The old expression that you never have a second chance to make a first impression is certainly true in the classroom. Early in my career, I tried several first-day-of-class strategies, ranging from briefly introducing the course and dismissing students early to spending the entire time reviewing policies and procedures, but I began to feel that I was missing an important opportunity. Students are never more attentive than they are on the first day of class, when they’re eager to determine what kind of professor they’re dealing with, and although it is tempting to delay the real work of teaching and learning until the class list has stabilized, it can be difficult to change even the subtle norms that are established during this initial class. Several years ago, I tried a new approach, and I’ve been using it with great success ever
since.
Some scholars have questioned academe’s reliance on letters of recommendation, saying they’re onerous for the professors writing them or speak more about connections to “big-name” scholars than substance, or both.
A recent study explores another concern about letters of recommendation: whether they’re biased against the women they’re supposed to help. The short answer is yes.
Barriers to permanent residency are formidable, but can be overcome
This month, we’ll focus on how to prepare for existing state and national tests. I’ll focus on three things that can help your students improve their chances to score up to their potential. By the way, kids never score above their potential; they’re just not going to randomly make enough lucky right answers time after time after time (in statistics, it’s called regression to the mean).
But, they often underperform for a host of reasons, even when they should perform much better. While we could focus on dozens of variables that influence standardized testing, we’ll focus on these three: 1) brain chemistry, 2) priming, and 3) episodic memory triggers. Some of these suggestions got so many rave reviews that they are reproduced from an earlier bulletin!
How can you make sure your online students take tests without cheating? It’s one of the most-frequent questions asked by new online instructors and even some experienced ones. The short answer: You can’t.
You might be tempted to join the “arms race” in cheating-prevention tools, or to adopt punitive approaches such as proctored online exams and time limits for online tests. But the reality is, students will always find new and creative ways to get around your policing
efforts. So what to do?
Few academics will be surprised to hear that more evidence has come out showing that student evaluations of teaching are often biased.
The latest study, released this year by the American Political Science Association, found that the "language students use in evaluations regarding male professors is significantly different than language used in evaluating female professors." The study also showed that "a male instructor administering an identical online course as a female instructor receives higher ordinal scores in teaching evaluations, even when questions are not instructor-specific."
In 2012, Mohawk College solicited the support of the Education Policy Research Initiative (EPRI) to collect and use administrative and other data on students held by Mohawk as part of a broad initiative to improve student success based on the principle of evidence‐based decision making.
The first project involved analyses to better understand student retention at Mohawk using both descriptive and statistical modelling approaches. This work led to the development of a predictive model to identify students at risk of leaving college early.
In 2015, Mohawk and EPRI applied to and became part of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario’s (HEQCO) Access and Retention Consortium (ARC) to undertake a project that would build on this earlier work. The purpose was to update, refine and extensively test the predictive model, which would then be used to inform and assess a set of alternative advising interventions put in place for students entering Mohawk College in Fall 2015.
The robots are coming. Future-gazers have been making that prediction at least since Alan Turing speculated in 1950 about the possibility of a machine that could fool an interlocutor into believing that they were talking to another person.
But the imminent arrival on our roads of self-driving cars (see the article “How do we decide what is right? The ethicist’s view”, below) has brought home to many people that the kinds of artificially intelligent machines long imagined by science fiction writers and visionary scientists
are finally being realised.
Background/Context: Since the 1970s, researchers have attempted to link observational measures of instructional process to
student achievement (and occasionally to other outcomes of schooling). This paper reviews extensively both historical and
contemporary research to identify what is known about effective teaching.
Purpose/Objective: Good, after reviewing what is known about effective teaching, attempts to apply this to current descriptions
of effective teaching and its application value for practice. Good notes that much of the “new” research on effective teaching has simply replicated what has been known since the 1980s. Although this is not unimportant (since it shows that older findings still pertain to contemporary classrooms), it is unfortunate that research has not moved beyond the relationship between general teacher behavior (those that cut across subject areas) and student achievement (as measured by standardized tests). How this information can be applied and the difficulty in using this information is examined in the paper.
We read with interest the recent opinion article, “Online learning isn’t as inclusive as you may think,” published by University Affairs in early May. We feel the authors provided a limited perspective regarding online education and online learners. We disagree with several of the
authors’ contentions and generalizations, which we outline below. We also direct the authors and readers to sources that may help to address some of the issues the authors raise.
First, the authors suggest online learning provides opportunities to those who might otherwise have been “excluded from or marginalized in higher education.” This is a generalization for which we feel perhaps the wrong words were chosen. At Athabasca University (AU), where we
teach, we see no indication that our students come here due to feelings of exclusion or marginalization.
