Public colleges are the only academic institutions in Canada that deliver a robust range of career-focused programs and training to all segments of the population.
The colleges’ labour-market programs, such as Second Career, employment counselling, academic upgrading and apprenticeship training serve more than 160,000 students each year.
Ontario’s public college programs are affordable and reach students in all socioeconomic groups – from people who need upgrading in order to qualify for full-time college programs, to university graduates seeking marketable skills.
Graduates of Ontario’s 24 public colleges earn credentials that have met the province’s rigorous standards for post-secondary education and are valued by employers.
College graduates continue to be in high demand.
It has never been more important to strengthen and promote public college education. The province and the country continue to face a serious skills mismatch that is leaving too many people without any hope of finding a good job. That skills gap will widen as new technology and innovations continue to transform the economy and heighten the demand for a more highly skilled workforce.
The country needs a comprehensive strategy to address the skills mismatch. And Ontario’s 24 public colleges will be pivotal to the success of that strategy.
Grade Change - Tracking Online Education in the United State is the eleventh annual report on the state of online learning in U.S. higher education. The survey is designed, administered and analyzed by the Babson Survey Research Group, with data collection conducted in partnership with the College Board. Using responses from more than 2,800 colleges and
universities, this study is aimed at answering fundamental questions about the nature and extent of online education.
Student wellness is an essential component of academic success in higher education and subsequent opportunities in the labor market. The Ohio State University Office of Student Life’s Student Wellness Center uses a model that includes nine key dimensions of wellness: career, creative, emotional, environmental, financial, intellectual, physical, social and spiritual.
Student Debt and the Class of 2013 is our ninth annual report on the cumulative student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges. Our analysis of available data finds debt levels continue to rise, with considerable variation among states as well as colleges.
About seven in 10 (69%) college seniors who graduated from public and private nonprofit colleges in 2013 had student loan debt. These borrowers owed an average of $28,400, up two percent compared to $27,850 for public and nonprofit graduates in 2012. About one-fifth (19%) of the Class of 2013’s debt was comprised of private loans, which are typically more costly and provide fewer consumer protections and repayment options than safer federal loans.
If you’re interested in using technology tools to enhance your teaching, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the mountain of information out there. To make matters worse, much of it is either highly technical or simply not very practical for the college classroom.
Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning approaches teaching technologies from your perspective — discussing what works, what doesn’t, and how to implement the best ideas in the best ways.
These articles were written by John Orlando, PhD, program director at Norwich University, as part of the Teaching with Technology column on Faculty Focus. You’ll find the articles are loaded with practical information as well as links to valuable resources. Articles in the report include:
• Using VoiceThread to Build Student Engagement
• Wikipedia in the Classroom: Tips for Effective Use
• Blogging to Improve Student Learning: Tips and Tools for Getting Started
• Prezi: A Better Way of Doing Presentations
• Using Polling and Smartphones to Keep Students Engaged
Whether the courses you teach are face-to-face, online, blended, or all of the above, this report
explains effective ways to incorporate technology into your courses to create a rich learning
experience for students, and a rewarding teaching experience for you.
Mary Bart
Editor
Faculty Focus
This paper examines the long-term labour market premiums associated with completing a college certificate and a bachelor's degree, compared to completing a high school diploma. Several labour market outcomes of individuals are examined with longitudinal data over a 20- year period spanning their mid-30s to their mid-50s. The findings show that individuals who have a bachelor's degree or a college certificate have more favourable labour market outcomes over their working lives than individuals who have only a high school diploma. More specifically, the earnings premium associated with a bachelor's degree over the 20-year period ranges, on average, from $728,000 for men to $442,000 for women. For a college certificate, the premium is $248,000 for men and $180,000 for women, on average. The earnings premium associated with a bachelor's degree is much larger at the top of the distribution for men than it is for women. The study also finds that, for both men and women, a bachelor's degree and a college certificate are associated with more years of coverage in an employer-sponsored pension plan
and fewer layoffs than a high school diploma.
In November 2005, the province of Ontario and the federal government signed two historic agreements – the Canada-Ontario Labour Market Development Agreement and the Canada-Ontario Labour Market Partnership Agreement. One year later, on Nov. 24, 2006, key labour market stakeholders, including users, delivery agents and government came together to collectively take stock of progress and to explore how partners can help governments move forward with successfully
implementing the agreements.
The symposium, Developing Skills through Partnerships, was co-hosted by Colleges Ontario, the Ontario Chamber of
Commerce, ONESTEP, and the Canadian Policy Research Networks.
Millennials have gotten a bad rap for their habit of moving in with their parents after post-secondary school. There's even a disparaging term for the phenomenon — "failure to launch syndrome."
Public colleges are the only academic institutions in Canada that deliver a robust range of career-focused programs and training to all segments of the population. The colleges’ labour-market programs, such as Second Career, employment counselling, academic upgrading and apprenticeship training serve more than 160,000 students
each year.
Ontario’s public college programs are affordable and reach students in all socioeconomic groups – from people who need upgrading in order to qualify for full-time college programs, to university graduates seeking marketable skills.
Graduates of Ontario’s 24 public colleges earn credentials that have met the province’s rigorous standards for post-secondary education and are valued by employers. College graduates continue to be in high demand.
As online learning has become more established, we at ExtensionEngine have noted the evolution of a framework comprising four distinct revenue models: For- Credit, Research, Pre-Matriculation and Post-Graduation. This study investigates the prevalence of these four models among 136 U.S. colleges and universities as a means to identify and define new opportunities for learning in higher education.
