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.
ABSTRACT
As Canadian universities seek to attract more international students, there is a need to recognize and respond to the diversity within this group and to question the binary categories of domestic students and international students.
Relying primarily on 116 qualitative interviews with international undergraduates at the University of British Columbia, we utilize American students as a case study from which to explore the complex and blurred boundaries between these two categories. Americans resemble domestic students in some respects and international students in others, yet they are often less prepared to meet adaptational challenges because they have low expectations of cultural and institutional differences. We compare the experiences of Americans and international students from other countries, as well as other groups of students who fall between the cracks of the domestic and international student classifications. We argue that, by targeting services on the basis of these broad administrative categories, categories that were created for financial purposes, the university reduces the take-up of the very services students need.
RÉSUMÉ
À une époque où les universités canadiennes cherchent à attirer de plus en plus d’étudiants internationaux, il est nécessaire de reconnaître la diversité de ce groupe et d’agir en fonction de celle-ci. Cela demande de s’interroger sur la division binaire des étudiants entre les catégories « canadien » et « international ». En nous appuyant sur 116 entrevues qualitatives avec des étudiants internationaux en études de premier cycle à l’Université de la
Colombie-Britannique, nous entreprenons une étude de cas des étudiants américains, afin d’explorer la complexité et l’imprécision des frontières entre ces deux catégories. Sur certains points, le profil des étudiants américains est semblable à celui des étudiants canadiens, mais sur d’autres, il s’apparente plutôt à celui des étudiants internationaux. Pourtant, ces étudiants américains sont souvent moins prêts à faire face à des difficultés d’adaptation, car ils ne s’attendent pas à être confrontés à des différences culturelles et institutionnelles. Nous comparons les expériences des étudiants américains avec celles d’étudiants internationaux provenant d’autres pays, ainsi qu’avec celles d’autres groupes d’étudiants dont la situation ne correspond pas aux classifications « canadien » ou « international ». Nous soutenons que, quand les services d’aide ciblent les étudiants sur la base de vastes catégories administratives conçues pour des raisons financières, l’université contribue à limiter l’utilisation des services dont les étudiants ont précisément besoin.
Though research on student attrition is plentiful and debate over theories of student persistence vigorous, less attention has been paid to the development of a model of institutional action that provides institutions guidelines for effective action to increase student persistence and in turn student success. This report describes a model of action for institutions that is intended to increase student persistence. The report does so by reviewing not only the growing body of research on effective institutional practices, but also studies of effective state and federal policy. In doing so, it seeks, for the first time, to situate institutional action within the broader context of federal and, in particular, state policy.
Every higher education institution today faces the complex challenges of serving increased enrollment levels within tight budgets. Adding to the complexity are new student expectations for the when, where and how of learning — where passive listening and doing classwork in isolation are no longer acceptable.
These challenges are prompting many colleges and universities to explore new approaches, especially blended learning, for delivering courses. Blended learning delivers higher levels of learning interactivity and collaboration and
— more importantly for student and institutional success
— higher levels of student engagement.
Abstract: This article describes the consequences for workplace e-learning of viewing organisations as political systems. Organisations tend to stratify, and potential conflicts develop between “top-down†or designer-generation of workplace systems, and “bottom-up†or learner- and practice-based approaches. The differences in the objectives, procedures, tacit knowledge and conceptions of the value of workplace e-learning between these orientations have led to conflicts that have damaged real e-learning projects in the past. Some cases from the literature are analysed to support this point. However, other examples show how these tensions may also be turned into opportunities for communication, learning and collaborative design by including a measure of operational proximity and organisational citizenship behaviour in workplace e-learning design. It is suggested that through initiatives like these, designer-generation and learner-generation of context may act as complementary checks or balances, each helping compensate for the deficits of the other, thus improving workplace e-learning effectiveness.
