One of the many lessons learned from the early years of distance education is the fact that you cannot simply pluck an instructor out of the classroom, plug him into an online course, and expect him to be effective in this new and challenging medium. Some learned this lesson the hard way, while others took a proactive approach to faculty training. All of us continue to refine our approach and discover our own best practices.
Today, it’s possible to learn much from the mistakes and successes of those who blazed the trail before us. Faculty development for distance educators is a critical component of all successful distance education programs. Well thought-out faculty development weaves together needed training, available resources, and ongoing support, and carries with it the same expectations for quality teaching that institutions of higher education have for their face-to-face classes.
This special report, Faculty Development in Distance Education: Issues, Trends and Tips, features 12 articles pulled from the pages of Distance Education Report, including:
• Faculty Development: Best Practices from World Campus
• Developing Faculty Competency in Online Pedagogy
• A Learner-Centered, Emotionally Engaging Approach to Online Learning
• How to Get the Best Out of Online Adjuncts
• Workload, Promotion, and Tenure Implications of Teaching Online
• Four Steps to Just-in-Time Faculty Training
This report is loaded with practical strategies that can help you build a comprehensive
faculty development program, helping ensure that instructors stay current in both online
pedagogy and practical technical know-how. No matter what the particular character of
your program is, I think you’ll find many ideas you can use in here.
Christopher Hill
Editor
Distance Education Report
[email protected]
Many immigrant youth view postsecondary education (PSE) as an important, even essential, means of economic mobility and social integration (Cheung, 2007). Gaining access to a PSE program builds on a record of academic engagement and achievement in high school. There is, however, mounting evidence of considerable variability in the preferences, performance, and eventual post-high school (PHS) pathways of immigrant students (Anisef et al., 2008; Thiessen, 2009). Many high school graduates enrol in a college or university while others either delay PSE entry or move directly to the labour market and a significant number leave before graduating. The PHS pathways of immigrant youth, then, can involve transitions to the
postsecondary system, the labour market, or both. The bases for these decisions are complex and include personal characteristics, family resources, and community support factors as well as the individual’s school and classroom experiences (McAndrew et al., 2009).
Previous research on the high-school transitions of immigrant youth in Canada has several limitations (Boyd, 2008). First, studies on school achievement and educational aspirations of immigrants have compared 'immigrant' versus 'non-immigrant' groups. These studies have found few aggregate differences between those born in Canada and those born outside Canada. Such comparisons conceal significant variations among immigrant students that affect the likelihood of PSE participation. Second, PHS planning and preparation are made relatively early in adolescents' educational careers yet most studies have employed cross-sectional or retrospective designs that did not adequately consider the effects of important antecedents on students' PHS pathway choices. Third, previous comparative research has not considered differences in immigrant generational status. First generation immigrant youth1 are those born outside Canada while those considered to be second generation were born in Canada of immigrant parents. To the extent that the school experiences and PHS aspirations of each differ, it is important to distinguish first, second (and third) generations. This is especially the 1 Please note that this term should not be confused with ˜first generation students", which refers to those who are the first in their family to attend and/or complete PSE, regardless of immigration status.
2 – Post-High School Pathways of Immigrant Youth case in the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) where 42 per cent of students are foreignborn and 38 per cent are born in Canada of immigrant parents. Only 20 per cent of TDSB students have both parents born in Canada. These students comprise the third generation, sometimes referred to as the ‘third plus’ generation, and frequently employed as a reference group in comparative research. (Yau and O’Reilly, 2007).
In this paper we disaggregate the "˜immigrant" designation by source country (region-of-origin) and generational status to examine the PHS pathways of a cohort of TDSB youth who began high school (Grade 9) in September 2000 and were tracked through the high school system until Fall, 2006.
The specific purposes of the study were to:
1. Construct profiles of the various immigrant (and non-immigrant) groups comprising the 2000 TDSB cohort.
The elements of each profile include information on students, their school, and neighbourhood characteristics as well as the reported PHS pathways they followed between 2004 and 2006.
