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.
While Canada leads other OECD member countries in postsecondary education (PSE) participation rates, there still remain underrepresented segments of the population which are less likely to pursue PSE. Ontarians who come from low-income households, have parents with no PSE, live in a rural area, identify as an Aboriginal person, and/or have a disability are less likely to enrol in PSE (Norrie & Zhao, 2011).
Youth from some ethnic and racial groups are also less likely to pursue PSE, particularly university (Abada, Hou, & Ram, 2008).
This paper focuses on early intervention programs as one approach to support underrepresented youth to complete secondary school and make the transition to PSE. These programs are intended to provide youth with the resources, support and information necessary to avoid dropping out of school and to increase their chances of participating in PSE (Chambers & Deller, 2011). Early intervention programs can originate within the elementary and secondary school systems, colleges, universities, community centres or other community-based organizations.
The first section of this report is a literature review summarizing the key thinking on the role of early
intervention programs in supporting access. Much of what we know in Canada about these programs is
drawn from the American context, where research on the topic has been extensive. As a result, the
literature review draws heavily from American sources, making links to the Canadian context where
possible.
In 2003 Ontario’s schools were in a troubled state. The achievement of students was ‘good’ but flat lined — stagnant results year after year. Morale of teachers was low; the schools as a whole could be characterized as ‘loosely-coupled’ and without focus. The system was downtrodden.
Now in early 2013, the overall performance of the almost 5,000 schools in the province has dramatically improved on most key measures, and continues to improve. According to international measures and independent expert assessment, Ontario is recognized as and is proven to be the best school system in the English-speaking world — and right up at the top with Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
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.
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.
The community college field is evolving dramatically. It has been 10 years since the Center for Community College Student Engagement presented results from the first national administration of its flagship survey. Over the past decade, institutions enrolling more than 80% of U.S. community college students have used Center surveys to assess their students’ engagement so they can improve institutional practice and student outcomes. This focus on engagement is one of many changes in the ways community colleges are using data to understand and improve the educational experiences of their students.
Now, as colleges increasingly understand the importance of intentionally engaging students, the field must turn to the game-changing challenge: bringing high-impact practices to scale as part of a concerted effort to increase college completion rates. In an era of growing demand, shrinking budgets, and greater accountability, meeting this challenge requires singular focus. Colleges must make decisions—about every hour spent, every dollar allocated, every policy set, and every practice implemented—based on whether those decisions will make engagement inescapable for large numbers of their students.
The Accord on the Internationalization of Education emerges from the Association of Canadian Deans of Education (ACDE), a network of deans, directors, and chairs of faculties, colleges, schools, and departments of education from across Canada. ACDE members are committed to “national, public discourse on the importance of public education in developing and sustaining a civil society (ACDE General Accord, 2006a, p.1). This Accord is the product of a shared commitment across members of the ACDE network, and is intended to speak to a diversity of stakeholders and audiences, within and external to the university communities from which it emerged. In particular, the Accord seeks to stimulate discussion of critical issues and institutional responsibilities in the internationalization of education, and to give careful consideration to representations of marginalized individuals, groups, and communities.
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.
Reporting mandates, new leeway in using federal aid, and the chance to make it a school-quality indicator all raise the issue’s profile.
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.
Welcome to the workshop. Our goal is to provide an update of the ideas from some of the key work that we are engaged in in partnership with schools and school systems around the world. We base our work on three fundamental assumptions:
1. The Moral Imperative Realized (raise the bar and close the gap for all students on deep learning goals);
2. Whole System Involvement (100% of schools and jurisdictions are engaged);
3. Precision and Practicality (clear strategies that become jointly owned).
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.
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.