Keywords: workplace e-learning; professional development; learner-generated contexts; communities of practice (CoPs); conflict; co-ordination
The Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada (ARUCC) and the Pan-Canadian Consortium on Admissions and Transfer (PCCAT) have collaborated to lead an extensive study to understand current transcript and transfer credit nomenclature practices in Canada. These findings will ultimately inform a comprehensive update and expansion of the 2003 ARUCC National Transcript Guide and potentially result in a searchable database of transcript practices and Canadian transfer credit nomenclature. The ultimate goal is to enhance the clarity, consistency and transparency of the academic transcript and transfer credit resources that support student mobility. The specific deliverable for this phase was to identify and summarize Canadian transcript and transfer credit nomenclature practices, review four international jurisdictions as a means to highlight promising practices related to these two areas and, finally, to provide both an overview of systems and an initial examination of emergent perspectives and themes. The report purposefully avoids suggesting prescriptive solutions or outcomes; however, the findings from this study will provide a solid foundation from which to move forward the standards and terminology discourse in Canada. This report collates the findings from the supporting research conducted from January through to April 2014.
This study investigates the validity, within an Ontario college, of the U.S.-based Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) benchmarks of effective educational practices, formally referred to as the Model of Effective Educational Practices (MEEP). MEEP factors include active and collaborative learning; student effort, academic challenge, studentfaculty
interaction, and support for learners. The validity of CCSSE was explored for this study through analysis of the model fit of MEEP and analysis of its correlations and capacity to predict five academic outcomes based on a sample of Ontario students that completed CCSSE during the Winter 2009 semester. Results of the analyses reveal that MEEP exhibits good model fit and that three of the five benchmarks were consistently correlated with the five selected academic outcomes (self-reported GPA, semester GPA, cumulative GPA, cumulative credit completion ratio, and percentage of courses completed with a grade of 70 per cent or higher). After controlling for subject characteristics, two of the five benchmarks, active and collaborative learning and academic challenge were identified as predictors of most of the academic outcomes.
Colleges Ontario achieved a number of successes in 2011 to help more students get access to a college education. Highlights of the year included new advertising campaigns promoting the value of college education, and a hugely successful annual conference.
In an effort to improve writing skills, the Writing Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University developed a series of free online resources and tools for students. However, a recent study by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) found that even when integrated into the classroom experience, only a small number of students actually used the tool as they felt it was not relevant to them, and those who did saw no impact on their grades. The authors feel further research is needed into how to best
integrate the service into the classroom, including potentially assigning grades for its use.
Project Description
Wilfrid Laurier University’s online assignment planner (AP) gives students access to timelines, resources and advice for information gathering, citations and effective writing. Writing Instruction Using an Online Assignment Planner examined students in four large first-year classes and one fourth-year seminar class. Students from the large first-year programs were randomly assigned to either a group with explicit integration of the AP into classroom activities, or a control group with no integration. The study tracked the number of times students accessed the AP, writing marks, conducted in-class surveys and professor interviews.
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?
SYNTHESIS: WHAT THIS REPORT TELLS US
The 2009–2010 State of Learning in Canada provides the most current information on the Canadian learning landscape, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of how Canadians are faring as lifelong learners. As in previous State of Learning reports, this update reflects CCL’s vision of learning as a lifelong process. Our research affirms time and again that the skills and knowledge that citizens bring to their families, their workplaces and their communities help determine a country’s economic success and overall quality of life. It is this core value that continues to guide our research and our commitment to fostering a learning society, in which all members can develop their full potential as active, engaged learners and contributing members of their community.
This update takes a life course approach, beginning with learning in the early childhood learning and school-based education through to the formal and informal learning of adults. Highlights from the recently released report on the State of Aboriginal Learning in Canada: A Holistic Approach to Measuring Success (2009), which introduced the first application of a comprehensive approach to measuring Aboriginal Learning in Canada, are also included.