2. Predict PHS pathway choices based on this profile information.
The PHS pathway decisions predicted were defined by: (a) those respondents that confirmed university acceptance; (b) those that confirmed community college acceptance; (c) those that graduated high school but either did not apply to PSE or did not confirm an application; and (d) those that left high school early and did not apply toPSE.
The cultural and social composition of Ontario is undergoing dramatic change as a consequence of immigration. This is most obvious in its larger metropolitan areas, particularly Toronto. In many ways, Toronto is a precursor of the demographic change the rest of the province (and Canada) will experience within a few years as immigrant youth become the majority of the school-age population. Our aim in studying TDSB immigrant youth as they prepare for the transition from high school is to extend the literature on immigrant settlement and contribute to informed educational policy and practice.
ABSTRACT
Findings from biannual American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment surveys have highlighted the prevalence of depression, suicidal ideation, and attempted suicides on Canadian university campuses and the need for comprehensive suicide prevention programs. This article explores how one large western Canadian university has attempted to implement the comprehensive framework for suicide prevention developed by the Jed Foundation. Based on recommendations included in this framework, a multi-faceted suicide prevention strategy was developed, focusing on seven broad intervention
areas:
1) enhanced student connectedness and engagement;
2) increased community suicide awareness;
3) gatekeeper training;
4) collaborative identifi cation and treatment of depression;
5) specialized training in assessment and treatment of suicide;
6) increased accessibility to counselling services for at-risk students; and
7) enhanced crisis management policy and procedures. This article reviews relevant empirical support for these seven intervention domains, provides examples of initiatives in each domain, and identifi es implications for best practice post-secondary policy.
RÉSUMÉ
Les résultats des sondages de la « National College Health Association» soulèvent la prévalence de la dépression, des pensées suicidaires, et des tentatives de suicide parmi les étudiants des universités canadiennes et le besoin de programmes compréhensifs de prévention du suicide. Dans cet article, les auteurs décrivent l’implantation, par une université à vocation de recherche de l’ouest canadien, d’un encadrement globale voué à la prévention du suicide développé par la Fondation Jed. D’après les recommandations de la Fondation Jed, l’approche multilatérale de la prévention du suicide englobe sept dimensions d’interventions :
1) une hausse d’engagement des étudiants dans les activités universitaires et parmi les communautés étudiantes ;
2) une sensibilisation augmentée par rapport à la prévention du suicide ;
3) la formation du personnel « fi ltre» dans l’institution ;
4) une approche collaborative à l’identifi cation et le traitement de la dépression ;
5) une formation spécialisé en identifi cation et traitement du suicide ;
6) un meilleur accès des étudiants à taux de risques relevées aux services
d’assistance psychologique ; et,
7) un enrichissement des politiques
et procédures concernant la gestion des risques. Dans cet article, les auteurs résument les données appuyant les interventions décrites ci-dessus, offrent des exemples des initiatives dans chacune des dimensions listées et proposent les implications pour le renforcement des compétences universitaires dans ces domaines.
Cheryl A. Washburn
University of British Columbia
Michael Mandrusiak
Adler School of Professional Psychology
Vancouver, BC
ABSTRACT
Do students know the level of education required to achieve their career objectives? Is this information related to their education pathways? To address these questions, I compare high school students' perceptions of the level of education they will require for the job they intend to hold at age 30, with the level required according to professional job analysts. About three out of four students intending to work in a job requiring a university degree know the level of education that is required to obtain the job. Moreover, students who know that a university degree is required are more likely to attend university. Finally, higher university attendance rates are observed when students learn earlier (rather than later), that a university degree is required for their intended job.
RÉSUMÉ
Les élèves savent-ils quelles études leur permettront d’atteindre leurs objectifs de carrière? Ces renseignements sont-ils associés à leur parcours scolaire? Afi n de répondre à ces questions, je compare, d’une part, la perception qu’ont les élèves du secondaire quant au niveau d’instruction qui leur est requis pour travailler dans la profession qu’ils souhaitent exercer à l’âge de 30 ans avec, d’autre part, le niveau réellement requis selon les analystes du marché professionnel. Ainsi, environ trois étudiants sur quatre ayant l’intention d’exercer une profession qui nécessite un grade universitaire sont conscients du niveau d’instruction requis. Par ailleurs, les élèves qui sont conscients de la nécessité d’un grade universitaire ont plus de chances de fréquenter l’université. Enfi n, on observe un taux de fréquentation universitaire plus élevé chez les élèves qui ont pris conscience, plus tôt dans leur parcours, de la nécessité d’un grade universitaire pour réaliser leur aspiration professionnelle.