To determine the current prevalence of each model, we used each sample institution’s website to tally the number of online programs in each model. For comparison, we noted the occurrence of in-person programs for the Pre-Matriculation and Post-Graduation models. We analyzed this data against college type (private or public), enrollment, and endowment size.
ALGONQUIN COLLEGE KEY AREAS OF DIFFERENTIATION
Algonquin College delivers a comprehensive range of applied education and training experiences to
serve the diverse learner choices and the breadth of employer labour demands across Eastern Ontario
and the province.
Algonquin College works with industry partners to:
• Develop labour-market informed programs and services;
• Provide opportunities for work-integrated learning, and experience inside and outside the
classroom; and
• Engage in applied research and commercialization activities that support student success,
employee growth, and social and economic development in the region and beyond.
Algonquin College employees are engaged in the strategic direction of the College to:
• Lead the transformation of Ontario’s postsecondary system;
• Deliver high-quality teaching methods and modalities that leverage technology to enhance the
educational experience; and
• Improve student learning outcomes for career and life success.
Algonquin College broadens learner access to applied postsecondary education and training in
Ontario, demonstrating leadership through:
• Alternative learning modalities and options to suit multiple learning styles and learner
preferences;
• New, targeted approaches to programs and services that improve pathways for learners of diverse
demographic characteristics; and
• Smart investments in technology that enhance the Algonquin learner experience.
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.
Maryellen Weimer
Editor
The Teaching Professor
Study shows faculty members remain skeptical of digital course materials and generally unfamiliar with open educational resources.
Whatever one’s style, every leader, to be effective, must have and work on improving his or her moral purpose. Moral purpose is about both ends and means. Authentic leaders, in other words, display character, and character is the defining characteristic of authentic leadership.
Whether people are driven by egoistic (self-centered) or altruistic (unselfish) motives, the fact is that all effective leaders are driven by both.
March 6, 2014, Toronto350, the University of Toronto chapter of the larger 350.org movement, presented the Office of the President with a petition requesting that the Uni- versity of Toronto fully divest from direct investments1 in fossil fuels companies within the next five years and to stop investing new money in the industry [the “Petition”].2 In response to this petition, President Gertler struck an ad hoc Advisory Committee on Divestment from Fossil Fuels [the “Committee”] under the terms of the University’s Policy on Social and Political Issues With Respect to University Divestment [the “Policy”]. The Committee’s mandate was to review the Petition and accompanying brief, and consider the University’s response to the call
for divestment. The Committee was also invited to reflect more generally on the University’s role in responding to the challenges posed by climate change.
Every developed country is racing to keep up with profound and fundamental changes in the 21st century The new knowledge economy is creating unprecedented demands for higher levels of expertise and skills, while, at the same time, changing demographics will significantly reduce the numbers of qualified people available in the economy The cumulative impact presents great opportunities and great challenges to Ontario The province has an opportunity to implement meaningful and transformational changes that exploit the potential for growth in the new economy and drive Ontario’s prosperity to
unprecedented levels
But the threats to Ontario’s future are just as great Failing to move forward now with significant
measures could leave Ontario unprepared for the challenges ahead, and strand thousands of
people as permanently unemployable
Audience response systems (ARS) are electronic applications in which a receiver captures information entered by students via keypads or hand-held devices. Students’ responses can be displayed instantly, usually in the form of a histogram. Professors typically use ARS to increase student interaction and for formative assessment (to measure students’ understanding of material during a lecture; Micheletto, 2011). In some cases, audience response systems have also been used to pose
real research questions and follow an interactive sampling approach (not to be confused with experiment data collection). For example, imagine that a research study concluded that females respond more quickly to red stimuli than do males. An interactive sampling session in the classroom would present students with coloured stimuli, and the instructor would ask students to respond, as quickly as possible and using the ARS, when they see the red stimuli. The instructor would then
display the students’ responses and compare the students’ data to results from the published research study. Barnett & Kriesel (2003) propose three criteria that classroom interactive sampling should meet if it is to stimulate discussion among students:
1. Interactive sampling should be conducted to demonstrate class concepts.
2. Students should be providing responses in a controlled setting.
3. Students’ responses should be compared to behavioural hypotheses derived from theory.
In this workshop, key strategies that integrate quality ideas with quality change processes will be presented as they apply to concrete change situations.
Participants will learn about effective approaches to each of the following levels: within school success; success across schools and regions; and how to relate to the state and federal levels. Specific examples will be examined at each level. Next generation reform will be identified related to factors that will deepen and accelerate learning required for future societies through powerful
new pedagogies linked to digital resources.
Canada's post-secondary institutions are at the forefront of excellence in science, research and innovation. They help to
train the workforce of tomorrow and create the knowledge and insights needed by the private and public sectors to build a
clean, sustainable economy.
The Minister of Science, the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, today announced that the Government of Canada will launch the
application process for a $2-billion fund that will improve research and innovation infrastructure at universities and
colleges across the country.
Students persisting to completion of their educational goals is a key gauge of student success, and therefore institutional success. Two most frequently cited statistics in connection with student success are the freshman-to-sophomore retention rate, or first-year annual return rate, and the cohort graduation rate. The freshman-to-sophomore retention rate measures the
percentage of first-time, full-time students enrolled at the university the following fall semester. The cohort graduation rate is defined as the percentage of an entering class that graduates within three years with an associate’s degree, and within four, five, or six years with a baccalaureate degree. Since the annual return rate of students as they progress through a program
is directly related to their degree/certificate completion, the concept of retention usually includes year-by-year retention or persistence rates as well as graduation rates. Together, these statistics represent student success.