; Easton, 2009, 2010; National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, 2010). And much has been written about data-driven decision making in recent years. The field has seen special issues of journals (Coburn & Turner, 2012; Turner & Coburn, 2012; Wayman, 2005a, 2005b, 2006), edited books (Herman & Haertel, 2005; Kowalski & Lasley, 2009; Mandinach & Honey, 2008; Moss, 2007), focused books (Boudett, City, & Murnane, 2007; Mandinach & Jackson, 2012; Supovitz, 2006), research syntheses (Hamilton, Halverson, Jackson, Mandinach, Supovitz, & Wayman, 2009), and federally funded landscape studies (Means, Chen, DaBarger, & Padilla, 2011; Means, Padilla, & Gallagher, 2010). Yet the field is still emerging. There is much we know (Hamilton et al., 2009), and there is also much we do not know (Mandinach, 2012; Marsh, 2012; Turner & Coburn, 2012) or that has methodological challenges. Even some of the most rigorously designed studies about impact result in interpretive questions (Carlson, Borman, & Robinson, 2011; Konstantanopoulus, Miller, & van der Ploeg, 2013).
. Unique value-added in the research “market-placeâ€;
. Experience in applying new knowledge to solve industry problems and achieve industry goals;
. Personnel with expertise and experience across key sectors of the economy;
. The ability to rapidly move innovative ideas through the early stages of development and commercialization;
. State-of-the-art facilities, equipment and space to support the development of new products and applications; and
. A sustained commitment to a culture of innovation.
Systemic barriers that currently limit the degree to which colleges can contribute to the future achievement of Ontario’s productivity and prosperity goals include:
. A permissive but not enabling provincial policy framework for college applied R&D and innovation;
. No operating funding for Ontario colleges supporting applied research activities, resulting in:
. A shortage of funds to strengthen colleges’ institutional capacity to initiate, undertake and manage applied R&D and innovation projects that respond to industry and community needs in a timely way;
. A shortage of funds to support college personnel conducting applied R&D and innovation projects; and
. A shortage of funds to enable college applied R&D personnel to rapidly establish partnerships to address applied R&D challenges and to sustain and foster long-term relationships with key personnel from business, industry and community organizations. To strengthen provincial economic competitiveness and prosperity, Ontario colleges are calling on the government of Ontario to:
. Move beyond merely ermissive policies in relation to applied R&D and innovation activities at Ontario colleges and develop a formal provincial policy and investment framework that recognizes and enables the unique roles colleges can play in support of applied R&D and business and industry innovation activities;
. Explicitly develop Ontario colleges’ applied research, innovation and commercialization
capacity; and
. Enable colleges to increase their capacity for applied R&D and innovation partnerships
with business, industry, federal and provincial governments, and com-
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For Canada to succeed, all Canadians must have the opportunity to develop and use their skills and knowledge to the fullest. So said the government of Prime Minister Paul Martin in the Speech from the Throne that opened the 37th Parliament of Canada in February 2004: “Investing in people will be Canada’s most important economic investment.”
Such an investment is critical. The new economy demands an increasingly educated and skilled workforce. To remain globally competitive, Canada needs to invest in raising the overall level of education and skills across the country. As well, Canada faces a shortage of skilled workers over the next 10 years, due to both retirement and the country’s low population
growth rate. To replace our aging workforce, Canada needs to look beyond traditional sources for future employees. It needs to invest in increasing the education and skill levels of:
• Aboriginal Canadians;
• Canadians with disabilities;
• Immigrants to Canada;
• Youth and adults with low literacy or foundation skills; and
• Canadians living in rural or remote areas of the country.
This research report represents the first phase of a multi-year collaborative research initiative of the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario.1 The initiative is designed to develop a cohesive picture of the pathways from secondary school to college. The major purpose of this phase of the research was to identify secondary school students’ perceptions of Ontario colleges and of college as a possible post-secondary educational destination for them, and to determine the factors that have shaped these perceptions. A second purpose was to identify secondary school student achievement patterns, graduation rates and course enrolments in order to consider their influence on current and future college enrolments.
The internationally recognized series of Horizon Reports is part of the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Project, a comprehensive research venture established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years on a variety of sectorsaround the globe. This volume, the 2011 Horizon Report, examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning, and creative inquiry. It is the eighth in the annual series of reports focused on emerging technology in the higher education environment.
Insight into Impressive Practices in Career Services: A Reference Guide is the second of two reports summarizing the findings of a CERIC-funded study that sought to establish the importance publicly funded universities and colleges place on the provision of career development services and to highlight particularly impressive models of career service provision across the country.
Specifically, CERIC’s interest in conducting this study was two-fold:
1. To understand the landscape of career service models across Canada
2. To examine the level of institutional commitment to the provision of career services
This handbook is intended to serve as a resource for faculty, staff, academic leaders and educational developers engaged in program and course design/review, and the assessment of program-level learning outcomes for program improvement. The assessment of learning outcomes at the program-level can assist in making improvements to curricula, teaching and assessment plans.
School and university, and the well-trod path between them, play a dominant role in thinking about education policy. But outside these two institutions there exists a less well understood world of colleges, diplomas, certificates and professional examinations – the world of post-secondary vocational education and training. many professional and technical jobs
require no more than one or two years of career preparation beyond upper secondary level, and in some countries as much as one-quarter of the adult workforce have this type of qualification (see Figure 1). Nearly two-thirds of overall employment growth in the European Union (EU25) is forecast to be in the “technicians and associate professionals” category – the category most closely linked to this sector (CEDEFOP, 2012). A recent US projection is that nearly one-third of job vacancies by 2018 will require some post-secondary qualification but less than a four-year degree (Carnevale, Smith and Strohl, 2010). The aim of this OECD study (see Box 1) is to cast light on this world, as it is large, dynamic, and of key importance to country skill systems.
Handheld devices are widely applied to support open and distributed learning, where students are diverse. On the other hand, customization and personalization can be applied to accommodate students’ diversities. However, paucity of research compares the effects of customization and personalization in the context of handheld devices. To this end, a customized digital learning system (CDLS) and personalized digital learning system (PDLS) were implemented with the handheld devices and they tailored to the needs of different cognitive style groups. Furthermore, we conducted two empirical studies to examine the effects of cognitive styles on the use of the CDLS and PDLS. More specifically, Study 1 identified the preferences of each cognitive style group while Study 2 investigated how students with different cognitive styles react to the CDLS and the PDLS. The results from these two studies showed that student with the CDLS and those with the PDLS obtained similar task scores and post-test scores, regardless of their cognitive styles. However, cognitive styles affected the efficiency of completing tasks and perceptions for customization and personalization.
Keywords: customization, personalization, handheld devices, cognitive styles