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.
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
Research shows that women perform better than men on four out of five traits of effective leaders, says Øyvind Martinsen
Recent media attention has brought to light the levels of sexual harassment faced by undergraduate students, and it appears that such incidents are on the rise for graduate students, too. Most of the cases reported involve faculty members as the perpetrators, yet little attention has been given to harassment among faculty members themselves, and this is a phenomenon that also affects student learning.
For the past five years, the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) has been at the cutting edge of
measuring aspects of the student experience that are linked to student success. The validation studies summarized in
this report show the link between CCSSE results and improved student success. CCSSE’s reach and influence — it has collected
information from almost 700,000 students at 548 different colleges in 48 states, British Columbia, and the Marshall Islands — is nothing short of remarkable in such a short period of time.
As I write about my experiences in higher education, I want to make one thing clear: I don’t believe the issues we are facing have a one-size-fits-all solution. I see too many articles that pronounce the end of higher education as we know it and that the solution is [insert latest buzzword here]. But the reality is that there are many different kinds of institutions with many different kinds of issues that are complex and not easy or quick to solve.
What I hope to address in sharing my experiences is that we all need to honestly assess where we are with various issues and look for good solutions that are evidence-based and make sense for our specific type of college or university. What makes sense for a large public institution won’t necessarily make sense for a small liberal arts college.
Student evaluations of teaching, or SET, aren’t short on critics. Many professors and other experts say they’re unreliable -- they may hurt female and minority professors, for example. One recent metastudy also suggested that past analyses linking student achievement to strong evaluation scores are flawed, a mere “artifact of small-samplesized studies and publication bias.”
Now one of the authors of that metastudy is back for more, with a new analysis suggesting that SET ratings vary by course subject, with professors of math-related fields bearing the brunt of the effect.
Many proponents of online education have speculated that the digital learning environment might be a meritocracy, where students are judged not on their race or gender, but on the comments they post.
A study being released today by the Center for Education Policy Analysis at Stanford University, however, finds that bias appears to be strong in online course discussions.
The study found that instructors are 94 percent more likely to respond to discussion forum posts by white male students than by other students. The authors write that they believe their work is the first to demonstrate with a large pool that the sort of bias that concerns many educators in face-to-face instruction is also present in online education.
Colleges are wrestling with the financial havoc and technological logistics of a hellish year. But 2020’s Covid-19 pandemic and increased racial strife are also prompting revisions in college curricula. The nation is traumatized, and the content of academic programs, not just how they are delivered, must reflect that reality, said college leaders, students, faculty
members, and higher-education experts who spoke with The Chronicle.
“We need not just mourn with our students but empower them to understand the context of the moment, the history of their community, and ways they can be active agents in improving society,” said Melanye Price, a professor of political science at Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black institution in Texas.
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.
Last week, in my final rhetoric class of the semester, we did an end-of-term exercise that I’ve assigned for the past few years. I use notecards to write a series of prompts meant to encourage students to reflect on the semester and what they’ve learned. Each student comes to the front of the classroom, takes a notecard, and responds to the prompt in front of the class. There are also doughnuts.
Among the prompts is this one: "Before this class, I thought rhetoric was [fill-in-the-blank]. Now I think rhetoric is [fill-in-the-blank]." I got the format from Kimberley Tanner, who calls such prompts "retrospective post-assessments."
Universities must monitor the impact on student stress and staff workload as they shift away from “high-stakes” exams and towards using technology to conduct “continuous” assessment, a report says.
A paper published by Jisc, UK higher education’s main technology body, says digital tools offer “a host of opportunities for students to capture and reflect on evidence of their learning, to use and share formative feedback and to record progress”, adding that it “may be more effective to assess learners continually throughout their course instead of through a final exam”.
One of the reasons I love teaching is that each semester provides a fresh start: empty grade books, eager students. I also cherished this time when I was a student myself: poring over course syllabi, purchasing new textbooks, meeting my professors. Although I reside on eastern South Dakota’s frigid plains, the first day of class consistently brings me a warm feeling.
