The Ontario Association of Career Colleges (OACC) is eager to work with the Ontario Government to help shape the vision that is in the best interests of all Ontarians, and we strongly endorse the principle that “Increased innovation in the PSE sector will improve student learning options, meet the needs of lifelong learners, enhance quality, and ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the sector”. By working side-by-side, the Ontario government and all education stakeholders – public and private – can build a world-class postsecondary education system. Career Colleges are an integral component in the
continuum of the province’s postsecondary system and are well positioned to inform the government’s consultations and actively address the challenges associated with developing a highly skilled, globally competitive labour force in communities across the province.
The modernization and increased productivity that are essential to Ontario’s postsecondary system and the economic prosperity of the Province must recognize the value of, and optimally integrate all four pillars of program delivery – Career Colleges, Community Colleges, Universities, and Apprenticeship Programs. If Ontario is to keep pace globally, we must develop strategic policies and mechanisms that support the Career College sector’s potential to contribute to the province’s economic well-being.
The Career College sector in Ontario currently offers more than 5,000 programs at over 600 campuses in 70 communities. It employs 12,000 staff, and annually produces approximately 50,000 skilled graduates at a minimal cost to taxpayers, due to the fact that Career Colleges receive no direct operating funds from the government. By choosing to study at Career Colleges, those 50,000 graduates save taxpayers more than $1 billion per annum. At the same time, the Career College sector generates
more than $94 million in business and payroll taxes. The sector is efficient, productive, flexible, innovative and accountable. It is able to shape and expand its programming to quickly adjust to market forces, thereby complementing the educational offerings of the other three pillars.
This report documents the central role of the college-educated workforce in improving labour productivity across the economy and supporting an innovation culture in the workplace. It describes critical “enabling occupations” that play a key role in allowing companies to build a culture of innovation in the workplace which they need if they are to continually restructure for success. It develops a “Prosperity Cycle” model and demonstrates the importance of college graduates in building a culture of innovation in a dozen key Ontario industries.
The past few years have ushered in more strident calls for accountability across institutions of higher learning. Various internal and external stakeholders are asking questions like "Are students learning what we want them to learn?" and "How do the students' scores from one institution compare to its peers?" As a result, more institutions are looking for new, more far-reaching ways to assess student learning and then use assessment findings to improve students' educational experiences.
However, as Trudy Banta notes in her article An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators, “just as simply weighing a pig will not make it fatter, spending millions simply to test college students is not likely to help them learn more.†(p. 6)
While assessing institutional effectiveness is a noble pursuit, measuring student learning is not always easy, and like so many things we try to quantify, there’s much more to learning than a number in a datasheet. As Roxanne Cullen and Michael Harris note in their article The Dash to Dashboards, “The difficulty we have in higher education in defining and measuring our outcomes lies in the complexity of our business: the business of learning. A widget company or a fast-food chain has clearly defined goals and can usually pinpoint with fine accuracy where and how to address loss in sales or glitches in production or service. Higher education is being called on to be able to perform similar feats, but creating a graduate for the 21st century workforce is a very different kind of operation.†(p. 10) This special report Educational Assessment: Designing a System for Mo re Meaningful Results features articles from Academic Leader, and looks at the assessment issue from a variety of
different angles. Articles in the result include:
.The Faculty and Program-Wide Learning Outcome Assessment
. Assessing the Degree of Learner-Centeredness in a Department or Unit
. Keys to Effective Program-Level Assessment
. Counting Something Leads to Change in an Office or in a Classroom
. An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators
Whether you're looking to completely change your approach to assessment, or simply improve the efficacy of your current assessment processes, we hope this report will help guide your discussions and eventual decisions.
The members of the Principal’s Commission on Mental Health are pleased to submit their
final report to Principal Daniel Woolf.