The BYOD Concept
The days of students carrying heavy, book-laden backpacks to school are numbered. Increasingly, students at all
levels expect to access learning materials electronically. And students expect their school to support access to the Internet from anywhere, not just from a classroom computer with a wired connection.
The push for mobile learning options isn’t just coming from students. Teachers also have high opinions of the educational value of these new tools. A PBS/Grunwald survey in 2010 reported that teachers view laptops, tablets and e-readers as having the highest educational potential of all portable technologies. The movement to mobile and digital learning reflects the exploding popularity of mobile devices among consumers and the parallel growth in wireless network services to support them. Instead of using shared or enterprise-owned computers at work, school or libraries, people now want to use their personally owned mobile devices everywhere, a trend called bring your own device (BYOD). In fact, personal computing devices are fast becoming not just a luxury in both primary and secondary education, but a necessity. The growth of more virtual, personalized learning experiences throughout the educational spectrum is engaging students like never before.
The 2010 ”Speak Up” education survey conducted by Project Tomorrow found that more than one quarter of middle school students and 35 percent of high school students use online textbooks or other online curricula as a part of their regular schoolwork. The survey also found that nearly two-thirds of parents of school-aged children see digital curriculum as a key component of the ”ideal” classroom for their student, making access to computing devices a key part of today’s educational experience.²
This trend is creating tremendous new demand levels for wireless networks. For example, one market research firm reports growth of 40 percent in enterprise wireless local area networks (WLANs) in Q2 2011, attributable in part to the BYOD trend and the tremendous popularity of the Apple iPad.³ Gartner Research supports this notion as well, concluding that without adequate preparation, iPads alone will increase enterprise WiFi demands by 300 percent.⁴
Support for this trend is also found in Center for Digital Education (CDE) interviews with K-12 district IT staff. A notable 27 percent of school IT decision-makers interviewed expressed an intent to pursue a BYOD policy.
While the percentage of higher education students with their own devices is significantly higher than at the elementary level, CDE’s Digital Community Colleges Survey reveals that they grapple with many similar technology challenges. A full 92 percent of community colleges report expanded distance learning offerings for online, hybrid and Web-assisted courses, providing ample support for their No. 1 identified technology priority: mobility. The growing popularity of mobile devices isn’t the only factor straining the capacity of educational networks today. Video, interactive learning games and other media-rich content are being
watched, created and shared by students and teachers to foster learning of both skills and subject matter. These media not only gobble up bandwidth — they may also require priority over other network traffic in order to deliver acceptable performance for in-class use. From a technical perspective, the challenge for educational institutions is supporting BYOD for students and staff with secure wireless and remote access network capabilities. Yet the movement to mobile learning isn’t just about supporting new technologies. It’s also about shifting to new ways of teaching and learning.
In the past, the term “persistence†was used somewhat interchangeably with “retention†to describe the fact of students remaining in a course of studies from one year to the next, typically at a single institution and sometimes within a particular program. Over the last few years, however, persistence has shifted in meaning to refer to the ability of students to continue their PSE studies and ultimately graduate, regardless of switches between programs or institutions or even temporary absences from PSE altogether. There is a growing recognition in Ontario and across Canada that this system-wide perspective on persistence will help government and institutions manage a highly functional, well-integrated PSE system, one in which students can avail themselves of numerous alternative educational opportunities and pathways to success.
It would be a mistake, however, to assume that these system-wide concerns are the primary arena in which PSE outcomes ought to be managed. Indeed, the concept of persistence as a process whereby students overcome obstacles is of note only in the context of the presence of initial decisions to leave and not return to a particular institution. The central aim of any university ought to be to improve its own retention of students. Indeed, a sustained focus on improving in situ retention outcomes is a vital component of an overall strategy for achieving high system-wide persistence rates. It is in the best interests of government and universities to develop the means by which retention practice efficacy can be reliably assessed, compared amongst institutions and used within institutions to actively improve retention rates.
