In 2008, the OECD launched the AHELO feasibility study, an initiative with the objective to assess whether it is possible to develop international measures of learning outcomes in higher education.
Learning outcomes are indeed key to a meaningful education, and focusing on learning outcomes is essential to inform diagnosis and improve teaching processes and student learning. While there is a long tradition of learning outcomes’ assessment within institutions’ courses and programmes, emphasis on learning outcomes has become more important in
recent years. Interest in developing comparative measures of learning outcomes has increased in response to a range of higher education trends, challenges and paradigm shifts.
AHELO aims to complement institution-based assessments by providing a direct evaluation of student learning outcomes at the global level and to enable institutions to benchmark the performance of their students against their peers as part of their improvement efforts. Given AHELO’s global scope, it is essential that measures of learning outcomes are valid across
diverse cultures and languages as well as different types of higher education institutions (HEIs).
The purpose of the feasibility study is to see whether it is practically and scientifically feasible to assess what students in higher education know and can do upon graduation within and across these diverse contexts. The feasibility study should demonstrate what is feasible and what could be feasible, what has worked well and what has not, as well as provide lessons and
stimulate reflection on how learning outcomes might be most effectively measured in the future.
Toronto, January 29, 2013 – Students who transfer from college to university to complete their undergraduate degree are likely to save themselves and the government money, and they often earn grades equivalent to students who go directly into university from high school, according to a new study from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO).
finds that in most jurisdictions examined outside Ontario, the total cost to students and the government of a degree earned through two years at college followed by two years at university (2+2) is lower than the cost of a four-year university program, with potential savings of from 8-29% per student over the course of four years. Study author David Trick notes that the 2+2 model is rare in Ontario, with most college-to-university transfer arrangements requiring additional courses that reduce or eliminate the potential financial savings.
The study uses published data on the transfer experiences in Alberta, British Columbia, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland and nine U.S. states, supplemented by interviews with higher education officials, and compares these experiences with recent data for Ontario. Trick says that better college-to-university pathways could make an important contribution to meeting the growing demand for baccalaureate education at an affordable cost. His study identifies three pathways for consideration:
· Creating two-year university transfer programs at colleges in arts and business.
· Expanding pathways from college career-oriented programs to university.
· Expanding pathways from college career-oriented programs to college degrees.
These pathways are not mutually exclusive, according to Trick, and they could be combined into a system where every graduate from a two- or three-year college program with adequate marks would be guaranteed admission to a baccalaureate program in his or her region.
The study notes that transfer policies are part of a broader framework involving institutional structure, academic standards, accessibility, financial assistance and student services. Trick cautions that the transfer policy goals of other jurisdictions -- such as student choice, more spaces, less duplication of credits or smoother administration -- may differ from Ontario’s goals. “The experience of other jurisdictions suggests that policymakers need to establish clear and quantifiable goals, including appropriate deadlines and accountability,” says Trick, a former Ontario assistant deputy minister for postsecondary education and now a consultant in higher education strategy and management.
In the area of developing and maintaining their talent supply chain—how employees are hired, developed and deployed to optimally support business strategy—too many companies are neglecting the all-important entry-level positions from which many of their top-performing employees will emerge.
That’s one of the important implications of the Accenture 2014 College Graduate Employment Survey, which compares the expectations and attitudes of this year’s university graduates with the realities of the working world according to 2012 and 2013 grads. When it comes to talent development, to jobs that match an employee’s education, and even the quest for full-time work, the slightly older peers of today’s graduates tell a cautionary tale about what the job world is really like.
It’s a story that is cautionary for companies, too. If organizations are to attract and retain top talent, as well as ensure their talent supply chain is developing and deploying the people with the right skills, their management of entry-level positions needs to improve.
While competency-based education is growing, standardized tools for evaluating the unique characteristics of course design in this domain are still under development. This preliminary research study evaluated the effectiveness of a rubric developed for assessing course design of competency-based courses in an undergraduate Information Technology and Administrative Management program. The rubric, which consisted of twenty-six individual measures, was used to evaluate twelve new courses. Additionally, the final assessment scores of nine students who completed nine courses in the program were evaluated to
determine if a correlation exists between student success and specific indicators of quality in the course design. The results indicate a correlation exists between measures that rated high and low on the evaluation rubric and final assessment scores of students completing courses in the program. Recommendations from this study suggest that quality competency-based courses need to evaluate the importance and relevance of resources for active student learning, provide increased support and
ongoing feedback from mentors, and offer opportunities for students to practice what they have learned.