Love or hate it, group work can create powerful learning experiences for students. From understanding course content to developing problem solving, teamwork and communication skills, group work is an effective teaching strategy whose lessons may endure well beyond the end of a course. So why is it that so many students (and some faculty) hate it? Although the students may not state their objections verbally, the nonverbal reactions are truly eloquent. They just sit there; only with much urging do they look at those sitting nearby and move minimally in the direction of getting themselves seated as a group. This lack of enthusiasm is at some level a recognition that it is so much easier to sit there and take notes rather than work in a group and take ownership. The resistance also derives from past experiences in groups where not much happened, or where some members did nothing while other did more than their fair share of the work.
Often very little happens in groups because students don’t tackle the tasks with much enthusiasm, but group ineffectiveness also may be the product of poorly designed and uninteresting group tasks. This special report features 10 insightful articles from The Teaching Professor that will help you create more effective group learning activities and grading strategies as well as tips for dealing with group members who are “hitchhiking†(getting a free ride from the group) or “overachieving†(dominating the group effort). Here’s a sample of the articles in the report:
. Leaders with Incentives: Groups That Performed Better
. Dealing with Students Who Hate Working in Groups
. Group Work That Inspires Cooperation and Competition
. Better Understanding the Group Exam Experience
. Use the Power of Groups to Help You Teach
. Pairing vs. Small Groups: A Model for Analytical Collaboration
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.
Fifteen of Ontario’s 24 community colleges participated in a survey conducted during the 2009/10 academic year in which data was collected to determine the frequency of mental illness, mental health problems and academic challenges in students accessing campus-based counselling and disability centres. In this study, 3,536 completed surveys based on 1,964 individual students were received, representing each of the four geographic sectors of the province; the average age of the students was 28. Of all students accessing college counselling and disability services in this study, 60.9% reported having a diagnosis of one or more mental disorders. Mood (37.5%) and anxiety (24.6%) disorders were the most prevalent individual diagnoses, followed by comorbid diagnoses (24.4%). The number of sessions students attended appeared to be related to the number of diagnoses. The mental health problems of this sample were typically stress related or interpersonal in nature. College service providers reported that 67.7% of students exhibited academic challenges (most frequently difficulties maintaining concentration), although the academic challenges reported for students with diagnoses varied. In this final report, the implications for college staff training and practices are reviewed, and directions for future research are discussed.
Leadership Development:
An Annotated Bibliography
In this article, which is grounded in my own experiences, I discuss the responsibilities of new immigrant teacher educators when teaching courses related to diversity and multiculturalism in Canada. I highlight the complexities that underlie discourses of multiculturalism in teacher education, and the important role that new immigrant teacher educators have in locating themselves
within the frame of settler colonialism in Canada. I argue that there is a need for genuine dialogue and critical reflexivity that encourage teacher educators and teacher candidates to locate themselves within a complex web of privileges and oppressions, and I explore possible new directions for teaching
multiculturalism and Indigenous content in teacher education.In this article, which is grounded in my own experiences, I discuss the responsibilities
of new immigrant teacher educators when teaching courses related
to diversity and multiculturalism in Canada. I highlight the complexities that
underlie discourses of multiculturalism in teacher education, and the important
role that new immigrant teacher educators have in locating themselves
within the frame of settler colonialism in Canada. I argue that there is a need
for genuine dialogue and critical reflexivity that encourage teacher educators
and teacher candidates to locate themselves within a complex web of privileges
and oppressions, and I explore possible new directions for teaching
multiculturalism and Indigenous content in teacher education.
Effective Practices to Enhance the Educational Quality of Structured Work Experiences Offered through Colleges and Universities
The following Guidelines are intended for use in planning, implementing, and/or judging the benefits and contributions of campus-based assessment efforts. The Guidelines were developed through conversations with institutional researchers, faculty, practitioners, and assessment scholars that focused on which aspects of the assessment process were most important in optimizing the utility ofassessment efforts on college campuses. Additionally, the authors of the Guidelines reviewed the major publications focused on assessment utilization and drew from their collective experience of over 50 years working in the area of higher education assessment.