During the last three decades of the twentieth century, it was the policy of many industrialized countries to shift the responsibility for a substantial portion of baccalaureate credit activity to colleges and other non-university postsecondary institutions. In most American states and some Canadian provinces, this was accomplished through assigning colleges the role of providing the first two years of baccalaureate courses, or expanding that role where it was already being performed. The
alternative approach, followed in several European countries, was to transform their college sectors into parallel degree granting sectors that offered complete baccalaureate – and in some countries, also postgraduate – programs of a more applied, career-focused nature than those offered by the universities. Although the predominant approach in North America for a long time was for colleges to provide only the first two years of baccalaureate programs, in the 1990s this started to change, as colleges in some states and provinces were given the authority to award baccalaureate degrees on their own. British Columbia and Alberta were among the first places in North America where colleges awarded baccalaureate degrees. Ontario colleges were given the authority to award baccalaureate degrees in 2000, and since then so also have colleges in Manitoba, Prince Edward
Island, and the Yukon. South of the border, colleges in 18 states have been authorized to award baccalaureate degrees.
Higher education leaders have many opportunities today to make changes that can profoundly alter the learning
environments they provide students. The digital revolution and rise in the use of both wireless networks and mobile
computing devices promise a new paradigm in education, one in which students and faculty need anywhere, anytime access to the network; where learning can be more personalized and customized; where students are more engaged; where remote learning opportunities are optimized; and where collaboration between all stakeholders becomes much easier to achieve.
Institutions of higher learning, including public and private universities, community colleges and technical schools, are increasingly turning to digital learning approaches. Higher education students expect a more socially engaging and collaborative learning experience and new technology is enabling these opportunities that were once difficult to imagine. The Center for Digital Education’s 2011 Digital Community Colleges Survey found that 92 percent of respondents have expanded distance learning offerings for online, hybrid and Web-assisted courses over the past year. A survey of adult students also found that 33 percent cited blended courses (courses that are part online and part in the classroom) as their preferred learning format. However, layered on top of these digital opportunities are significant budget pressures and rising enrollment rates. Traditional funding sources — like grants and donations — are under tremendous strain, forcing administrators to consider tuition hikes and reduced course offerings, along with other undesirable cost-cutting measures. Along with these budget pressures, colleges and universities are experiencing an increased demand on IT resources,
including registrations systems, financial aid delivery, help desk support, mobility management, and online/selfservice applications.
The challenge that the higher education community faces is how to reduce complexity and costs within their infrastructure and maximize existing resources at a time when funding is in short supply. Colleges and universities need to reduce costs while ensuring they are providing staff and students with technology that enhances learning and leads to improved student success.
Some campuses are solving this problem by streamlining and simplifying their existing IT infrastructure. Improving what’s already in place not only saves money, but also makes it easier to enhance student learning and achievement using today’s technological tools. Here’s a look at how this is possible.
In 1999, GLSEN identified that little was known about the school experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth and that LGBT youth were nearly absent from national studies of adolescents. We responded to this national need for data by launching the first National School Climate survey, and we continue to meet this continued need for current data by conducting the study every two years. Since then, the biennial National School Climate Survey has documented the unique challenges LGBT students face and identified interventions that can improve school climate. The survey documents the prevalence of anti-LGBT language and victimization, such as experiences of harassment and assault in school. In addition, the survey examines school policies and practices that may contribute to negative experiences for LGBT students and make them feel as if they are not valued by their school communities. The survey also explores the effects that a hostile school climate may have on LGBT students’ educational outcomes and well-being. Finally, the survey reports on the availability and the utility of LGBT-related school resources and supports that may offset the negative effects of a hostile school climate and promote a positive learning experience. In addition to collecting this critical data every two years, we also add and adapt survey questions to respond to the changing world for LGBT youth. For example, in the 2013 survey we added a question about hearing negative remarks about transgender people (e.g., “tranny”). The National School Climate Survey remains one of the few studies to examine the school experiences of LGBT students nationally, and its results have been vital to GLSEN’s understanding
of the issues that LGBT students face, thereby informing our ongoing work to ensure safe and
affirming schools for all.