As with any provider of products and services to be sold, the value proposition for community colleges depends on who’s buying. Community colleges are confronted with a diverse collection of potential buyers with different needs and their own valuation of what the services are worth. The local community, businesses, state and federal governments, donors, and individual students are potential buyers and community colleges are uniquely poised to fulfill their needs.
Assessment is a very complex topic. As this essay articulates, it is meant to monitor or to measure what students have learnt. For validity and reliability, and to minimise subjectivity, standardised tests are often adopted and marks are awarded, followed by a process in which test scores are converted into grades. The grades are then recognised as measures of students’ learning attainment. But what assessment actually means is seldom articulated. Is it a measure of the body of knowledge that a student has acquired, or is it also a measure of other attributes?
This report was requested and partially funded by the University of Waterloo’s Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education (WATCACE), along with funding from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. It presents a customized analysis of findings from three surveys, undertaken in spring 2011 and spring 2012, to gather perspectives from graduating college and university students, postsecondary faculty, and Ontario employers on work-integrated learning (WIL) within a postsecondary program of study. The three surveys were funded by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) and conducted by Academica Group Inc., in partnership with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU), the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation (MEDI), as well as 14 Ontario postsecondary institutions and a variety of student associations and other stakeholders. The surveys were designed to gain a better understanding of student, faculty, and employer experiences with WIL, including motivations and barriers to participation, and perceptions of challenges and benefits. The results presented in this report provide insights into the attitudes and opinions of students and faculty from the University of Waterloo and the Ontario employers most likely to hire University of Waterloo graduates.
WHAT IS THE COMPOSITE LEARNING INDEX?
A product of the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL), the Composite
Learning Index (CLI) is Canada’s annual measure of progress in lifelong learning. It is based on a combination of statistical indicators that reflect the many ways Canadians learn, whether in school, in the home, at work or within the community.
The only index of its kind in the world, the CLI is an unprecedented measurement tool that expresses how learning in all aspects of life is critical to the success of individuals, communities and the country as a whole. On an individual level, Canadians stand to benefit from lifelong learning through higher wages, better job prospects, improved health and more fulfilling lives.
Accordingly, Canada stands to gain through a more resilient economy and stronger bonds within and between communities.
Although most Canadians are aware of the potential benefits of lifelong learning, until CCL launched the CLI in 2006 there was no way of measuring how Canadians were performing across the full spectrum of learning. To reflect this broad perspective, the CLI uses a wide range of learning indicators to generate numeric scores for more than 4,500 communities across Canada. A high CLI score means that a particular city, town or rural community possesses the kinds of learning conditions that foster social and economic well-being. A low CLI score means that a community is under-performing in certain aspects that are key to lifelong learning.
It is important to note that these scores are not meant to single out “winners” and “losers,” but rather to help Canadians understand the state of lifelong learning in their communities and to encourage them to think of concrete ways that they can improve on these conditions. With new results published on CCL’s website every spring, the CLI is an objective and reliable measurement tool that can help communities make the best possible decisions about learning—decisions that will strengthen
social ties, bolster the economy and hopefully improve people’s lives.
Explore the effects of lifelong learning
The structure of the Composite Learning Index echoes the interconnectedness and complexity of lifelong learning in the community. To help understand this relationship, CCL developed the CLI Simulator, an online tool that allows individuals to adjust and compare a selection of indicators and witness the effects those decisions can have on a community.
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.
Two years ago, the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) and its 21st-Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges issued a bold call to action: If community colleges are to contribute powerfully to meeting the needs of 21st-century students and the 21st-century economy, education leaders must reimagine what these institutions are—and are capable of becoming.
At that time, the Commission’s report, Reclaiming the American Dream: Community Colleges and the Nation’s Future, set a goal of increasing rates for completion of community college credentials (certificates and associate degrees) by 50% by 2020, while preserving access,
enhancing quality, and eradicating attainment gaps across groups of students. The report set forth seven major recommendations, all of which are connected to attaining that goal.
