Last year I was given a career choice that was not, in fact, a choice. The particulars of my situation aren’t important, but here’s the upshot: Last March, I was sitting in a meeting with my university’s new president, discussing my reappointment as dean, and it wasn’t going well.
Ultimately the president offered me a graceful exit: He suggested I stay in the job for an additional year while I searched for a new deanship elsewhere. That way, I could write my own career narrative as one of continual ascent. I hadn’t been ousted — I had decided to "seek a new challenge," "apply my skills to a different kind of institution," or (in the words of
LeBron James, when he left Cleveland the first time) "take my talents to South Beach."
Having taught college for five years now, I sometimes take for granted that teaching methods that seem obvious now were once foreign to me. So, to prevent other first-time teachers from making the same mistakes I did, I want to share four of the biggest teaching mistakes I made and how learning from them has improved my class.
As a result of the new coronavirus epidemic most universities in China have encouraged their professors to apply online teaching instead of in-class teaching and this is likely to continue for the indefinite future. Some professors and students have complained about problems with online teaching and lack confidence in its effectiveness, but many are still new to the whole online experience. Here are some of the problems and some potential solutions.
Decades-long research on implementation has shown the importance that local context plays in implementing reforms across districts, schools, and classrooms (Anderson et al., 1987; Elmore & McLaughlin, 1983; Honig, 2006; McLaughlin, 1990; Odden, 1991; Purkey & Smith, 1983). New approaches have emerged that take advantage of these lessons; continuous-improvement research, for example, responds to evidence that deep and sustained implementation is likely to occur only when the implementing unit (e.g., a school) is encouraged to modify or adapt a program to its context as it is being designed and tested (Bryk, Gomez, & Grunow, 2011; Cohen-Vogel, Tichnor-Wagner, Allen, Harrison, Kainz, Socol, & Wang, 2015; Langley et al., 2009; Penuel, Fishman, Cheng, & Sabelli, 2011).
Branding is the exercise of summarizing an organization’s culture to attract a particular type of employee, collaborator or funder.
Like it or not, branding and self-promotion are an integral part of science. Our training might focus primarily on how to do science, but that isn’t enough; we also need to promote ourselves and our findings in order to persuade others to fund and collaborate on our research, and to highlight the value of our discoveries so we can broaden their reach.
It’s always been this way. The financial support of scientific discovery was historically provided by wealthy patrons who typically backed an individual or a handful of scientists who had to market themselves to get attention (The financial cost of doing science). These days, the role of individual patron has been assumed by diverse government, philanthropic, and private sources of grant funding, and it’s our peers who we have to impress, via the peer review process.
Scan the vision and mission statements of schools and it is nearly impossible to find a school that doesn’t commit to educating “all” students or meet “each” or “every” student’s need. Yet we know that many schools fall far short of this mark. Too many students don’t experience the same high-quality learning experiences that even their peers across the aisle, hall, or county have access to. This is an equity challenge. Combine the uneven results within and across districts with the fact that the students more likely to be lagging are students of color and students from high-poverty contexts and the equity challenge is compounded.
Among the factors that schools have the power to address, the quality of teaching and the quality of the curriculum materials are two factors that, when integrated and improved with intention, have the potential to answer those equity challenges. When all students experience high-quality teaching, they are more likely to learn. When all classrooms are filled with high-quality instructional materials, students are more likely to learn. Establishing these conditions for all learners will help close achievement gaps.
This report explores the premise that there’s nothing more powerful than great teachers skillfully using great instructional materials to motivate and engage students in their learning. Three real-world examples illustrate how schools and school systems are working to support teachers to skillfully use high-quality, standards-aligned curricula, by providing teachers with the time and expertise to use those curricula well, with a focus on team-based, collaborative learning. The report also provides lessons learned across these sites and action steps to get schools and districts started on the journey.
When I first began teaching online courses, I did so with a fair amount of uncertainty and trepidation. Could I replicate in a digital environment what I believed was essential for an in-person course? What I learned, however, was that I didn’t need to replicate my face-to-face pedagogy exactly. I could find different, albeit related, techniques and practices to achieve a similar outcome online.
After I received word of my promotion to full professor this past June — a day after my 39th birthday — I decided to text my friends rather than post the news on Twitter. One of them asked how I was celebrating. I told her that I wasn’t yet. Instead I was making a list of all the people who had tried to destroy my career.