This report is the result of a year-long process embedded in comprehensive input from the Queen’s and broader communities. Commissioners Lynann Clapham, Roy Jahchan, Jennifer Medves, Ann Tierney and David Walker (Chair) heard from students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, mental health professionals and community members, all of whom generously gave their time to provide valuable insight and expertise.
Following the release of a discussion paper in June "&!", extensive feedback was received, for which commission members were most grateful. This input has been integrated into this final report.
A New Model for Effective Teaching
How might education change if classrooms become places of active learning, not just passive listening? Higher education students are already active learners, using e-books, Web content, and social media to explore and discover in their daily lives. But what happens when these students go to the classroom, especially for high-enrollment courses? They sometimes experience the curiosity-stifling thud of having to listen to and take notes on a lecture, with its mostly one-way communication format. And with limited opportunities for Q&A during the class session and no ability to review the lecture content later to study a difficult concept, it’s no wonder students may become discouraged and disengaged.
This traditional learning model won’t cut it with students who are accustomed to active learning, either on their own or in small groups of classmates. Students increasingly expect a classroom experience that helps them develop knowledge for themselves, not just passively receive one-dimensional information. Students want to do something meaningful with content instead of just listening to a lecture. They also expect to meet with discussion groups and project teams and
do much of their assigned work during class time instead of meeting separately.
Another factor that is playing a role in student perceptions: the value gained from education in a tough economy. Instructors need to make education worth a student’s investment of time and money by ensuring the classroom experience is productive and meaningful. These expectations are leading higher education toward “flipped” classrooms and a learning model that blends online and in-class learning. Respondents to the Center for Digital Education’s 2011 Community Colleges Survey indicated the majority of their students enroll in online or blended courses and that more than two-thirds of online courses used some type of online collaboration tools to promote learning.
The connection between classroom learning and practical experience in the workplace has been recognized as a significant aspect of student development in postsecondary institutions (Kuh, 2008). Internships have been associated with many benefits for each party involved, including the student, postsecondary institution and industry professional. Internships provide opportunities for students to transfer theoretical knowledge to a practical setting; they serve as recruitment avenues for postsecondary institutions and provide industry professionals with access to high-quality students with current academic knowledge. Despite the perceived importance of internships for student development, researchers and practitioners have a limited understanding of what constitutes an “internship” and of how to deliver these experiences effectively. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to examine the internship opportunities currently offered by direct-entry programmes (e.g., undergraduate degree or diploma) in Ontario postsecondary institutions.
Leadership Development:
An Annotated Bibliography
What is a typical budget and staff size for admissions and recruitment for private vs. public and small vs. large institutions? To answer this question and provide up-to-date benchmarks, Noel-Levitz conducted a brief, web-based poll of enrollment and admissions officers across the United States in the fall of 2013. The poll was part of the firm’s ongoing series of benchmark polls for higher education.
There are two major forces driving education today. The first is the economic reality that forces schools to
make the most effective use of dollars to improve student outcomes. The second is the exponential growth in digital tools — and subsequently digital content — that provides the foundation to transform and improve how instructors teach and how students learn. Let's address the economic driver first. For far too long the education sector has lagged behind the private
sector in adopting efficiencies and capabilities derived from technology. Virtually every other sector in the economy has been computerized, modularized and transformed over the past 30 years. Although there have been leaders for change, as witnessed by the efforts we applaud in this Yearbook, change has been difficult and delayed. The recent recession has only forced this issue to the forefront.
The second driver is technological. Digital content, more sophisticated assessment tools and myriad personal and mobile computing devices are emerging and taking center stage — all aimed at improving student achievement and preparing students to thrive in the careers of a digital economy. These emerging technologies, led by a cadre of educational technologists, are leading us down the right path. This Yearbook aims to help the education community continue on the right path. The first part of the Yearbook takes a look at IT spend, funding opportunities and top trends of the 2010-2011 school year to shed some light on what technologies are top of mind and how to fund them. The second part highlights 50 education innovators that have led the way and provided best-practice models to imitate. This look at what was done, who is doing it and where we are going is intended to provide inspiration and guidance to education leaders on their own innovative quests in education.