In his book, The World is Flat, author Thomas L. Friedman argues the barriers that used to separate countries – such as commerce and the movement of people – are gone, leaving the world more integrated, mobile and open to competition from all. Only countries that understand how to embrace this new reality will thrive in the world economy of the future. Creativity is always looking for a better home, as the Canadian Urban Institute and Jane Jacobs have argued.
ABSTRACT
Creativity is widely accepted as being an important outcome of schooling. Yet there are many different views about what it is, how best it can be cultivated in young people and whether or how it should be assessed. And in many national curricula creativity is only implicitly acknowledged and seldom precisely defined. This paper offers a five dimensional definition of creativity which has been trialled by teachers in two field trials in schools in England. The paper suggests a theoretical underpinning for defining and assessing creativity along with a number of practical suggestions as to how creativity can be developed and tracked in schools. Two clear benefits of assessing progress in the development of creativity are identified: 1) teachers are able to be more precise and confident in developing young people’s creativity, and 2) learners are better able to understand what it is to be creative (and to use this understanding to record evidence of their progress). The result would seem to be a greater likelihood that learners can display the full range of their creative dispositions in a wide variety of contexts.
RÉSUMÉ
La créativité est largement acceptée comme étant un résultat scolaire important. Pourtant il y a beaucoup d’opinions différentes sur ce qu’elle est, comment on peut la cultiver chez les jeunes gens, et si et comment on devrait l’évaluer. De plus, dans beaucoup de programmes scolaires, la créativité n’est reconnue que de manière implicite et rarement définie de manière précise. Ce document offre une définition de la créativité reposant sur cinq dimensions, qui a été testée par des enseignants durant deux expériences de terrain dans des écoles en Angleterre. Le document propose un soubassement théorique pour définir et évaluer la créativité ainsi que nombre de suggestions pratiques sur le développement et le suivi de la créativité à l’école. Deux bénéfices clairs d’évaluer le progrès dans le développement de la créativité sont identifiés : 1) les enseignants peuvent être plus précis et confiants lorsqu’ils développent la créativité des jeunes gens, et 2) les apprenants sont davantage en mesure de comprendre ce que « être créatif » signifie (et à utiliser cette compréhension pour documenter et relater leur progrès). Le résultat semble être une plus grande probabilité que les apprenants témoignent de toute l’étendue de leurs dispositions à la créativité dans un large éventail de contextes.
This paper first discusses cooperative learning and provides a rationale for its use in higher education. From the literature, six elements are identified that are considered essential to the success of cooperative learning: positive interdependence, face-to-face verbal interaction, individual accountability, social skills, group processing, and appropriate grouping.
Three distinct approaches at the postsecondary level are described in the fields of Medicine, Dentistry and Mathematics, and feedback from faculty and students is reported. The three approaches are presented within the context of the disciplines and are compared across the disciplines with respect to the essential six elements. Finally, the authors share some lessons learned from their research and experience in order to assist faculty who wish to incorporate cooperative learning into their teaching.
One of the most challenging issues post-secondary campuses face today is mental health. Unlike most other health issues, mental illness still has a stigma attached to it, so the temptation is to cover up the problem—but this can lead to serious, and sometimes tragic, consequences.
Addressing this challenge is a priority for colleges and universities, whose leaders are committed to providing help for everyone who needs it. While much has been done to more effectively deliver these services, there is still more to do. This task is particularly important at post-secondary institutions, since young people age 15 to 24 are the least likely to seek assistance.
Michael L. Skolnik
University of Toronto
ABSTRACT
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.
RÉSUMÉ
Depuis le début des années 1960 et jusqu’au début des années 1970, lorsqu’on créait des réseaux de collèges communautaires partout en Amérique du Nord, deux modèles majeurs étaient proposés pour ces nouveaux réseaux. Dans un des modèles, le collège combinait l’enseignement général universitaire de division inférieure avec les programmes d’enseignement technique ; dans l’autre, la plupart des collèges, sinon tous, se concentraient sur l’enseignement technique. L’Ontario était la plus importante parmi les provinces et les États en Amérique du Nord qui ait opté pour le deuxième modèle. Beaucoup des défis
auxquels les planifi cateurs ont été confrontés lorsqu’ils ont conçu le réseau des collèges sont encore présents ou sont réapparus au cours des dernières années. Cet article réexamine l’ancien débat sur la conception des collèges de l’Ontario et considère ses implications actuelles.
