Efforts to reduce harmful alcohol use by university students require a concentrated examination of the culture of alcohol use on campus and within the broader community. Drinking heavily among young people, even before university, is often viewed as normal and expected behaviour by youth and frequently condoned by their parents and the community because it is viewed
as a rite of passage. Adults can turn a blind eye to the practice, frequently hoping or feeling relieved that their
children aren’t using something “worse”.
This research uses the Youth in Transition Survey, Reading Cohort to compare participation in postsecondary education (PSE)in Ontario to other Canadian regions. We begin by presenting access rates by region, which reveals some substantial differences. University participation rates in Ontario are in about the middle of the pack, while college rates are relatively high. We then undertake an econometric analysis, which reveals that the effects of parental income are quite strong in the Atlantic provinces but much weaker elsewhere, including within Ontario. We also find that the relationship between high school grades and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test scores (measures of academic performance and ability differ by region and are generally strongest in Ontario. From this perspective,Ontario would appear to have a relatively “meritocratic†system, where those who are more qualified are more likely to go to university and where attendance rates are less affected by family income. Interestingly, the effects of parental education, which are generally much stronger than those of family income, are similar across regions. Understanding the reasons underlying these patterns might warrant further investigation.
This research was funded by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO), which also provided useful feedback throughout the project, but the authors retain all responsibility for the paper and opinions expressed therein. This work is based on earlier research carried out for the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation through the MESA project.
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]
The CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees is jointly sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) Board. Conducted annually since 1986, the survey provides information about applications for admission to graduate school, first-time and total graduate student enrollment, and graduate degrees and certificates conferred. The 2013 survey was sent to 793 colleges and universities, and useable responses were received from 655 institutions, for an 83% response rate.
In this article, we describe a teacher education program that attempted to deal with a teacher quality agenda by changing both the content and mode of operation of a pre-service teacher education program. We first describe the program and its differences from the standard BEd model, and then comment on research conducted into the program. We conclude the article with the proposal that robust, syndicated partnerships between schools and universities are the most likely arrangement to foster significant changes in teacher education.
Think back to your first few years of teaching. If you’re like most educators, you probably ade your share of mistakes. To be sure, we all do things differently now than we did when we were first starting out. Thank goodness for that! When Faculty Focus put out a call for articles for this special report on teaching mistakes, we really didn’t know what to expect. Would faculty be willing to share their earlier missteps for all to see? Would the articles all talk about the same common mistakes, or would the range of
mistakes discussed truly reflect the complexities of teaching today?
We were delighted at the response, not only in terms of the number of instructors willing to share their stories with our readers, but by the variety of mistakes in the reflective essays. For example, in “You Like Me, You Really Like Me. When Kindness Becomes a Weakness,” Jolene Cunningham writes of her discovery that doing everything you can for your students is not
always the best policy.
In “If I Tell Them, They Will Learn,” Nancy Doiron-Maillet writes about her realization that it’s not enough to provide information to students if they don’t have opportunities to then apply what you are trying to teach them.
Other articles in Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom include:
• When Expectations Collide
• Things My First Unhappy Student Taught Me
• Understanding My Role as Facilitator
• Don’t Assume a Student’s Previous Knowledge
• What Works in One Culture May Not Work in Another
We thank all the authors who shared their stories and know that the lessons learned will help
prevent others from making these same mistakes.
Mary Bart
Editor
Faculty Focus
Motivating students to participate in classroom discussions is a subject unto itself. The words “excruciating,” “agonizing,” and “mentally draining” may come to mind. There are some students who seem to assume that as long as the assigned work is completed on time, test scores are good, and attendance is satisfactory, they shouldn’t be forced to participate. It’s not that they don’t think participation improves the classroom experience, they just prefer that other students do the participating.
Of course we all have a few over-participators who are eager to volunteer every answer (sometimes to the point of dominating the discussion, which creates its own problems for educators and fellow students alike) but a good number of students prefer to listen,observe, or daydream rather than engage in the class discussion. Whether they’re shy, unprepared, or simply reluctant to share their ideas, getting students to participate is a constant struggle.
This special report features 11 articles from The Teaching Professor that highlight effective strategies for establishing the expectation of participation, facilitating meaningful discussion, using questions appropriately, and creating a supportive learning environment.
