Since 2012, the Education Policy Research Initiative (EPRI) has supported Mohawk College in its efforts to collect and use administrative and other data on students held by Mohawk as part of a broader initiative to improve student success based on the principle of evidence‐based decision making. This is the third research report resulting from this partnership and the second related to the Predictive Modelling and Advising project.
This project has two phases of investigation. The first phase of this project (Finnie, Poirier, Bozkurt, Fricker, & Pavlic, 2017) focused on the development of a predictive model of student retention and examined how advising participation rates and retention rates differ across different risk groups identified by the predictive model.
Canada’s post-secondary institutions made major contributions to our country’s social progress and economic success in the last half of the 20th century. In the span of several decades, Canada evolved from a country where an advanced education was reserved for the society’s elite to one that produces one of the world’s best-educated populations. By the turn of the century,
Canada boasted the second-highest number of postsecondary educated citizens per capita of any country —a comparative advantage in a global knowledge economy. Since knowledge is now the currency of the economy, improved post-secondary outcomes increase a country’s ability to develop the skilled human resources and conduct the innovative research it needs to remain productive and competitive.
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.
When viewed holistically, Canada lacks a clear and common understanding of the future directions and top priorities of its post-secondary education (PSE) sector. Perhaps as a result, Canada has not yet comprehensively addressed a fundamental question: How do we demonstrate quality in PSE? To answer this question requires clarification of many issues, including the roles that various institutions and sectors play. It also requires the development of a shared vision of PSE, of what can and should be achieved. Despite much discussion among leaders of various education sectors in Canada, an agreement on a plan of action has yet to be reached. Indeed, a national dialogue on this critical issue is needed.
As a starting point for a national dialogue, the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) has published three annual reports on the state of post-secondary education in Canada over the last four years. These reports provided an overview of the Canadian PSE landscape while highlighting various issues common among education jurisdictions and institutions. For instance, CCL’s 2006 report, Canadian Post-secondary Education: A Positive Record―– An Uncertain Future, identified eight goals common among the post-secondary strategies of provinces and territories. One of these common goals was addressing the issue of quality in PSE.
CCL’s new monograph series, Challenges in Canadian Post-secondary
95% of those in households earning over $75,000 use the internet and cell phones Those in higher-income households are more likely to use the internet on any given day, own multiple internet-ready devices, do things involving money online, and get news online Those in higher-income households are different from other Americans in their tech ownership and use. Analysis of several recent surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Projects find that there are key differences between those who live in households making $75,000 or more relative to those in lower-income households. Some 95% of Americans who live in households earning $75,000 or more a year use the internet at least occasionally, compared with 70% of those living in households earning less than $75,000. Even among those who use the internet, the well off are more likely than those with less income to use technology. Of those 95% of higher-income internet users:
- 99% use the internet at home, compared with 93% of the internet users in lower brackets.
- 93% of higher-income home internet users have some type of broadband connection versus 85% of the internet users who live in households earning less than $75,000 per year. That translates into 87% of all those in live in those better-off households having broadband at home.
- 95% of higher-income households own some type of cell phone compared with 83% in households with less income.
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.
Between 2002–03 and 2012–13, the postsecondary education system in Ontario expanded substantially, with full-time enrolment
growing by over 160,000, more than in any decade in the province’s history. Ontario has been supporting enrolment growth
across the college and university sectors through increases in operating grants, enhancements to student financial aid, and
capital investments.
Ontario’s postsecondary institutions have been committed partners in their efforts to accommodate these unprecedented levels of enrolment growth, and have thus contributed to expanding opportunities for students to pursue higher education in many
communities across Ontario.