Understanding Community Colleges brings together a variety of subjects and issues that face community colleges as they evolve in the higher education landscape. The edition is organized into four sections that cover three arenas: students, administration
and leadership issues, and workforce development. Each chapter, regardless of author, does a quality job of explaining the historical context of the given issue and the development or change that is occurring for community colleges nationwide. The text is accessible for those unfamiliar with community colleges and does not fall into the writing traps of consistently comparing community colleges to four-year institutions. Instead, each chapter treats community colleges as stand-alone entities,
examining them in each particular setting with no preconceived notions.
Technology’s potential to transform education has become a mantra of the 21st century. Much has been said about the tools and solutions that can provide opportunities for enhanced student learning. Frequent discussions have focused on the need for schools to have a robust infrastructure that supports continually evolving educational models. However, not as much has been written about the teacher’s role in this dynamic environment and the fundamentally new and different functions teachers
may have. The days of teachers covering a defined number of pages in a textbook and assigning work at the end of a chapter are quickly disappearing. Instructors are leveraging technologies that give students access to interactive content from myriad sources. In this digital classroom, the teacher is more than a static oracle of information who delivers lectures. Instead, he or she is an active participant and facilitator in each student’s path of discovery and exploration.
Abstract
This paper analyzes the ideological orientations of Canadian university professors based on a unique 2000 study of a representative sample of Canadian academics (n=3,318). After summarizing methodological problems with extant research on this subject, and tentatively comparing the political views of Canadian and American academics, the paper demonstrates that Canadian academics fall to the left of the political spectrum but are not hugely different in this respect from the Canadian university-educated population. Multivariate analyses reveal considerable heterogeneity in the ideological views of Canadian professors, suggesting that contemporary characterizations of the North American professoriate as left- or right-leaning tend to be overdrawn. Multivariate analyses demonstrate the importance of disadvantaged status and disciplinary socialization in shaping professors’ ideological views, although self selection processes are not discounted.
Résumé
Cet article analyse les orientations idéologiques des professeurs des universités canadiennes selon une étude unique datant de l’an 2000 et portant sur un échantillon représentatif composé de 3 318 professeurs d’université du Canada. Après avoir résumé les problèmes méthodologiques avec une recherche approfondie sur le sujet, puis tenté de comparer les vues politiques de professeurs d’universités canadiennes et américaines, l’article démontre que les professeurs d’université du Canada se situent à la gauche de l’éventail politique,sans être très différents de l’ensemble des diplômés universitaires du Canada. Les analyses
multidimensionnelles révèlent une hétérogénéité considérable des vues idéologiques des professeurs canadiens, suggérant ainsi que les aractérisations contemporaines selon lesquelles le professorat nord-américain se situe soit vers la droite, soit vers la gauche, ont tendance à être à exagérées. Les analyses multidimensionnelles démontrent l’importance de la socialisation disciplinaire et du statut de défavorisé pour former les vues idéologiques des professeurs, même si les processus d’autosélection ne sont pas pris en compte.
M. Reza Nakhaie
University of Windsor
Robert J. Brym
University of Toronto
Incoming students at Seneca College and at most other community colleges in Ontario undergo a post-admission
English language skills assessment. The assessment is used to diagnose their writing needs and
to place them into a course appropriate to their level of proficiency.
Over the past five years, an increasing number of incoming students at Seneca have been placed into a developmental English course called EAC149 (in 2005, 38.0 per cent; in 2009, 43.4). EAC149 is a four-hourper- week, non-credit reading and writing course designed to prepare students for college-level English.
While developmental or remedial classes are not necessarily associated with lower academic success (Attewell, Lavin, Domina & Levey, 2006), our records indicate that a lower success rate in EAC149 puts students at a pronounced risk of not graduating from Seneca College. Effective methods to encourage successful completion of EAC149 may thus increase students’ chances of graduating from their programs.
This project assessed the impact of tablet technology and DyKnow interactive software on the development of
students’ writing skills in EAC149. Tablets enable individuals to use a pen-like instrument called a stylus to
take notes, record marginal comments and modify digital text in a manner similar to writing with a pen on
paper. DyKnow interactive software enables teachers to share and record digital content and collaborate with
students individually and collectively as a classroom session proceeds. With each tablet linked to DyKnow
interactive software, a teacher can display the work of individual students anonymously on a screen for
viewing by all class members and incorporate notations and marginal comments as they discuss the text.
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.