Articles you will find in this report include:
• Putting the Participation Puzzle Together
• Student Recommendations for Encouraging Participation
• To Call on or Not to Call on: That Continues to Be the Question
• Creating a Class Participation Rubric
• Those Students Who Participate Too Much There is some debate in the literature as to whether students have the right to remain silent in a class, but if you’re looking for ways to facilitate more effective discussions,
Tips for Encouraging Student Participation in Classroom Discussions will help.
In 2007, Colleges Ontario prepared a report for Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) that examined existing occupation-specific language training in Ontario colleges.1 The findings from that report formed the basis of the Occupation-specific Language Training (OSLT) initiative. CIC funded Colleges Ontario, in partnership with ontario colleges and ConneCt strategic alliances, to undertake the oslt initiative to develop curriculum and work with ontario colleges to conduct pilot deliveries of language training for newcomers. This report summarizes the activities conducted from April 1, 2008 to March 31, 2011.
Ontario’scolleges are highly experienced in meeting the language needs of immigrants and have a strong track
record in designing and delivering occupation-specific language training. For the OSLT initiative, the target participants were defined as newcomers who were permanent residents or protected persons with Canadian Language Benchmarks (CLB) 6 to 8 (or Niveaux de compétence linguistique canadiens 5/6 to 8).These newcomers were working in or wanted to re-enter an occupation related to their training and experience, or they wanted to take a related program of study to bridge to employment.
The Ontario government recognizes the importance of ensuring equality of access to postsecondary education (PSE). One group that has been and continues to be underrepresented in PSE is students with disabilities. As a response, the Ontario government has made improvements to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, with the end goal of making Ontario a more accessible province for people with disabilities by 2025. In addition to making changes to legislation, there has been increased funding for students with disabilities, with more than $47 million allocated in 2010-2011 to help these students achieve
success in PSE. The Ontario government now also provides targeted funding for students with learning disabilities (Tsagris and Muirhead, 2012).
The 2005 Postsecondary Review, “Ontario: a Leader in Learning,” authored by Bob Rae, addressed issues facing students with disabilities. Key recommendations1 included:
Require institutions to reach out to students with disabilities at their schools and in their communities to ease the transition to postsecondary education. Provide funding for enhanced academic and career counselling on campus. Allow for the evolution of centres of research and service excellence and distribute funding to institutions for supports and services on the basis of the size of a given institution’s population of students with disabilities (Rae, 2005: 32).
Questions have been raised about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project decided to examine SNS in a survey that explored people’s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement. The findings presented here paint a rich and complex picture of the role that digital technology plays in people’s social worlds. Wherever possible, we seek to disentangle whether people’s varying social behaviors and attitudes are related to the different ways they use social networking sites, or to other relevant demographic characteristics, such as age, gender and social class.
Getting students to take their reading assignments seriously is a constant battle. Even syllabus language just short of death threats, firmly stated admonitions regularly delivered in class, and the unannounced pop quiz slapped on desks when nobody answers questions about the reading don’t necessarily change student behaviours or attitudes. Despite the correlation between reading and course success, many students remain committed to trying to get by without doing the reading, or only doing it very superficially, or only doing it just prior to exam dates. In return, some exasperated instructors fall into the trap of using valuable class time to summarize key points of the readings. It’s not a new problem, and clearly we can’t simply bemoan the fact that students don't read. Furthermore, doing what we’ve been doing — the threats, the endless quizzes, the chapter summaries — has failed to solve the problem. The better solution involves designing courses so that students can’t do well without reading, and creating assignments that require students to do more than just passively read.
Featuring 11 articles from The Teaching Professor, this special report was created to give faculty new ways of attacking an age-old problem. Articles in the report include:
. Enhancing Students’ Readiness to Learn
. What Textbook Reading Teaches Students
. Helping Students Use Their Textbooks More Effectively
. Text Highlighting: Helping Students Understand What They Read
. When Students Don’t Do the Reading
. Pre-Reading Strategies: Connecting Expert Understanding and Novice Learning
Whether your students struggle with the material or simply lack the motivation to read what’s assigned, this report will help ensure your students read and understand their assignments.
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.
