Ontario faces significant challenges to its global competitiveness. At the same time, demographic trends point to growing skills shortages and to increased competition worldwide forskilled labour. In the face of these challenges, there is an urgent need to ensure the economy has the skills it needs and individuals have access to recognized, credentialed education and training that meets their individual aspirations and supports their transition to long-term employment.
The proposals contained in this document also address a key priority of the McGuinty government: addressing poverty. For example, with youth unemployment at nearly 14 per cent, Ontario must ensure that at-risk youth, who have even higher unemployment rates, participate in education and training programs such as the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program, Job Connect and Learning to 18.
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a way of helping organizations discover their strengths so they can create an alignment of those strengths, making their weaknesses and problems irrelevant. Since the mid-1980s, thousands of organizations in more
than 100 countries – corporations, businesses, nonprofits, churches, educational and governmental organizations – have used this strengths-based approach to organizational or institutional change and development.
itted to excellence in teaching, applied learning, and innovation.
By understanding the path from education to employment, we will:
• Set the benchmark to which all colleges will aspire and be recognized as a key resource in shaping the future of Toronto as a leading global city.
• Build a seamless bridge between learners and employment as we develop dynamic programs and workplace-ready graduates who will be the candidates of choice for employers.
• Create a community of lifelong learners, grounded in the principles of access, diversity, mutual respect, and accountability.
You heard about it happening to others. Perhaps the victim was a graduate student in a seminar, or an administrator at a high-stakes meeting. Maybe it was a young scholar at an academic conference where passions for a subject tend to run high and unbridled egos may roam. But you never really thought it would happen to you — until it does. Blindsided. Maybe the full impact didn't sink in until after the fact: You’d been smacked by an academic sneer.
This paper deals with the problematic nature of the transition between education and the workplace. A smooth transition between education and the workplace requires learners to develop an integrated knowledge base, but this is problematic as most educational programmes offer knowledge and experiences in a fragmented manner, scattered over a variety of subjects, modules and (work) experiences. To overcome this problem, we propose a design approach and shifting the educational focus of attention from individual learners to learning environments. The broader notion of learning environments facilitates transitions by establishing horizontal connections between schools and the workplace. The main argument of this paper is that combining or connecting aspects of school-based settings only is not sufficient to ensure learners will develop an integrated knowledge base. The concept and examples of “hybrid learning environment” show how formal, school-based learning and workplace experiences can be closely connected. The paper offers a framework of four coherent perspectives that can help to understand the complex nature of such environments and to design hybrid learning environments: the “agency perspective”, the “spatial perspective”, the “temporal perspective”, and the “instrumental perspective”. The framework is applied to three cases taken from vocational education in the Netherlands to describe what hybrid learning environments look like in contemporary educational practice.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines relationships between the resources available to immigrant families and the amount parents are willing and able to save for their children's post-secondary education (PSE). We use data from Statistics Canada's 2002 Survey of Approaches to Educational Planning to compare immigrant and native-born PSE saving. The results indicate that income and asset wealth constrain PSE savings in some immigrant families. However, immigrants share with non-immigrants a set of parenting beliefs and practices that encourage both groups to invest in their children’s educational futures.
RÉSUMÉ
Cet article examine les relations entre les ressources disponibles aux familles immigrantes et le montant que les parents veulent et peuvent épargner pour les études postsecondaires (EPS) de leurs enfants. Afi n de comparer les épargnes pour les EPS des immigrants et des non-immigrants, nous avons eu recours aux données de l’Enquête sur les approches en matière de planifi cation des études, effectuée en 2002 par Statistique Canada. Les résultats révèlent que l’état de l’actif et des revenus freine l’épargne pour les EPS chez certaines familles immigrantes. Toutefois, les immigrants et non-immigrants partagent un ensemble de croyances et de pratiques parentales communes qui encouragent les deux différents groupes à investir dans l’avenir éducationnel de leurs enfants.
More than 120 years ago, in a small town in British Columbia, a railroad tycoon named Donald Smith hammered the last spike in the Canadian Pacific Railway, linking Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic with a great ribbon of wood and steel. At the time, many said the project was folly: too expensive, too bold, too difficult. Yet the dreamers behind that tremendous feat
of engineering never wavered in their vision of what the railway would achieve: the opening up of a continent, the end of geographic and economic isolation, and the physical uniting of a great nation. This vision moved closer to its realization some decades later, when a vast network of telephone wires, followed by a system of interprovincial highways and roads, further shrank the distances between farm, town, and city.
Post-Secondary Education in Ontario: Managing Challenges in an Age of Austerity – Northern Ontario Results February 2013
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.
It’s 4 a.m. in Alaska — not a time when you expect many people, much less teenagers, to be awake. Yet, about 100 eager sophomore world history students are gathered in three high schools spread across the Kenai Peninsula on Alaska’s southern edge, excitedly looking at video screens mounted on their classroom walls. The teens are here to connect with students from the Arab Minority school in Nazareth, Israel. They are joined by students in schools in Louisiana and South Dakota.
For an hour, a moderator in Manhattan bounces the conversation back and forth, pinging questions from school to school as the students get to know a little more about each other and the different — and similar — worlds in which they live.
”It was so cool,” says Emily Evans, a 16-year-old in Greg Zorbas’ world history class at Kenai Central High School. The students from Israel ”thought so highly of us because we were from America.”
Now, says Evans, when the Middle East is a topic in school, ”it’s a lot more interesting. Before it was just, we’re reading a book on it and it’s not very real to us. But it’s real and you can see them and talk to them and see firsthand how it is. Now I pay more attention in history class.”