The aim of this paper is to develop and extend a social realist critique of competency based training (CBT). Its key argument is that knowledge must be placed at the centre of curriculum, and that because CBT does not do this, it excludes working class students from access to powerful knowledge. Developing this argument reveals that constructivist critiques of CBT not only miss the point, they are part of the problem. The paper argues that this is because the relationship between constructivism and instrumentalism structured the development of CBT in the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Australia, even though they are distinct theoretical approaches to curriculum. Constructivist discourses were appropriated and reworked through the prism of instrumentalism, thereby contributing to the justification and legitimation of CBT, but also to its continuing theorisation and development. The basis for the appropriation of constructivism by CBT is that both emphasise the contextual, situated and problem-oriented nature of knowledge creation and learning and in so doing, sacrifice the complexity and depth of theoretical knowledge in curriculum in favour of ‘authentic’ learning in the workplace. Consequently, in developing its critique of CBT and the instrumentalist learning theories that underpin it, constructivism misses the main point, which is that theoretical knowledge must be placed at the centre of curriculum in all sectors of education, and that access to knowledge is the raison d’être of education (Young 2008).
The Student Success Program (SSP) at George Brown College is designed to foster a supportive college environment for first-year students. The College committed to fund the SSP for a five-year period beginning in 2008-2009. As part of the SSP, a range of academic and non-academic activities are offered to first-year students in order to promote collaborative learning and peer interaction. Some of these activities take place in class, while others are offered outside of class. The SSP components are tailored to programs within individual centres or schools, so as to provide the types of activities best suited to assist first-year students in those areas.
We use data for a large sample of Ontario students who are observed over five years from their initial entry into high school to study differences in postsecondary education participation. The students are grouped by average neighbourhood income and birthplace (Canadian or foreign‐born). We find substantial differences in the allocation of students based on their performance in Grade 9 courses and the types of PSE participation within achievement groupings.
We document differences in PSE participation based on the students’ birthplace. Foreign‐born students, conditioning on performance in high school, are more likely to continue onto university and college. Foreignborn students in higher income neighbourhoods are more likely to pursue a university degree than a college credential. Uniformly, Canadian‐born students are less likely to pursue a PSE credential upon the completion of high school.
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.
While budgets are being cut and positions not being refilled, it is no surprise that universities are also beginning to feel the effects of a weakened economy. Student retention has remained a prominent issue in the literature for several decades now, still with no definite answer on why students fail to persist and graduate (Morrow & Ackerman, 2012). In an effort to gain more
insight into this phenomenon, the purpose of this study is to understand retention by assessing resiliency in students who have experienced adverse childhood events. The goal of this study is to identify if resiliency, as a psychosocial factor, influences student persistence in the first year at a university when the student is identified as at-risk (i.e. the student has dealt with an identified past trauma). An agglomeration of Tinto’s Student Integration Model and the Diathesis Stress Model will be used to understand how resilience and psychopathology can affect persistence decisions in the first year. If services can be implemented for students in their first year, it is possible that more students would persist and graduate.
The Canadian Trans Youth Health Survey was a national on-line survey conducted by researchers from several Canadian universities and community organizations. The survey had 923 trans youth participants from all 10 provinces and one of the territories. The survey included somewhat differ- ent questions for younger (14-18 years) and older (19-25
years) trans youth about a wide range of life experiences and behaviours that influence young people’s health. This national report is a first snapshot of survey results.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of faculty development in terms of the educational role is to assist faculty in becoming better educators. Educational peer review (EPR) is one method of faculty development. This article is based on a study that explored the different development needs of nursing faculty within a school of nursing at an Ontario university. The study explored on three variables of interest: level of skill acquisition, type of faculty appointment, and type of teaching. A qualitative research design in the case-study tradition was employed. Findings indicated that faculty challenges could be grouped into three themes: job knowledge, skills development, and systems challenges. Job knowledge and skills development challenges varied by level of skill acquisition and type of teaching, while identifi ed systems challenges were related to type of appointment. A fl exible EPR program that allows for some customization may lead to an increased ability to meet individual faculty development needs and greater faculty buy-in.