"Wow, that’s heavy," she said. It was.
But it was also cathartic. Writing the list helped me realize something. From the outside, being a mother probably seemed like the greatest challenge on my path to full professor (the most common reply to my text was some version of "I can’t believe you did that with two kids!"). In fact, the biggest obstacle was actually race.
Whenever I am approached by academics who want to make the transition from scholarly to public writing, they always ask me the same question: "What should I write about?" But, really, that is a two-part question.
One part is about genre. Newcomers to public writing typically don’t know the genres — that is, the differences between an op-ed, an essay, a profile, a reported article, or a well researched think piece. You have to learn your journalism genres before you can decide which kind of piece to write (more about those genres in a future essay). The other part of the question has to do with figuring out what you have to contribute to public discourse. That’s what this month’s column is about.
She sat in the front row of my classroom, quiet but engaged. She didn’t raise her hand, but when I invited her into the conversation or asked students to speak to one another, she showed she had done the reading and had thought about it. I learned from an informal writing exercise that she was a first-generation college student, paving the way to higher education for her family.
Following an incredible two-decade run of growth, Canada is now home to the third largest population of international students in the world, with over 642,000. That includes a sixfold increase seen since 2000, with a tripling in numbers over the last 10 years alone.
To maintain that momentum amidst the current challenges of COVID-19, it will be crucial for universities to continue to stay on top of their international student admissions.
Educational Credential Evaluators has expanded their services across the border to assist Canadian universities and their applicants with international educational credential assessments.
While new to Canada, ECE has been a trusted name in assessments in the United States for 40 years. In that time ECE has served over 2,000 institutions and completed over 600,000 high-quality reports, with over 35,000 completed in 2019 alone.
Depending on their needs, students seeking to further their education in Canada can choose from three different types of academic assessment report: a General Assessment Report, a General Assessment Report with Grade Average, or a more thorough Course-by-Course Assessment Report.
Imagine you have completed a scholarly article, book or creative product that you intend as a contribution to your discipline. Who will evaluate your work, attest to its quality and determine whether it is published or exhibited? Who will review the work when you are up for tenure and promotion or contract renewal?
Now, in your mind’s eye, imagine a person who is likely to review the quality of your teaching for professional benchmarks.
I wager that you can put a name and highly familiar face to that second scenario. Colleagues in our departments and programs, whether department chairs, assigned mentors or members of a teaching committee, almost always conduct peer reviews of teaching. Frequently enough, we are responsible for inviting a colleague of our choice to review some course materials, visit class and craft a letter based on their observations. When it comes to our scholarship, however, peers external not only to our departments but also to our colleges and universities conduct reviews behind a double blind of anonymity.
I’ll get right to the point because I know you don’t have much time. A new semester is looming, and you are overwhelmed. It could be because you’re early in your teaching career and still feeling your way. Or it could be related to the impossible amount of work you are facing, as teaching loads grow ever heavier. But some of it arises from a common problem that you can help to alleviate yourself: You are overpreparing for class.
For most faculty members, the hardest thing about entrepreneurship is the marketing — figuring out how to "monetize" your academic skills and services.
It’s a tedious and time-consuming process that depends largely on trial and error. It also involves a fair amount of self-promotion, something that is anathema in faculty culture. Words like marketing and monetize tend to make academics very uncomfortable. And yet, without marketing, you’re just a person sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.
Abstract
While Indigenous entrepreneurship is associated with significant economic promise, Indigenous innovation continues to be invisible in Canadian policy contexts. This article examines how Indigenous entrepreneurial activities are framed in government policy, potentially leading to another wave of active exploitation of Indigenous lands, peoples, and knowledges. The
article first discusses the concepts of Indigenous entrepreneurship and innovation through a decolonizing lens, drawing links to education. Then, it provides a set of rationales for why governments need to re-think and prioritize Indigenous entrepreneurship. Next, it maps the current federal government initiatives in this policy sector. Drawing from the Indigenous entrepreneurship ecosystem approach (Dell & Houkamau, 2016; Dell et al., 2017), the article argues that a more comprehensive policy perspective guiding Indigenous entrepreneurship programs should inform Canadian innovation policy. Individual voices from 13 Indigenous entrepreneurs in Manitoba point to three core issues: (a) relationships with the land and the community; (b) the relevance of (higher) education and training; and (c) the importance of cultural survival and self-determination. The article makes an argument for a systemic decolonizing change in how Indigenous innovation is approached in government policy and programs, supported by the work of higher education institutions1.