THE ENVIRONICS INSTITUTE FOR SURVEY RESEARCH was established by Michael Adams in 2006 to promote relevant and original public opinion and social research on important issues of public policy and social change. It is through such research that organizations and individuals can better understand Canada today, how it has been changing, and where it may be heading.
The present system of academic credentials awarded by Ontario’s colleges was established nearly a half century ago. It is thus appropriate to consider how well some of those credential titles fit in the global lexicon of academic credentials as it has evolved over the last half century and whether they are still appropriate today.
Presently the term for the credential that is awarded by colleges in Ontario upon completion of a program of two years’ duration is diploma. In 1995, noted community college scholar John Dennison of the University of British Columbia observed that “there is not a clear appreciation of what a diploma means”, and this “results in an undervaluation of the diploma from a CAAT” (Dennison, 1995, p. 13).
Residential schooling in Canada’s North deserves its own consideration for a number of reasons.
First, its history is more recent than that of residential schooling in the rest of the country. As late as 1900 there were only two residential schools north of the sixtieth parallel. By 1950 there were only six residential schools and one hostel in the North. This slow growth reflects the fact that while the overall goals of the Canadian govern-ment’s Aboriginal policy were to assimilate, civilize, and Christianize, this policy was not applied in a uniform manner. Where there was no pressing demand for Aboriginal lands, the federal government delayed taking on the obligations that Treaties created. This was particularly true in the North. As long as there was no prospect of economic development or of the arrival of large numbers of non-Aboriginal settlers, the federal government was not prepared to negotiate with northern Aboriginal peoples. Nor was it interested in establishing reserves or residential schools—or any sort of school, for that matter. Were it not for the work of Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries, residential schooling would have no history north of the sixtieth parallel before 1950.
A second distinct feature of the situation in the North was the fact that, in the years after 1950, the Canadian government did not simply extend the existing southern res-idential school system into northern Canada. Instead the federal government created a system of day schools and hostels under the direction of Northern Affairs rather than Indian Affairs. This system was intended from the start to be integrated into, not separate from, the public school system of the day. Unlike the southern schools, the northern schools made no attempt to restrict admission to First Nations students, so Métis and Inuit, along with a number of non-Aboriginal students, also attended them. At the end of the 1960s, these schools were transferred from the federal government to the governments of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.
Mathematics is an integral part of the curriculum in the Ontario community college system. Most students are required to take at least one, often several mathematics courses during their college studies. Almost all students enrolled in business and technology programs take several courses in mathematics. Most colleges administer some form of placement/diagnostic math test. At some colleges, the results of the test will help in the proper placement of first semester students into a developmental (remedial) math course or a first semester math course. For a variety of reasons, many of our students struggle with math. According to the College Mathematics Project report 2009,i 33 per cent of our students received a D or F or withdrew
from the course. College faculty who teach mathematics come from diverse backgrounds.
Education levels range from baccalaureates to PhDs with degrees in mathematics, business, engineering, and education to name a few. Many of our faculty members have had little formal training in education. An opportunity to share, discuss, and learn from one another about teaching and teaching practices can therefore benefit both faculty and students. The Ontario College MathematicsAssociation Math Knowledge Exchange Network (MathKEN) has created an environment in which Ontario college mathematics educators can share exemplary teaching practices and resources in business math, developmental math, technical math, and statistics. It is important that teaching methods be shared amongst faculty to help in identifying and disseminating exemplary teaching practices. These teaching methods or practices could be something that has been tried in the classroom and the teacher feels that it is promising and would like feedback from colleagues on whether they have experienced similar results. For example, students coming into the Ontario college system come with the expectation that their studies in college will prepare them with the skills to immediately be successful in their careers.
For many of our students, contextual learningii is very important, not only for how they learn, but also for making their studies relevant to their personal and professional lives.