Abstract
This paper focuses on the recent political spars between Canada and Saudi Arabia as well as China and their impact on Canadian universities. It asks three questions: (1) What key issues did Canada’s political strains with Saudi Arabia and China raise for Canadian universities’ international education (IE) initiatives and what issues were absent? (2) What do these key issues suggest about Canada’s approaches to IE in an era of new geopolitics? and (3) What implications can be drawn from these cases about Canadian university-government relations in the context of new geopolitics? Given the powerful role media plays in education policy, a systematic study was conducted across three main media sources to identify 74 articles and news releases between August 2018 and November 2019. Three dominant themes are identified and analyzed, each vividly illustrating the close ties between global politics, government foreign policy and IE within Canadian Universities. On the one hand, the narratives speak to concerns about IE as a risk to national security and, on the other, as a vehicle for Canada’s economic prosperity. However, what the media has not achieved is a broader discussion on how Canada needs to revisit its IE objectives and approaches in light of broader geopolitical shifts. Using the theoretical framework of soft power, the paper speaks to the limitations and short-sightedness of Canada’s approach to IE as soft power in this era of new geopolitics and concludes with three recommendations for Canada.
Keywords: soft power, international education, geopolitics, internationalisation, and international relations
Résumé
Cet article se concentre sur les répercussions sur les universités canadiennes des tensions politiques récentes entre le Canada et la Chine et entre le Canada et l’Arabie saoudite. Il pose trois questions : (1) Quels sont les problèmes causés par ces tensions politiques pour les initiatives d’éducation internationale des universités canadiennes, et quels problèmes sont
exclus? (2) Que suggèrent ces problèmes quant aux approches du Canada en ce qui concerne les initiatives d’éducation internationale à l’époque de la nouvelle géopolitique? (3) Quelles sont les implications sur les relations entre les universités canadiennes et le gouvernement du Canada dans le contexte de la nouvelle géopolitique? Puisque les médias jouent un
rôle puissant dans les politiques éducatives, nous avons mené une étude systématique auprès de trois sources médiatiques et retenu 74 articles de journaux et communiqués de presse entre août 2018 et novembre 2019. Il en ressort trois thèmes principaux qui illustrent les liens étroits entre la politique mondiale, la politique étrangère du gouvernement et les initiatives
d’éducation internationale au sein des universités canadiennes. Il y a deux narratifs concurrents : d’une part, celui selon lequel l’éducation internationale serait une menace pour la sécurité nationale canadienne et d’autre part, celui selon lequel l’éducation internationale contribuerait à la prospérité économique du Canada. Cependant, les médias n’abordent pas la question plus vaste de la manière dont le Canada devrait revoir ses objectifs et ses approches en matière d’éducation internationale à la lumière des grands changements géopolitiques. L’article utilise le cadre théorique du soft power pour discuter des limitations et du manque de vison de l’approche du Canada en ce qui concerne l’éducation internationale comme soft
power à l’époque de la nouvelle géopolitique. La conclusion inclut trois recommandations pour le Canada.
Mots-clés : puissance douce, éducation internationale, géopolitiques, internationalisation et relations internationales
Truth. Kindness. Dignity. Courage. Hope. They are not fields in which you can earn a degree. They are not things you would normally list under “other experience” on your résumé. And they do not necessarily represent subjects covered in college courses.
Why then did so many commencement speakers at universities across the nation focus on them this year? Most likely it is because today these values seem to be in short supply.
Abstract
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Toronto Police Service was exploring how to increase access to higher education to its officers. The service saw higher education as salient to its organizational imperatives of professionalization, increased public legitimacy and credibility, and enhanced academic recognition of police professional learning. To realize this mission, the Toronto Police Service entered into a higher education partnership with the University of Guelph and Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning under its then-new joint venture, the University of Guelph-Humber. The University of Guelph-Humber designed an accredited higher education pathway for Toronto Police personnel that also gave academic credit for past professional learning and increased educational access by offering blended course delivery. Based on semi-structured interviews with key educational administrators at the University of Guelph-Humber, Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, and the Toronto Police Service, this article narrates the origins of this higher education pathway— a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Justice Studies. In addition, it describes how this pathway evolved to include non-uniform Toronto police personnel, other police services, and expanded further to include learners from the larger justice and public
safety fields. The exploration is situated in a larger discussion about the relationship between higher education, professionalization and legitimacy, and the potential of partnerships between higher educational institutions and professions in Canada.