Unfortunately, two common approaches used to calculate retention rates – the raw rate approach and the natural rate approach – are seriously flawed and cannot be recommended for use by Ontario PSE institutions as tools for managing retention practices.
The raw rate approach is transparently inadequate. The crux of the problem with raw rates is that they are essentially outcome measures unadjusted for variation in inputs. An institution that is in a position to admit students who are highly prepared academically, financially and culturally for university life at that particular institution can expect to be rewarded with relatively high outcome rates, and this without having to innovate or invest much in retention practices. Evaluating retention practice efficacy on the basis of raw rates favours institutions that are able to offload potential retention risks during the admissions process.
Another common approach used to calculate retention rates is to calculate the differences between raw rates and “expected†or “natural†rates and then to base evaluations and comparisons on these differences. Natural institutional rates are averages of the estimated probabilities of an event occurring (e.g., being retained after one year, graduating within four years) for each member of a cohort of students at an institution. One key feature of the statistical models upon which the probability estimates are based is the fact that they are system-wide models, pooling data across all institutions in the study and delivering a single set of model coefficients that is applied to all institutions. Another key feature is the fact that probability estimates are based on predictor variables that usually include only pre-entry characteristics of students and sometimes include environmental characteristics such as institution size, the field of study and whether the school primarily serves urban commuters. An institution with a raw rate that exceeds its natural rate is deemed to be performing well at
2 –Shifting from Retention Rates to Retention Risk: An Alternative Approach for Managing Institutional Student Retention Performance retaining students, whereas an institution with a raw rate that is lower than its natural rate is evaluated as performing poorly. This approach has been implemented in the United States but not in Canada.
Three interpretation problems are ingrained in the natural rate approach that impede its meaningful application: normative interpretations given to natural rates are unwarranted; attributions of causation – to students in the case of natural rates and to institutions in the case of differences between natural and raw rates – are also unwarranted and potentially misleading; and a single set of system-wide coefficients is not likely to provide useful characterizations of the realities in play at individual institutions. A large and growing body of research embeds retention processes within the local context of individual institutions and indeed individual students. As research findings accumulate, there is a deeper and growing appreciation of the fact that the PSE system is not homogeneous in terms of the magnitude or direction of relationships between factors influencing retention event occurrence and the actual occurrence of those events. Rather, processes generating retention events operate locally and with considerable variation in form and intensity amongst locales, so system-wide characterizations do not give meaningful summaries of local conditions. The natural rate approach looks like a more sophisticated, finely tuned analysis, but its looks are deceiving.
An alternative to the raw and natural rate approaches is to move away from retrospective analyses of retention rates in favour of prospective analyses of retention risks. According to this approach, institutions use historical data to develop statistical models of retention risk at the individual student level. These models are then employed to estimate for each student in a currently enrolled cohort the “risk†(expressed as a probability) of continuing with their studies beyond a certain length of time.