Faculty have learned about ways to teach from their own education and professional training, from their own learning and teaching experiences, attending courses, workshops, and conferences. Many mathematics faculty in Ontario colleges have the opportunity to share teaching practices by attending meetings and conferences sponsored by the Ontario Colleges
Mathematics Association (OCMA). Unfortunately, there are also many who are not able to attend face-to-face meetings and so miss the opportunity to share resources. For those who do attend, the long periods between meetings can lead to stagnation and de-energized teaching. Many teach in isolation, without the benefit of input and feedback from others who share the same concerns, challenges, and successes.
ABSTRACT
In analyses of higher education systems, many models and frameworks are based on governance, steering, or coordination models. Although much can be gained by such analyses, we argue that the language used in the present-day policy documents (knowledge economy, competitive position, etc.) calls for an analysis of higher education as an industry. In this paper, the university sector in Ontario’s higher education industry is analyzed by applying Michael Porter’s five forces framework defined by the following forces: the threat of new entrants, supplier power, buyer power, the threat of substitutes, and industry rivalry. Our assessment revealed that competition in Ontario’s higher education industry (university sector) is currently mixed. The findings suggest that policy-makers, the sector, and individual institutions will need to consider more seriously the impact of technology and globalization when seeking a competitive position for the Ontarian higher education system.
RÉSUMÉ
En termes d’analyse des systèmes d’enseignement supérieur, de nombreux modèles et cadres de référence sont fondés sur des modèles de gouvernance, de pilotage ou de coordination. Malgré la pertinence de ces analyses, nous soutenons que la langue utilisée dans les documents de politique actuels
(économie du savoir, position concurrentielle, etc.), notamment, incite à une analyse de l’enseignement supérieur en tant qu’industrie. L’article revoit le secteur universitaire de l’industrie de l’enseignement supérieur de l’Ontario en appliquant le modèle des cinq formes de Michael Porter, définies en fonction des forces suivantes : la menace d’entrants potentiels, le pouvoir de négociation des fournisseurs, le pouvoir de négociation des clients, la menace des produits de substitution et l’intensité de la concurrence intrasectorielle. Notre évaluation a révélé que la concurrence au sein de l’industrie de l’enseignement supérieur en Ontario (secteur universitaire) est présentement mixte. Les résultats suggèrent que les décideurs politiques, le secteur et les institutions individuelles devront prendre en compte plus sérieusement les répercussions de la technologie et de la mondialisation pour positionner de manière concurrentielle le système d’enseignement supérieur de l’Ontario.
This paper examines the relationship between individuals’ personal exposure to economic conditions and their investment choices in the context of human capital. Focusing on bachelor’s degree recipients, we find that birth cohorts exposed to higher unemployment rates during typical schooling years select majors that earn higher wages, that have better employment prospects, and that more often lead to work in a related field. Much of this switching behavior can be considered a rational response to differences in particular majors’ labor market prospects during a recession. However, higher unemployment leads to other meaningful changes in the distribution of majors. Conditional on changes in lifetime expected earnings, recessions encourage women to enter male-dominated fields, and students of both genders pursue more difficult majors, such as STEM
fields. These findings imply that the economic environment changes how students select majors, possibly by encouraging them to consider a broader range of possible degree fields. Finally, in the absence of this compensating behavior, we estimate that the average estimated costs of graduating in a recession would be roughly ten percent larger.
Abstract
Along with the amount of time spent learning (or time-on-task), the quality of learning time has a real influence on learning performance. Quality of time in online learning depends on students’ time availability and their willingness to devote quality cognitive time to learning activities. However, the quantity and quality of the time spent by adult e-learners on
learning activities can be reduced by professional, family, and social commitments. Considering that the main time pattern followed by most adult e-learners is a professional one, it may be beneficial for online education programs to offer a certain degree of flexibility in instructional time that might allow adult learners to adjust their learning times to their professional constraints. However, using the time left over once professional and family requirements have been fulfilled could lead to a reduction in quality time for learning. This paper starts by introducing the concept of quality of learning time from an online student centred perspective. The impact of students’ time-related variables (working hours, timeon-task engagement, time flexibility, time of day, day of week) is then analyzed according to individual and collaborative grades achieved during an online master’s degree program. The data show that both students’ time flexibility (r = .98) and especially their availability to learn in the morning are related to better grades in individual (r = .93) and collaborative activities (r = .46).
