The 2015 report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) provided the country with a roadmap for establishing a new, mutually respectful relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Despite the history of Canada's residential school system, the report highlighted the important role of education in the reconciliation process and called upon government and educators to reduce longstanding gaps in education and employment outcomes.
The provision of blended learning strategies designed to assist academics in the higher education sector with the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for effective teaching with technology has been, and continues to be, a challenge for teaching centres in Canada. It is unclear, first, whether this is an ongoing issue unique to Canada; and, second, if it is not unique to Canada, whether we might be able to implement different and/or more effective strategies based on what others outside Canada are doing. Teaching centre leaders in Australia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Britain, Scotland, and the United States (n=31) were interviewed to explore how their units used blended learn- ing strategies. Findings suggest that, as in Canada,
there is a “value gap” be- tween academics and leaders of teaching centres regarding teaching develop-
ment initiatives using blended learning strategies.
The nature of the American academic workforce has fundamentally shifted over the past several decades. Whereas fulltime
tenured and tenure-track faculty were once the norm, the professoriate is now comprised of mostly non-tenure-track
faculty. In 1969, tenured and tenure-track positions made up approximately 78.3 percent of the faculty and non-tenuretrack
positions comprised about 21.7 percent (Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). Forty years later, in 2009, these proportions
had nearly flipped: tenured and tenure-track faculty had declined to 33.5 percent and 66.5 percent of faculty were ineligible
for tenure (AFT Higher Education Data Center, 2009). Of the non-tenure-track positions, 18.8 percent were full-time and
47.7percent were part-time.
The use of a participant survey, administered at the outset of an online course, can provide information useful in the management of the learning environment and in its subsequent redesign. Such information can clarify participants’ prior experience, expectations, and demographics. But the very act of enquiring about the learner also signals the instructor’s social presence, relational interest, and desire to enter into an authentic dialogue. This study examines the use of participant surveys in online management courses. The first section discusses the informational bridges that this instrument provides. The second section considers survey responses to open-ended questions dealing with student sentiments. This analysis suggests that the survey plays a valuable part in accentuating social presence and in initiating relational bridges with participants.
Keywords: Instructional design; instructional management; social presence; learner engagement; relational dialogue
In B.C.’s Skills for Jobs Blueprint: Re-Engineering Education and Training, we said we would get and use better data to drive decisions. This B.C. Labour Market Outlook (the Outlook) is that data. Presented by the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism, and Skills Training and Responsible for Labour (the Ministry), the Outlook provides labour market demand and supply trends to 2022.
With the anticipated investment and activity related to LNG, the Ministry contracted KPMG to produce labour market forecasts for the LNG sector. The resulting LNG workforce occupation forecasts are added as a supplementary analysis of workforce needs in the Outlook and are aimed at providing a better understanding of the skills needs for this new sector. This Outlook report includes two major parts:
THE FIRST PART provides the labour market outlook based on an economic scenario without LNG; and THE SECOND PART highlights the findings of the LNG workforce occupation forecasts.
Educators and policymakers have set a goal that all students graduate from high school ready for college and careers. As a nation, however, we are falling short of achieving this goal, particularly for students from at-risk groups. In 2013, in states with the highest percentages of students taking the ACT® college readiness assessment, 41% of students from the two lowest family income categories met ACT College Readiness Benchmarks1 in English, 19% in mathematics, 23% in reading,
and 17% in science.
Mohawk College promises its students a “college experience that empowers them to transform their lives.” Mohawk recognizes that student success depends on the entire experience students have at college, both inside and outside the classroom.
While community colleges have existed more than a century, their role began to shift in the late 1940s from primarily serving as a transfer/junior college to that of supporting the greater community in addressing the need for highly skilled talent required by a 21st century economy. Community colleges remain a vehicle to transfer students to “senior” colleges and universities, but also provide an essential bridge to employment in local communities and beyond. As a result, community colleges are now major players in providing businesses with the talent they need to compete in local, regional, and national economies.
This document contains the appendices to CAAT baccalaureates: What has been their impact on students and colleges?
• Recognition for excellence in polytechnic education.
Mission
• To champion innovation and excellence in career-focussed education, training, and applied research.
• To serve the ever-changing needs of our diverse and growing community.
• To inspire students and employees to strive towards their highest potential.
PREAMBLE
Obtaining a postsecondary education (PSE) is a crucial requirement both for Ontario and for the province's youth. With a cross-section of all demographic and socioeconomic groups in PSE, a dual benefit ensues: the province acquires the human capital needed for Ontario’s economic success (HEQCO, 2010, p. 31), and graduates experience lower rates of unemployment, greater job stability and higher earnings (Berger, Motte, & Parkin, 2009, p. 7-21).