Writing assignments, particularly for first- and second-year college students, are probably one of those items in the syllabus that some professors dread almost as much as their students do. Yet despite the fact that essays, research papers, and other types of writing assignments are time consuming and, at times, frustrating to grade, they also are vital to furthering student learning. Of course part of the frustration comes when professors believe that students should arrive on campus knowing how to write research papers. Many do not. With as much content as professors have to cover, many feel they simply can’t take time to teach the research skills required to write a quality, college-level term paper. But as teaching professors who support the writing across the curriculum movement would tell you, improving students’ writing skills is everyone’s business, and carries with it many short- and long-term benefits for teachers and students alike. Further, many instructors are finding ways to add relevance to writing assignments by aligning them with the type of writing required in a specific profession as an alternative to the traditional, semester-long research paper. This special report was created to provide instructors with fresh perspectives and proven strategies for designing more effective writing assignments. It features 11 articles from The Teaching Professor, including:
. Revising the Freshman Research Assignment
. Writing an Analytical Paper in Chunks
. Designing Assignments to Minimize Cyber-Cheating
. Chapter Essays as a Teaching Tool
. Writing (Even a Little Bit) Facilitates Learning
. How to Conduct a ‘Paper Slam’
In the past few decades, those of us working in institutions of higher education have seen an instructional paradigm shift. Given the growth in research on learning, our views of how people learn best have developed over the last few decades; from behaviorist perspectives of learning, we have also come to understand learning from cognitive and social perspectives. (For a more in-depth discussion of these issues, see Barkley, Major, and Cross, 2014, as well as articles in this special issue). This development has caused higher education instructors to modify their instructional practices as a result. Many instructors have moved away from a sole diet of traditional lecture, with the occasional short-answer question to the class in which students listen, repeat, and occasionally apply, toward a modified menu of pedagogical platforms in which, much of the time, students are active participants in the learning process. Higher education faculty, then, have gone about this task of engaging students actively in learning in a number of important ways by adopting a range of instructional approaches.
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
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
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.
While much of the world is understandably focused on the current recession, there is a looming demographic and labour market
crisis which has the potential to shake the very foundations of our society and economy. Our population is aging; as the baby boomer generation advances into the age of normal retirement, there will be a significant decline in the proportion of our opulation in the prime working years (15 to 64). Using Ontario Ministry of Finance data, the projected shortfall in the availability of workers is shown to rise to at least 200,000, and to as high as 1.8 million by 2031,depending on our levels of population growth.
Even in the midst of a recession, we have to understand that a labour shortage looms. Unfortunately, this is only half of the bad news. At the same time as our population is aging, the requirements of the labour market are changing. With the emergence of our knowledge economy, the proportion of the labour force requiring some form of education or training beyond high school will increase dramatically.
Using a variety of Canadian and U. S. estimates,it is concluded that by 2031 we will need 77% of our workforce to have post-secondary credentials (apprenticeship, university, college, industry, professional). Overall, we now stand at about 60%, with our younger population (25 to 34 years of age) at just over 66%. So, we will need both a larger workforce and increased skills. For potential solutions, increasing the size of the population (immigration) with more skilled workers could help, but it will not solve the problem. Increasing the participation rates of those currently under-represented in the labour force is another option that needs to be explored, as do ways of accelerating graduations, increasing employer-provided training, improving literacy rates, and creating a more unified educational system. But what is most clearly needed is a change in our society’s attitude towards post-secondary education.
We have to accept attainment of post-secondary education or training as the expectation for all but a small minority of Ontarians. Without effective action, we face a future with large numbers of unskilled workers looking for jobs that require skills they do not possess, and a large number of jobs that will go unfilled. The time for action is now. It will take planning, hard work, cooperation, and difficult decisions to secure our future. An alternative outcome is simply unacceptable.
Rick Miner Report
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.
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.
Study shows faculty members remain skeptical of digital course materials and generally unfamiliar with open educational resources.
In Ottawa on March 30, 2010, the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) presented a stock taking to
parliamentarians from all political parties.
Why a stock taking? As in any field of human endeavour, serious intent to improve in learning demands rigorous, regular and honest assessment of advances made and not made over a defined period of time. That is why schools employ report cards.
During its first iteration, corresponding to the federal funding that supported CCL from its inception in 2004 until March, 2010, CCL performed a unique function. As Canada’s only national organization reporting to residents in every corner of the land on progress in all phases of learning across the lifecycle (from early childhood through K-12 education, post-secondary education, workplace training and adult literacy and learning) CCL served as a catalyst towards a national discussion on the social and economic importance of learning. Taking Stock of Canada’s Progress in Lifelong Learning: Progress or Complaceny? builds on our report to parliamentarians. It brings to Canadians in richer detail and context the information and analysis that we shared with the parliamentary bodies which allocated the funding to CCL that the Government of Canada terminated in March. It is universally acknowledged that learning, as defined broadly to encompass much more than school based education, is a main driver of many attributes that societies value: individual opportunity and development, productivity, innovation, prosperity, and social cohesion. That was the reasoning behind the articulation in 2006 by the Government of Canada of a “Knowledge Advantage” that would provide a “leg up” in a fiercely competitive global environment.