Keywords: Indigenous entrepreneurship, decolonization, ecosystem, innovation, policy
Résumé
Alors que l’entrepreneuriat autochtone est associé à une promesse économique importante, l’innovation autochtone est toujours invisible dans le contexte des politiques publiques canadiennes. Cet article examine la manière dont les activités entrepreneuriales autochtones sont encadrées dans les politiques publiques, laquelle risque de provoquer une autre vague d’exploitation des terres, des peuples et des connaissances autochtones. Dans un premier temps, l’article discute des concepts d’entrepreneuriat et d’innovation autochtones sous l’angle de la décolonisation et établit des liens avec l’éducation. Ensuite, il fournit un ensemble de justifications expliquant pourquoi les gouvernements doivent repenser et prioriser l’entrepreneuriat autochtone. Enfin, il recense les initiatives actuelles du gouvernement fédéral dans ce secteur. S’inspirant de l’approche écosystémique de l’entrepreneuriat autochtone (Dell et Houkamau, 2016; Dell et al., 2017), cet article soutient qu’une politique publique plus complète pour orienter les programmes d’entrepreneuriat autochtone devrait éclairer la politique d’innovation canadienne. Les voix individuelles de 13 entrepreneurs autochtones du Manitoba permettent de souligner trois enjeux fondamentaux : 1) les relations avec la terre et la communauté; 2) la pertinence de l’enseignement (supérieur) et de la formation; 3) l’importance de la survie culturelle et de l’autodétermination. Cet article plaide en faveur d’un changement décolonisant systémique dans la façon dont l’innovation autochtone devrait être abordée dans les programmes gouvernementaux
et les politiques publiques, avec l’appui des établissements d’enseignement supérieur.
Mots-clés : entrepreneuriat autochtone, décolonisation, écosystème, innovation, politique publique
The most powerful self-revelation of my adult life occurred while I was eating a Cubano sandwich in a Florida strip mall. I was running some teaching workshops at a university in Fort Lauderdale and had an open slot for dinner. On the recommendation of my host, I walked from my hotel to a small Cuban restaurant nestled amid a random assortment of storefronts. As I usually do when I dine alone on the road, I brought a book.
This article is concerned with the differences in REB policy and application processes across Canada as they impact multi-jurisdictional, higher education research projects that collect data at universities themselves. Despite the guiding principles
of the Tri-Council Policy Statement 2 (TCPS2) there is significant variation among the practices of Research Ethics Boards
(REBs) at Canada’s universities, particularly when they respond to requests from researchers outside their own institution.
The data for this paper were gathered through a review of research ethics applications at 69 universities across Canada. The
findings suggest REBs use a range of different application systems and require different revisions and types of oversight for
researchers who are not employed at their institution. This paper recommends further harmonization between REBs across
the country and national-level dialogue on TCPS2 interpretations.
Keywords: research ethics, university ethics, higher education, social science research, harmonization
This essay is based on an episode of the University of Technology Sydney podcast series “The New Social Contract”. This audio series examines how the relationship between universities, the state and the public might be reshaped as we live through this global pandemic.
Leesa Wheelahan
Have you ever become so frustrated with students and overwhelmed by your workload that you start questioning what you are doing? At times it can feel suffocating. Baruti Kafele, an educator and motivational speaker offers a perspective of being mission-oriented to educators and others working with young people in our nation’s classrooms. He suggests affirming your goals and motivations to facilitate successes among students. However, in the college classroom, it is also essential that we, as faculty members, remember and affirm our purpose, acknowledge the contributions we make in students’ lives and professional
pursuits, and respect the call or passion that brought each of us to the teaching profession.
This paper examines the policies to achieve universal participation in postsecondary education of 3 governments: those of Ontario, the UK (for England) and Australia. All 3 jurisdictions have high tuition fees and already have high access yet seek to further increase participation and attainment. But they do so in very different ways. The paper compares the governments’ policies on financing, relations between institutions, the involvement of community colleges and the role of private institutions in progressing towards universal postsecondary education. The paper finds two different approaches to achieving government goals in higher education – by formal planning and by constructing a market – and suggests that each is likely to achieve the goals government set for them.