Students from a number of groups remain underrepresented in Ontario’s universities and colleges, including low-income students, Aboriginal students, first generation students whose parents did not attend a post-secondary institution, rural and northern students, and students with dependants. Improving access to higher education for these and other underrepresented groups is widely acknowledged as essential to building a more equitable society and to competing in the increasingly knowledge-based economy. Indeed, Premier McGuinty has stated his desire to see 70 per cent of Ontarians complete post-secondary education, and achieving this target will require a concerted effort to reduce participation gaps.
This report compares eligibility for student financial aid by examining the amount of funds (both repayable and non-repayable) that a student would be eligible to receive in each province, based on their income group (low-, middle- and high-income). Provincial administration of part (or all) of financial aid has resulted in great variability in the type, quantity, and availability of resources offered to students. Individual provinces have demonstrated priorities such as debt reduction strategies, universal grants, and student independence from parental support, to name a few.
Key findings include that:
• The combination of federal, provincial and joint administered student financial aid programs are inherently complex, lack transparency, and thus, remain removed from public scrutiny and discussion.
• Appalling inequities exist in the amount of resources offered to students, based on their province of residence.
• Enormous differences in tuition between provinces are the greatest factor in determining the cost of education and therefore have a great impact on the amount of debt a student may accumulate.
• Provincial grant programs, whether needs-based or universal, are the largest contributor to debt reduction.
The Student Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy is the culmination of the efforts of the Confederation
College Mental Health Working Group over the past two years. This strategy outlines a systemic approach to promoting mental health and well-being for all students of Confederation College. This is the realization of the first phase of development of a comprehensive mental health strategy that will enable all members of the College community to realize their potential for mental health and well-being in an environment conducive to learning, working, living and connecting with others.
Mental health promotion for employees is beyond the scope of this initial document. It is recognized that employees – faculty and staff, full and part-time, require support for their own mental health and well-being in order to fully support the mental health and well-being of students. It is hoped that the mental health and well- being of employees can be addressed strategically as part of the on going work of the Mental Health Working Group, in conjunction with partners like the Workplace Wellness Committee and Human Resources.
• On April 2, 2014, Council endorsed the City's participation in the Government of Ontario's Major Capacity Expansion Call for Proposals and provided staff w ith authority to pro-actively promote Brampton as a host municipality to interested post-secondary institutions, in alignment with Brampton's Post-Secondary Education Strategy.
• Through the City's promotional efforts, senior and experienced academic leadership,supported by Centennial College (the Proponents), approached the City of Brampton to be a host municipality for a new university.
• For Brampton to serve as host to a new university, Council is being asked to endorse the partnership with the Proponents so they may proceed with submitting a Notice of Intent application, which, if accepted, would lead to submitting a proposalto the Ontario Government's Major Capacity Expansion Call for Proposals.
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 the knowledge-based economy (KBE), a strong education system should produce a citizenry that is equipped with the tools for success: skills, competencies, and knowledge. The role of higher education in the development of the KBE is crucial because institutions are the "creators of, and venues for, cultural and social activity” (OECD, 2007: 39). Around the world, governments are aiming to provide higher education equitably and en masse while ensuring it is both of high quality and of relevance to the labour market. This is a challenge that Ontario, too, faces as it prepares its strategies to enhance the knowledge and skills of its citizens.
In keeping with Ontario's commitment to openness and transparency, the government has released the salaries of Ontario Public Service and Broader Public Sector employees who were paid $100,000 or more in 2015.
The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act requires most organizations that receive public funding from the Province of Ontario to disclose annually the names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in the previous calendar year.
Purpose
This guide is designed as a resource to support the creation of campus communities that are deeply conducive to transformative learning and mental well-being through a systemic approach to student mental health in colleges and universities in Canada. It provides a framework to support campus self-assessment, strategic goal setting, and the identification of options for change that can be used to inform planning and evaluation.
It is recognized that each post-secondary institution has unique strengths, circumstances, and needs. Therefore, while the broad areas for strategy development identified in this guide are relevant for all institutions, more specific strategies within each category need to be developed by each individual institution. This enables each institution to develop strategies that consider its own uniqueness and context. Even though the approach outlined in this guide is targeted at whole institutions, these ideas can also be used by students, staff, and faculty for individual units or departments within institutions.