The videoconferencing session Evans and the other students experienced is the type of video communication that is becoming more common in education at all levels around the world, as the walls between classrooms disappear. This Center for Digital Education white paper shows how video collaboration is an essential part of the K-20 education environment that enables cost savings, engages students and creates a more productive learning experience. It prepares students with the skills to thrive in a future workforce that will depend on video collaboration technologies. Indeed, today’s video collaboration is rapidly moving from a ”nice to have” classroom enhancement to a ”must have” necessity.
On the surface America’s public commitment to provide access to any individual who seeks entry to postsecondary education seems to be working. Our higher education system enjoys one of the highest participation rates in the world. More than 16 million students currently enroll in public and private two and four-year colleges and universities in the United States. In the past 20 years, enrollments have grown over 25 percent; the proportion of high school graduates entering college immediately after high school has increased from 49 percent in 1980 to over 68 percent today. More importantly, the gap in access between high and low-income youth has shrunk as greater numbers of economically disadvantaged students have enrolled in college; the number entering college immediately after high school having increased by over 60 percent since 1970. By any count, access to higher education for low-income students is greater today than ever.
Drawing from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH; N 611,880), a nationally representative survey of U.S. adolescents and adults, we assess age, period, and cohort trends in mood disorders and suicide-related outcomes since the mid-2000s. Rates of major depressive episode in the last year increased 52% 2005–2017 (from 8.7% to 13.2%) among adolescents aged 12 to 17 and 63% 2009–2017 (from 8.1% to 13.2%) among young adults 18–25. Serious psychological distress in the last month and suicide-related outcomes (suicidal ideation, plans, attempts, and deaths by suicide) in the last year also increased among young adults 18–25 from 2008–2017 (with a 71% increase in serious psychological distress), with less consistent and weaker increases among adults ages 26 and over. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses separating the effects of age, period, and birth cohort suggest the trends among adults are primarily due to cohort, with a steady rise in mood disorder and suicide-related outcomes between cohorts born from the early 1980s (Millennials) to the late 1990s (iGen). Cultural
trends contributing to an increase in mood disorders and suicidal thoughts and behaviors since the mid-2000s, including the rise of electronic communication and digital media and declines in sleep duration, may have had a larger impact on younger people, creating a cohort effect.
Abstract Although the literature on institutional diversity suggests that quality assurance practices could affect institutional diversity, there has been little empirical research on this relationship. This article seeks to shed some light on the possible connection between quality assurance practices and institutional diversity by examining the arrangements for
quality assurance in higher education systems that include two distinct sectors, one of which having a more academic orientation and the other a more applied orientation. The article explores the ways in which quality assurance structures and standards in selected jurisdictions provide for recognition of the differences in orientation and mission between academic and applied sectors of higher education systems. The research identified some features of quality assurance systems that recognize the characteristics of applied higher education, such as having different statements of expected learning outcomes for applied
and academic programs or requiring different qualifications for faculty who teach in applied programs. It is hoped that the results might be of interest to policy makers and quality assurance practitioners who are concerned about the possible impact of quality
assurance on institutional diversity.
The Dual Credit and School Within a College (SWAC) programs are both dual enrolment/dual credit programs that address access by creating new pathways to postsecondary education for non-traditional students. The programs allow students who are still in grade 11 and grade 12 to take one or more courses at a local college and earn both a high school credit toward their high school diploma as well as a college credit from the college offering the course. Though these programs have been
offered internationally for over three decades, there is still little research and little conclusive evidence that demonstrate their effectiveness.
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.
The term “microaggression” was coined in 1970 to name relatively slight, subtle, and often unintentional offenses that cause harm (Pierce, 1970). Since then, a substantial body of research on microaggressions has demonstrated their prevalence and harmful effects (Boysen, 2012; Solorzan, et. al., 2010; Suárez-Orozco, et. al., 2015; Sue, 2010).
The Ontario university sector is already somewhat differentiated. A policy decision to increase the differentiation of the postsecondary system brings the following benefits:
• Higher quality teaching and research programs
• More student choice with easier inter‐institution transfer and mobility
• Greater institutional accountability
• A more globally competitive system
• A more financially sustainable system
Ontario’s postsecondary system can transition seamlessly and incrementally to greater differentiation with the judicious and strategic use of funding strategies already familiar to government. This transition to a more differentiated university sector is guided by principles including:
• Equal value on the teaching and research functions of universities
• Forging a contemporary relationship between Ontario’s colleges and universities
• Linking the differentiation policy to funding decisions
• More effective use of multi‐year accountability agreements and performance
indicators to evaluate whether universities are meeting expected goals and targets.
Aboriginal women living off-reserve have bucked national trends, with employment rates rising since
2007 alongside labour force participation.
The scientific study of human learning and memory is now more than 125 years old. Psychologists have conducted thou- sands of experiments, correlational analyses, and field studies during this time, in addition to other research conducted by those from
neighboring fields. A huge knowledge base has been carefully built up over the decades.
Given this backdrop, we may ask ourselves: What great changes in education have resulted from this huge research base? How has the scientific study of learning and memory changed practices in education from those of, say, a century ago? Have we succeeded in building a translational educational science to rival medical science (in which biological knowledge is translated into medical practice) or types of engineering (in which, e.g., basic knowledge in chemistry is translated into products through chemical engineering)?
Drawing mainly from HEQCO’s own research, this @Issue paper:
• Describes how the definition of student success has gradually broadened at Ontario colleges and universities;
• Summarizes some of the underlying institutional and student population factors that also impact on most current measures of student success;
• Provides broad observations about some recent findings as they relate to the awareness, utilization and impact of various student service, course-based and other initiatives designed to promote student success;
• Recommends what can be measured – as well as how and what outcomes can be expected – when it comes to initiatives and interventions designed to improve student success.