Keywords: E-learning; computer-supported collaborative learning; academic performance;
e-learning quality; time flexibility; time-on-task; time quality; learner time
This paper reports the results of an analysis of persistence in post-secondary education (PSE) for college students in Ontario based on the extremely rich YITS-B dataset that has been used for other recent studies at the national level. We calculate hazard or transition rates (and cumulative transition rates) with respect to those who i) graduate, ii) switch programs, and iii) leave PSE (perhaps to return later). We also look at the reasons for switching and leaving, subsequent re-entry rates among leavers, and graduation and persistence rates once switchers and re-entrants are taken into account. These patterns are then probed in more detail using hazard (regression) models where switching and leaving are related to a variety of individual characteristics, family background, high school outcomes, and early pse experiences. Student pathways are seen to be varied. Perhaps the single most important finding is that the proportion of students who either obtain a degree or continue to be enrolled somewhere in the PSE system in the years after entering a first program remains close to the 80 percent mark for the five years following entry. Seventy-one percent of students graduate within five years of starting, while another 6 percent are still in the PSE system.
Community college systems were established across North America from the early 1960s through the early 1970s. The new systems had two principal models: in one model, the college combined lower-division, university-level general
education with technical education programs; in the other, most or all of the colleges were intended to concentrate on technical education. Ontario was the largest of the provinces and states in North America that opted for the second model. Many of the issues that planners confronted when designing these college systems have either persisted or re-emerged in recent years. This
article re-examines the debate on the design of Ontario’s colleges that took place when they were founded and considers its implications for the present.
University leaders are actively addressing the issue of mental health on campuses across Canada. No longer seen as simply a question of crisis management, mental health issues are being approached in more proactive and systematic ways, as universities increasingly appreciate the advantages of prevention over reaction. “We are exploring what we need as a sector to deal with mental health issues in the post-secondary setting,” says Dr. Su-Ting Teo, Director of Student Health and Wellness at Ryerson University. Dr. Teo is co-chair of a working group on mental health for the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS), one of several inter-institutional organizations focusing on the issue. The key is to identify best practices and then put into action strategies and plans that work best for an individual institution
and its specific circumstances.
In recent years, there has been a great and growing interest in measuring educational quality in the Ontario postsecondary education sector (PSE). Colleges and universities are interested in quality measures for academic planning purposes. Reliable indicators would allow them to identify effective educational practices as well as areas for improvement and to develop strategies in the hopes of improving educational experiences for students. The government is interested for accountability reasons. Quality has become an increasingly prominent focus of the McGuinty government, which seeks not only to increase the number of PSE graduates in the province but also to ensure the quality of degrees being awarded. Robust quality measures could be used to monitor individual institutional performance and to address issues at the sector level. Reliable and comparable provincial-level quality indicators could provide answers to questions such as how the Ontario PSE system is doing compared to other jurisdictions. The problem, however, is that educational quality cannot be easily defined, measured or assessed. Traditional quality indicators consist of two types: input measures (e.g., student-faculty ratio, class size, operating revenue per student) and outcome measures (e.g., retention rate, graduation rate, employment rate). Many researchers have argued that the focus on input measures and the oversimplified use of output measures may create a misleading picture of the quality of PSE in Ontario. Using input measures as quality indicators ignores the substantial differences in the effectiveness with which
institutions use available resources. Using output measures as quality indicators ignores the fact that universities differ from one another in terms of mission, size, location and student composition.