Keywords: higher education; professionalization; police; adult learning; educational partnerships; credentialization; educational
access; undergraduate degree
Résumé
À la fin des années 1990 et au début des années 2000, le Service de police de Toronto explorait les moyens d’améliorer l’accès à l’éducation postsecondaire pour ses officiers. Le Service voyait l’éducation postsecondaire comme un outil pour atteindre ses buts organisationnels, dont la professionnalisation, l’accroissement de la légitimité et de la crédibilité auprès du public et l’amélioration de la reconnaissance de la formation policière dans le milieu de l’éducation. Afin de réaliser cette mission, le Service de police de Toronto s’est engagé dans un partenariat avec l’Université de Guelph et le Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning dans le cadre de la toute nouvelle Université de Guelph-Humber. L’Université de Guelph-Humber a élaboré un programme d’études postsecondaires agréé sur mesure pour le personnel de police de Toronto, reconnaissant la formation professionnelle antérieure et offrant un mode de prestation de cours hybride pour plus d’accessibilité. Fondé sur des entrevues semi-structurées avec des administrateurs et administratrices de l’Université de Guelph-Humber, du Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning et du Service de police de Toronto, le présent article raconte les origines de ce programme de baccalauréat en arts appliqués en études juridiques. Par ailleurs, il décrit comment le programme a évolué afin d’inclure le personnel civil du Service de police de Toronto, les autres services policiers, et également les étudiant(e)s des secteurs de la justice et de la sécurité publique. Cette exploration se situe dans une discussion plus vaste au sujet des rapports entre éducation postsecondaire, professionnalisation et légitimité et des partenariats potentiels
entre les établissements postsecondaires et les professions au Canada.
Mots-clés : éducation postsecondaire, professionnalisation, police, formation des adultes, partenariats éducatifs, agrément,
accès à l’éducation, baccalauréat
Scenario: A doctoral student comes by your office to ask if you will serve as a reader on her dissertation committee. While a senior professor is chairing her committee, she wants you to help with the "heaving lifting." You start shifting in your seat, wishing there was a pause button you could hit as you figure out the best thing to say. You want to support this student — but as an assistant professor, a few years from tenure, you need to protect your time and avoid stepping on her adviser’s toes. Do you say no and clarify the roles of dissertation chair versus reader? Do you say yes and support the student in the way she is asking? Or do you ask her to first clarify your role with her adviser?
Paré, D. E., Collimore, L.-M., Joordens, S., Rolheiser, C., Brym, R., & Gini-Newman, G.
(2015). Put Students’ Minds Together and their Hearts Will Follow: Building a Sense of Community in Large-Sized Classes via Peer- and Self-Assessment – Appendix. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.
“Are students getting it? How do I know?” Instructors answer these questions through a variety of assessments, from small, informal methods such as asking students if they have questions, to formal, graded methods such as multiple-choice exams and research papers. These assessments provide cognitive feedback, whether in the form of a score, a correction, lack of
an answer, or an abundance of questions. But is that the whole picture? While these assessments can help us gauge how well students are “getting it,” it often fails to explain why or why not.
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.
By now, most final-year undergraduates across the northern hemisphere have found out what their years of toil (or Xbox playing) have amounted to in terms of the degree scores that will forever adorn their CVs.
In the UK, this was historically all about the relief or despair of finding out which side of the magic boundary you fell on between upper and lower second-class honours degrees; only the former are typically regarded by employers as a “good” degree. In a few cases, it was also the moment when extra dedication was justly rewarded with a first-class degree.
I was the invited outside speaker at a professional development event for schoolteachers. The day’s lunch was preceded by a public prayer that inspired me to consider parallels in “callings to serve” that can be found in both education and religion. Sometime later, I happened to read a poem in a Jewish prayer book that expressed noble intentions for a worship space. The
poem didn’t reference a particular faith—it was really just a set of intentions. Immediately, I thought of what professors hope for in their classroom spaces.
Without reopening any debate on prayer in public school, I’ll say that I don’t think any of us would object to a list of intentions that call forth a mindfulness that echoes the values embedded in our institution’s statements of mission, vision, and code of conduct. Nor should there be anything wrong with reminding ourselves and our students that a course is about so much more than students getting grades and teachers getting paychecks.
Maybe we should be making a stronger pitch for student-led study groups. There’s all sorts of research documenting how students can learn from each other. But, as regularly noted here and elsewhere, that learning doesn’t happen automatically, and some of us worry that it’s not likely to occur in a study group where there’s no supervision and distractions abound. Recent findings should encourage us to give study groups a second look.