RÉSUMÉ
Le but du développement de faculté dans le rôle éducatif est d’aider la faculté à devenir des meilleurs éducateurs. L’évaluation éducative par les pairs (EEP) est une méthode de développement de faculté. Cette étude a exploré les différences dans les besoins de développement de faculté d’une faculté d’infi rmiers dans une école d’infi rmiers à une université d’Ontario basée sur trois variables d’intérêt : niveau d’acquisition de compétence, type de désignation de faculté et type d’enseignement. Un protocole de recherche qualitatif dans la tradition d’étude de cas a été 54 CJHE / RCES Volume 40, No. 1, 2010 utilisé. Les résultats ont indiqué que des défi s de faculté pourraient être groupés dans trois thèmes: la connaissance de travail, le développement de compétences et les défi s du système. La connaissance de travail et les défi s de développement de compétences ont varié par le niveau de l’acquisition de compétence et le type d’enseignement, alors que
des défi s du système identifi és étaient liés au type de désignation. Un programme fl exible de EEP, qui tient compte de personnalisation, peut mener à la capacité accrue de répondre aux différents besoins de développement de faculté et au plus d’acceptation de faculté.
This chapter presents an overview of Aboriginal education in Canada that focuses on linking the transgenerational effects of colonialism with current issues. Educational models, partnerships, and programs already exist that make an enormous
impact on outcomes for children and youth in and from Aboriginal communities.
Examples of six successful programs that were developed in partnership with Aboriginal communities and range from elementary school through post-secondary school are highlighted.
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.
University leaders are actively addressing the issue of mental health on campuses across Canada. No longer seen as simply a question of crisis management, mental health issues are being approached in more proactive and systematic ways, as universities increasingly appreciate the advantages of prevention over reaction. “We are exploring what we need as a sector to deal with mental health issues in the post-secondary setting,” says Dr. Su-Ting Teo, Director of Student Health and Wellness
at Ryerson University. Dr. Teo is co-chair of a working group on mental health for the Canadian Association of College and
University Student Services (CACUSS), one of several inter-institutional organizations focusing on the issue. The key
is to identify best practices and then put into action strategies and plans that work best for an individual institution
and its specific circumstances.
Almost 40 Canadian universities in all regions of Canada responded to a detailed data survey aimed at ascertaining the characteristics and flows of students who left postsecondary institutions in one jurisdiction to continue undergraduate studies at a university in another. Two main types of student were considered: the transfer student who receives some transfer credit on admission to the receiving university and the mobile student who also moves between institutions but who does not receive transfer credit for prior studies. Some other studies of this type have not considered the mobile student, as defined here, although they make up about 20 per cent of the total flows.
Encouraging benchmarking in e-learning supported the dissemination of e-learning benchmarks developed by the Australasian Council on Open, Distance and ELearning (ACODE). Dissemination activities, including provision of web-based
information and of training, were required to enhance the accessibility to the sector of the benchmarks and the guidelines for their use.
Abstract
The demand for quantitative assessment by external agencies and internal administrators can leave post-secondary instructors confused about the nature and purpose of learning outcomes and fearful that the demand is simply part of the increasing corporatization of the university system. This need not be the case. Developing learning outcomes has a number
of benefits for course design that go beyond program assessment. This article clarifies some key aspects of the push toward using learning outcomes and introduces a tripartite nomenclature for distinguishing among course outcomes, outputs, and objectives. It then outlines a process for instructors to use these three categories to develop and design courses
that meet institutional assessment demands while also improving overall teaching effectiveness.
Résumé
L’évaluation quantitative que demandent les agences externes et les administrateurs internes peut confondre les instructeurs de niveau postsecondaires quant à la nature et à l’objectif des « résultats d’apprentissage », et leur faire craindre que cette demande ne fasse simplement partie de la privatisation croissante du système universitaire. Ce n’est pas forcément le cas. La création de résultats d’apprentissage présente de nombreux avantages sur le plan de la conception de cours, avantages qui vont au-delà de l’évaluation de programme. L’article clarifie quelques aspects principaux de la poussée vers l’utilisation de « résultats d’apprentissage » et présente
une nomenclature tripartite pour faire la distinction entre les résultats de cours, le rendement et les objectifs. Il décrit ensuite un processus pour que les instructeurs emploient ces trois catégories afin de concevoir des cours qui répondent aux exigences en évaluation de l’institution, tout en améliorant l’efficacité de l’enseignement dans son ensemble.