In our 2013 survey, we examine the experiences of LGBT students with regard to indicators of negative school climate:
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.
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 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.
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’
While not every approach discussed in this special report will work for every course, every time, I invite you to identify a few that look appropriate for your courses, and implement them next semester. You just might be surprised by the results.
Our main focus continues to be the three government priorities, including the Course-to-Course Transfer Guide, principles for credit transfer policies and procedures, as well as diploma-to-diploma and degree-to-degree path- ways. On our student
website, ONTransfer.ca, students can now use the Course-to-Course Transfer Guide, which was launched last January, as well as search institutional profiles that highlight credit transfer policies and procedures.
The ability of students to move between colleges and universities is an activity, often expected by students, intended to combine the strengths of both sectors and support the pursuit of continuous lifelong learning. Students in Ontario have been ahead of educators and planners in “discovering the value of combining the strengths of the colleges in hands-on learning with the
strengths of the universities in academic education” (Jones & Skolnik, 2009, p.22). The College University Consortium Council (CUCC), established in 1996, was created, in part, to facilitate such activity. The Advisory Panel on Future Directions for Postsecondary Education produced a report, Excellence, Accessibility, Responsibility, which endorsed the CUCC as the objective body that would facilitate “province-wide information collection and comparative analysis” to assist all stakeholders in decision-making affecting postsecondary education (Smith et al,1996, p.48). The Investing in Students Task Force cited the CUCC in its 2001 report, advocating, among other things, for the body to “assess and evaluate the existing mechanism” of transfer
between the college and university systems (Investing in Students Task Force, 2001, p.20). Traditionally, Ontario has not held a coherent postsecondary education system with collaborative sectors, but rather two systems, college and university. The colleges were established to be comprehensive institutions that were occupation oriented and designed to meet the needs of the local community. These institutions were an alternative for those who were not inclined to purely academic pursuits and who did not have the qualifications to gain entry to university.
In 2004, in the discussion paper launching the Ontario Postsecondary Review, a student expressed his desire for “the freedom to move between programs or institutions with recognition of my previous work so that I can obtain an education as unique as I hope my career will be” (Rae, 2004, p.19). However, the paper continued by describing the existing situation as a
patchwork of institutional agreements that “cover only a fraction of existing programs”; therefore,in order to “ensure that its public institutions can meet the growing expectations of students and employers, and operate as a coherent system”, Ontario would need to establish a system to set “standards for credit recognition and student transferability between institutions” (p.21).
Attempts to formalize seamless pathways, however, have been confounded by a lack of data to support claims of student demand and actual movement, particularly from college to university.
Ontario colleges were not established to facilitate transfer, but the pursuit of articulation agreements by the institutions themselves and the historic movement of students into universities have legitimized this function as one of its main activities.
The Ontario government’s mandated collection of key performance indicators (KPIs) provides one opportunity to analyze provincial data that is systematically collected in a consistent manner. The Graduate Satisfaction Survey is used to calculate the results of two of the KPIs1, employment rate and graduate satisfaction. Additionally, the survey asks graduates if they have enrolled in an educational institution; students identify which institution and program. In 2005,the colleges and the MTCU decided to expand the survey for those who indicated that they had continued their education after graduation. Therefore, in 2006-07 a modified Graduate Satisfaction Survey with new transfer related questions was introduced. These additions and changes have enabled a deeper analysis of student movement between and within institutions or sectors.
The new questions were included to capture data that could better inform colleges about the students who graduate from their respective institutions. The questions on transfer were also intended to assist the government on matters that could affect policy with respect to student movement, particularly between postsecondary sectors. In addition to documenting the program and institutional destination of graduates seeking further education, the graduate survey now gathers information on the motivation for continuing, the source of transfer information, the amount of transfer credit received, the timing of notification for credit, the relationship to the previous program, the satisfaction with the transfer experience and the satisfaction with college preparation for further studies. This report is the first comprehensive analysis of the new questions from the first year of administration (2006-07).