Looking for inspiration on teaching or some specific strategies? David Gooblar, a lecturer in rhetoric at the University of Iowa and a blogger on teaching, writes about classroom issues in these pages. Here is a sampling of his recent columns.
After all, the basic science of nutrition hasn’t changed: People who consume more calories than they burn tend to gain weight. But just telling people to cut down on calories isn’t enough to change their behavior. (If it were, we’d all have our ideal BMI.) So what did the researchers behind the JAMA study do differently? They taught people how to adopt the sort of eating habits that naturally lead them to consume fewer calories.
Participants attended classes — once a week for the first two months, then less frequently throughout the year — to learn about healthy eating habits. Class size was small (with no more than 22 students), and the instructors focused on making "sustainable lifestyle changes, not simply following a temporary ‘diet.’" Moreover, based on early feedback, the researchers
modified their teaching to make it "less dense, less didactive, and more interactive." Instructors lectured less and began organizing classes around activities, including students cooking their own recipes.
Small class sizes? Fewer lectures? More active-learning activities? Does any of that sound familiar?
Abstract
Researchers are under increasing pressure to disseminate research more widely with non-academic audiences (efforts we call knowledge mobilization, KMb) and to articulate the value of their research beyond academia to broader society. This study surveyed SSHRC-funded education researchers to explore how universities are supporting researchers with these new demands. Overall, the study found that there are few supports available to researchers to assist them in KMb efforts. Even where supports do exist, they are not heavily accessed by researchers. Researchers spend less than 10% of their time on
non-academic outreach. Researchers who do the highest levels of academic publishing also report the highest levels of non-academic dissemination. These findings suggest many opportunities to make improvements at individual and institutional levels. We recommend (a) leveraging intermediaries to improve KMb, (b) creating institutionally embedded KMb capacity, and (c) having funders take a leadership role in training and capacity-building.
Faculty everywhere are flipping their classes, but can we flip faculty development? That’s the question I asked myself when I flipped the pre-conference workshop at the 2016 Teaching Professor Technology Conference. What I discovered is that we can “practice what we teach” and design faculty-centered learning experiences much the same way we design studentcentered
learning experiences.
If graduate education is to undergo serious change, relying on the development of supervision abilities only through modeling or memory seems out of step.
In light of recent national discussions on the purpose, content, structure, and assessment of the doctoral dissertation, the highly competitive (academic and non-academic) job market and the increasing precarity of employment in the academy—it is no surprise that the design and role of graduate education has been called into question. While some might cheekily say “So
you want to earn a PhD?” and outline the employment outcomes for PhD graduates, it might be time to ask “could the process of earning a PhD be improved?” More importantly, who could do so?
More than six months after the Harvey Weinstein scandal catapulted sexual harassment to the top of the cultural agenda, academia is among the industries still grappling with the extent of the problem that it faces, and what to do about it.
The transition from high school to university or college is one of the most stressful times in a young person’s life.
The late teens, early 20s are also the time in life when severe mental illness often reveals itself and when earlier mental-health issues – eating disorders, anxiety, depression and the like – can be exacerbated.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in this age group, second only to motor-vehicle crashes. “Every parent should know that this can happen to any family. We’re living proof of this,” says Eric Windeler, founder and executive director of Jack.org, which promotes mental- health advocacy by young people.
This section contains policy, procedures and guidance used by Immigration, Refugees andCitizenship Canada staff. It is posted on the Department’s website as a courtesy to stakeholders.
This section contains policy, procedures and guidance used by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada staff. It is posted on the Department’s website as a courtesy to stakeholders.
The Post-Graduation Work Permit Program (PGWPP) allows students who have graduated from a participating Canadian post-secondary institution to gain valuable Canadian work experience. Skilled Canadian work experience gained through the PGWPP helps graduates qualify for permanent residence in Canada through the Canadian experience class.
Abstract
The number of international students seeking educational opportunities at Ontario colleges of applied arts and technology (CAATs) has grown at an unprecedented rate in the past 10 years. It appears that as the number of the international college students has increased, colleges have also been relying more heavily on educational agents to recruit such students. To
explore this assertion, the author examined institutional data provided by an Ontario college of applied arts and technology. The findings show that the proportion of international students who use an agent has indeed risen dramatically in recent years. The paper also identifies and examines various factors contributing to CAATs’ increasing use of educational agents.
Keywords: International, international students,
international recruitment, recruitment agencies
Last week, I described how what some observers might see as a bad approach to teaching -- focusing on our weakest students -- can, in fact, have good results. Continuing with that theme, let us take a look at a second aspect of good teaching -- promoting student learning -- and consider its inverse. In award letters, students regularly talk about how much they learned from award-winning professors and how new worlds were opened to them. It is hard to argue that learning is not fundamental to effective instruction.