Objective of this Report
This report seeks to establish trends in factors that are impacting PSE decision making among Ontario's youth and to identify features that are strong predictors of PSE participation. The research is a collaborative effort of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) and the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO).
The decision to pursue a postsecondary education is influenced by a number of factors, including parental involvement, career counselling, parental income and education levels, and student location. In this report, student, household and external factors are examined to determine their impact on postsecondary pathways of Ontario youth of both linguistic sectors.
Comparisons between Ontario and the rest of Canada are also explored.
On-line, blended and other forms of web enhanced learning are becoming increasingly popular as a means of delivering post-secondary education. According to a recent report completed by the Higher Education Strategy Associates, 57% of
Canadian university courses make use of some online component (Rogers, Usher & Kaznowska, 2011).
The decision of Mohawk College to move to blended learning was part of a strategic plan begun in 2008 that focused on “advancing educational outcomes through the strategic integration of learning technologies” (Mohawk College 1). To this end the college formulated a committee composed of faculty, administration and management to examine the various learning platforms current at that time (FirstClass, WebCT) and tasked with deciding which learning management system the college
should adopt. They selected Desire2Learn (D2L) as the learning management system to be adopted, and a further plan was developed to have all courses fully blended within five years of the initial start-up of D2L in 2009. Blended learning is defined as using the web “to deliver substantial course materials accompanied by a strategic reduction in face-to-face contact. Online and
face-to-face learning spaces are thoughtfully integrated, maximizing the unique characteristics of each, in order to enhance the quality of the learning experience” (Mohawk College 2).
Over the past decade there has been an upsurge of interest in the quality of postsecondary education, with a particular focus on learning, engagement, and other student outcomes. Instructors, administrators, and other staff across the postsecondary sector have been investigating innovative approaches and services, while many institutions, faculties, departments, and professional associations have established teaching and learning centres or offices to help enhance student success. Governments and governmental organizations have provided support for new approaches and for research projects evaluating them.
This guide, co-sponsored by the McMaster Centre for Leadership in Learning (CLL) and the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO), and endorsed by the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) and the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS), is intended to assist researchers and evaluators of postsecondary educational outcomes. The intended audiences for this document include, but are by no means restricted to, the following:
• faculty members and educational developers investigating innovative approaches or technologies designed to enhance learning in postsecondary contexts;
• faculty members and administrators leading initiatives for students enrolled in programs or courses that are considered particularly challenging;
• anyone involved in professional development initiatives for faculty, graduate students, and others intended to enhance teaching and learning effectiveness;
• student service providers at postsecondary institutions; and
• students and student associations focusing on effective teaching, learning and student success.
It has been well documented that community college presidents are getting older and a large percentage of them will be retiring over the next few years. Further, much of the community college administration and faculty are also nearing retirement. It seems like good people are getting harder to find. Where will replacements be found and who needs to find them?
As community college presidents plan their next career challenge as Wal-Mart greeters, they need to consider succession planning throughout their institutions. In this context, succession planning refers to the personal involvement of the college president in the creation, encouragement, and support for employees to seek positions of increased responsibility.
Why Join the Mobile Learning Movement? Mobile learning has clearly become a major new direction
for improving student education at all levels: in K-12 schools as well as in colleges and universities. Mobile learning
allows a working adult who is also a part-time college student to use a smartphone to view a video lecture on a lunch break. K-12 students can learn at home, on a trip or in school. A mobile device that is part of students’ lifestyles combines many technologies to engage them and help them learn effectively. In these and many more ways, the power and flexibility of mobile technology are transforming both instruction and learning.
Definition of Mobile Learning
The term “mobile learning†has different meanings for different communities. Although related to e-learning and distance education, it is distinct in its focus on learning across contexts, learning collaboratively and learning with mobile devices.
A new direction in mobile learning, or m-learning, enables mobility for the instructor, including creating learning materials on the spot and in the field using mobile devices with layered software such as as Mobl21, Go-Know or Blackboard Mobile Learn. Using web 2.0 and mobile tools become an important part of student engagement and higher achievement.
The Case for Mobile Learning
Why is it important for educational institutions to join the mobile learning movement? Consider these factors:
. Mobile devices are now fundamental to the way students communicate and engage in all aspects of their lives. The
Pew Internet Project found that 49 percent of Americans ages 18-24 own a smartphone, and that the majority of these young adults also own a laptop computer.
. Student expectations are changing, especially in higher education. Today’s students juggle a complex life of school, work, family and social time.