But once the newness of the semester fades, it’s not long before I casually share with a colleague something a student did or (more commonly) failed to do. This habit started in graduate school. Years ago, student shaming provided a humorous means of connecting with my fellow TAs: in my early 20s, commiserating over student issues felt normal, even cool. Perhaps, too, a case can be made that swapping stories of students’ shortcomings had little effect on our students themselves. They didn’t hear us laugh at their misspelled words or poorly constructed sentences. Yet, 10 years later, I’m haunted by the thought that I might
have spent more time complaining about my students than championing their success.
As dean, I travelled to San Francisco a few years ago with most of my college’s faculty members and doctoral students for a national conference in our field. I didn’t rent a car, because everything on the agenda — leadership meetings and donor visits — was within walking distance of our hotel. Then a major donor from a faraway suburb called and wanted to meet near his home.
Unfortunately, the local rental dealerships were sold out of standard vehicles, but — "good news" — a luxury convertible was available for the same price. I pondered for a moment and declined. Why? I was worried about the optics. That is: how it would look if people from my campus saw me driving away from the hotel like some movie star, thereby confirming prejudices about rich, privileged deans.
Was I being silly, even paranoid?
Faculty are crucial for students. They serve as instructors and mentors. They connect students with a network that will help them succeed and get good jobs in the future.
But they can also get in the way.
As the student population shifts away from the traditional 18-year-old heading off to live in a dorm to students who are older and lower income, institutions and their faculty members are struggling to find mutually agreeable ways to support nontraditional students.
The coronavirus has colleges and universities swinging into action to move courses online. In the coming weeks, we’ll find out just how prepared (or not) academe is to do this on a large scale. Those of us in online teaching and educational technology have moved quickly to help, too, and it’s astonishing how many helpful resources have already been pulled together.
Even just a few weeks into the crisis, and really only a few days since class cancellations started to become a reality, there are top-quality guides free for the taking, created by people who really know their stuff. I will make no claim to have read all or even a fraction of them, but there are several that are clearly share-worthy:
For non-traditional students who are working adults or are returning to school years later, the transition to college can be intimidating. Several of my students have expressed how hard it is to learn new concepts. Many feel their minds aren’t as “sharp” as they were the first time they attended college. Others talk about the stress that comes with having to balance family and work responsibilities with their course requirements. On more than one occasion, I have had to talk a student out of quitting a program because of one or all of these factors.
The university reward structure has traditionally placed greater value on individual research excellence for tenure and promotion, influencing faculty’s allocation of time and definition of worthwhile labour. We find gender differences in Canadian natural sciences and engineering faculty’s opinions of the traditional criteria for measuring academic success that are consistent with an implicit gender bias devaluing service and teamwork. Most women recommend significant changes to the traditional model and its foundation, while a substantial minority of men support the status quo. However, this comparative qualitative analysis finds more cross-gender similarities than differences, as most men also want a more modern definition of success, perceiving the traditional model to be disproportionately supportive of one type of narrow research scholarship that does not align with the realities of most faculty’s efforts.
Thus, this study suggests a discrepancy between traditional success criteria
and faculty’s understanding of worthwhile labour.
As a savvy administrator, you would not inflate enrollment numbers in an official report, use a departmental printer to produce political-campaign brochures, or question the competence of an institutional leader in a conversation with a key donor. Those are
irresponsible activities that would get you in trouble and damage your career — and you are certainly smart enough to avoid them.
Why? Because you are highly responsible, and you know that means acting with integrity. It means being conscientious and judicious with institutional resources. It means offering appropriate warnings, keeping others safe from harm, and choosing the right course of action — even when doing any of those things may make you unpopular.
When you first joined the faculty, chances are your orientation included an overview of your responsibilities as a member of your new academic community. You were probably informed that you had an obligation to support the success of your students and colleagues, were expected to be an exemplar in terms of your scholarship and contributions to your discipline, and were required to devote a percentage of your time to departmental, college, or university service.