Abstract
“Teaching vs. research” as a global false dichotomy will be the focus of this study. A modest but very universal evidence is revealing itself in world university rankings in every year. It is not deniable that university rankings are not well taken by intellectuals. They contempt the ranking criteria for being inappropriate and irrelevant for the social, moral, and academic values prevalent at universities. They severely criticize the exploitation of competitive, market-driven potentials of universities. So many eminent scholars display their sense of humour by labelling these ranking ritual as “University Olympics” or as “horse race”. It is obvious that such a contest propagates the profitable positions of high-rank universities. Fortunately, egalitarian values still reign supreme in higher education. However, equality does not necessitate justice. Justice requires discrimination when needed. It is impossible to ignore the existence of collegial hierarchy. The diversity is a reality among the universities in every country. Neither the students nor the researchers are all alike. Their uneven aptitudes and proficiencies result with ordered categories. These and many other facts compel the ranking culture to endure despite the opposing criticisms mentioned before. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to omit the inter-institutional differences. Instead of resisting the comparative information one can exploit it for the common concern or at least to reinforce the curiosity. Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking summarizes annual performances of prominent universities all around the world
since 2012. Ranking criteria involves Teaching, Research, Citations International Outlook, and Industrial Income with differential weights. The purpose of this study is to display the correlations between the variables used as criteria to rank the world universities for 2018. It has been hypothesized that Pearson product-moment correlations would have been significantly high and positive. Moreover, the correlation between Teaching and Research will be the highest one among all
the other paired criteria in every different context.
Keywords: Higher education, teaching and research, university ranking.
In our over-stressed world, many health care providers, social workers and caregivers are suffering from slow yet painful burnout. Many of the rest of us, working long hours and raising families, seem to be approaching burnout, too. Sometimes we may feel that we’re too exhausted to keep giving to others, even though giving is a primary source of happiness in our lives.
Online students need to feel an instructor presence in their classes. Thorough explanations and effective communication help fulfill this need and can transform a mediocre online course into a great one—and it all starts with the syllabus.
Learning Beyond Borders: A Solution to Canada’s Global Engagement Challenge
Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance for Pre-Budget Consultations in Advance of the 2018 Budget
Canada faces a great challenge: getting more of our students to take advantage of learning experiences in other countries and preparing them to become “global ready graduates” in the range of ways that the term implies.
Seventy-one is the new 65 for a growing number of professors at Ontario's universities who are staying in the classroom past the traditional retirement age, a demographic shift that is putting pressure on their institutions' budgets, and that could be limiting the hiring of younger professors, a new report being released on Tuesday has found.
What makes a good introduction for a dissertation? Graduate students practice critiquing one another’s thesis chapters, but they rarely read the introductions — usually because those are written to meet a defense deadline. Which is why when you need to write one, you can find yourself with neither experience nor models.
Ontario universities came under the provincial ombudsman’s oversight in 2016. The office has since received more than 500 university-related complaints.
Paul Dubé is in the “persuasion game.” Whether it’s overseeing complaints about provincial government ministries, municipalities or universities, Mr. Dubé, Ontario’s ombudsman says his modus operandi remains the same. “My approach as an ombudsman has always been to show all stakeholders what’s in it for them, why they will benefit from these recommendations,
that it’s in their interest.”
Study hard, earn good grades and career success will follow.
Actually, a new study finds that this common advice given to college students isn't true.
The grades of new college graduates who are men don't appear to matter much in their job searches, according to a new study. And female graduates may be punished for high levels of academic achievement. The study comes at a time of growing evidence that female students are outperforming their male counterparts academically in college (after also having done so in
high school).
Some students are more challenging to teach than others. They require pedagogical skills of a different and higher order. Sometimes it’s easier to sigh and just turn away. And that’s legitimate in the sense that students (indeed, people of all sorts) have to figure things out for themselves. But many of us were such “works in progress” when we were in college, and a teacher (or several of them) ended up being instrumental in moving us in more productive directions. It’s for that reason I’d like us to consider some of these challenging students, each one a unique individual, but many displaying the same counterproductive attitudes and actions. Descriptions of these students come much more easily than solutions to what’s holding them back. Said more directly, my goal here is to start this conversation and ask for your wisdom, insights, and experiences with students who are tough to teach.
Yes, cellphones and laptops do affect students' grades, and no, students can't multitask as well as they say they can.
Arnold Glass, a psychology professor at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, and Mengxue Kang, a graduate student, recently published a study in Educational Psychology that they say reveals a causal link between cellphone and laptop use during class and poorer exam scores.