Student Engagement
My first year teaching, a literacy coach came to observe my classroom. After the students left, she commented on how I asked the whole class a question, would wait just a few seconds, and then answer it myself. "It's cute," she added. Um, I don't think she thought it was so cute. I think she was treading lightly on the ever-so shaky ego of a brand-new teacher while still giving me some very necessary feedback.
So that day, I learned about wait/think time. And also, over the years, I learned to ask better and better questions.
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Many would agree that for inquiry to be alive and well in a classroom that, amongst other things, the teacher needs to be expert at asking strategic questions, and not only asking well-designed ones, but ones that will also lead students to questions of their own.
All too often, when we see colleagues who aren’t writing, we look away. If they’re assistant professors, we shrug as their tenure clock ticks — they’ll either make it or they won’t. If the writer’s block comes after tenure, we ignore that, too (except maybe in their annual reviews), until we finally dismiss them as "deadwood."
Writing-stalled faculty members tend to cope with their frustrations in ways that end up being ineffective, or even destructive. Instead of writing, they throw themselves into teaching and service. They get unnecessarily embroiled in departmental politics. Or they create a flurry of research-related projects that won’t meet tenure-and-promotion criteria no matter how creatively framed.
The postsecondary undergraduate educational experience takes place in an environment rife with expectation. Those “bright college years,†destined to be memorialized and celebrated, attract a cluster of sociocultural images and resonances, some realistic and some fanciful. Students see these years as a unique time of opportunity and unprecedented autonomy, a psycho-social moratorium where possibilities open up and they can grow into their own adult skins. And while matriculating students look forward to what awaits them, the other group intensely involved in the educational process — the faculty — looks back, projecting their own experience-derived expectations upon undergraduates who, in fact, may be
experiencing a generationally-different world. What should new students expect to find when they begin — and settle into — this new, but temporary, university life? And how will those expectations change as they are met, surpassed, or frustrated? What should faculty expect of students, and will they or should they measure up to faculty models? To what extent can faculty expectations serve as a control or calibrating influence on the subjective expectations and experiences of students?
These are questions that are of vital interest to those attempting to understand the link between student engagement and student success and, in this paper, these questions are explored through three surveys—the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), the Beginning College Survey of Student Engagement (BCSSE), and the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE).
Ontario is Canada’s largest provincial destination for immigrants. Language barriers, lack of recognition for foreign credentials and lack of work experience in Canada prevent many from gaining employment in their field of expertise.
There is an urgent and growing need for occupation-specific language training in Ontario. Immigrants cannot apply their experience, skills and knowledge without the level of language proficiency needed in the workplace, but there are not enough language training opportunities to meet their needs. Shortages of skilled workers in many sectors will increasingly hinder Ontario’s economic prosperity.
ABSTRACT
In this article we investigate Canadian university and college students’interpersonal confl icts and exposure to abuse and violence during their postsecondary studies and assess the emotional, social, and academic impact of these experiences. Our findings, based on a sample 1174 university and college students in Southwestern Ontario, revealed that although most of the incidents reported were verbal in nature and had relatively little emotional or academic impact, a small proportion of students reported experiencing serious violent incidents including sexual assault or rape, and these incidents have had a significant impact on their lives. Female students living on their own reported greater impact of negative social experiences than those who were living in college or university residences. In addition, students who reported confl icts involving institutional policies or rules, including what they perceived to be unfair workloads or grading practices, indicated that such experiences had a negative impact on their academic performance. We discuss these fi ndings in the context of maintaining safe, healthy climates on university and college campuses.
RÉSUMÉ
Dans cet article, nous étudions les confl its interpersonnels et l’exposition à l’abus et à la violence des étudiantes et étudiants canadiens des niveaux collégial et universitaire au cours de leurs études postsecondaires, ainsi que l’impact émotionnel, social et académique de ces expériences. Les résultats sont basés sur un échantillon de 1174 étudiantes et étudiants du sud-ouest de l’Ontario. Les résultats démontrent que, bien que la plupart des incidents signalés soient des confl its de nature verbale qui ont eu peu d’impact émotionnel ou académique, une petite proportion d’étudiantes et d’étudiants ont quand même signalé des incidents violents, y compris l’agression sexuelle et le viol, et ces expériences ont eu un impact signifi catif sur leur qualité de vie. Les étudiantes vivant seules ont signalé un plus grand impact que celles vivant en résidence au collège ou à l’université. Les étudiantes et étudiants qui ont signalé des expériences reliées aux politiques institutionnelles et aux règles d’évaluation telles que des charges de travail et des évaluations perçues comme inéquitables ont indiqué que ces expériences ont eu un impact négatif sur leur rendement académique. Nous discutons de ces résultats dans le contexte des efforts visant à maintenir un climat sain de sécurité dans les universités et les collèges.