But have we made the progress anticipated by government in building a “knowledge advantage?” Are there domains in which we are surpassing other member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)? Where are we falling behind?
CCL emphasizes that past results do not guarantee future success. The fundamental issue is whether Canada is establishing conditions for future international competitiveness in knowledge and learning. Is Canada making the progress in lifelong learning that will differentiate societies that flourish from those that flounder; or have we—at our peril—become complacent?
It appears common in Canadian discourse on issues of education and learning to begin with an assertion to the effect that Canada is doing well; followed by the usual admission that improvement is, of course, desirable and necessary. This report does not dabble in polite niceties because such misleading pleasantries merely mask the current reality that is CCL’s task to set before Canadians. When we stood before parliamentarians in March, 2010, to elucidate our findings, conclusions, and
recommendations, our goal was to provide decision-makers with the information and analysis they need to develop effective approaches to learning. These approaches are the only means of keeping Canada competitive in the global, knowledge-based economy. We gave them some good news, but we were also frank about the bad news. This included the fact that Canada, unlike many OECD countries, possesses no coherent, cohesive or coordinated national approach to education and lifelong learning. Yet, our international competitors either already have one, or they are working diligently to create one.
That means that as we stand still, we are losing ground. We insisted bluntly that Canada put its house in order. We described the consequences of failing to recognize the urgency to act, as well as some attractive alternatives leading to improvement in learning outcomes, that are open to this country.
This Taking Stock report is intended to provide more than a summation of CCL’s research and analysis. It offers an opportunity to translate the rhetoric of lifelong learning into action that can make a difference.
There still remains time for Canada to establish the conditions required for success in the future. Will we
seize that opportunity?
In the traditional college classroom today, faculty and students arrive with a certain set of expectations, shaped largely by past experiences. And although students may need the occasional (or perhaps frequent) reminder of what’s required of them, there’s usually something very familiar about the experience for both faculty and students alike. In the online classroom, an entirely new set of variables enters the equation. It’s a little like trying to drive in a foreign country. You know how to drive, just like you know how to teach,but it sure is hard to get the hang of driving on the left side of the road, you’re not quite sure how far a kilometer is, and darn it if those road signs aren’t all in Japanese. This special report explains the “rules of the road” for online teaching and learning and features a series of columns that first appeared in the Distance Education Report’s “Between
the Clicks,” a popular column by Dr. Lawrence C. Ragan, Director of Instructional Design and Development for Penn State’s World Campus.
The articles contained in the report will help you establish online instructor best practices and expectations, and include the following principles of effective online teaching:
• Show Up and Teach
• Practice Proactive Course Management Strategies
• Establish Patterns of Course Activities
• Plan for the Unplanned
• Response Requested and Expected
• Think Before You Write
• Help Maintain Forward Progress
• Safe and Secure
• Quality Counts
• (Double) Click a Mile on My Connection
These principles, developed at Penn State’s World Campus, outline the core behaviours of the successful online instructor, and help to define parameters around the investment of time on part of the instructor. In his articles, Ragan identifies potential barriers and limitations to online learning, and specific strategies to assist instructors in achieving the performance expectations.
What is Student Development Theory?
Student development is the way that a student grows, progresses, or increases his or her developmental capabilities as a result of enrollment in an institution of higher education. There are three types of development:
• Change is an altered state, which may be positive or negative and progressive or regressive.
y Growth is an expansion, but may be positive or negative to overall functioning.
i Development is positive growth.
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.
What’s working in adult learner recruitment and marketing and which practices are most widely used? To find out, Ruffalo Noel Levitz conducted a 72-item, web-based poll in April 2015 as part of the firm’s continuing series of benchmark polls for higher education. Because undergraduate and graduate programs often employ similar practices to attract adult learners, this report combines its findings across undergraduate and graduate levels. For a profile of the poll respondents, please refer to the Appendix, page 41. Note that all respondents in this study had at least one adult-focused degree program.