OUSA’s LGBTQ+ Student Experience Survey was a mixed methods research project conducted in Novem-ber 2014 designed to gain understanding of the opinions and experiences of Ontario university students who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Questioning, or other orientations or identities that do not conform to cisgender and heterosexual paradigms (LGBTQ+). The purpose of the survey was to identify any gaps that might exist in university services, programming, and supports that can diminish or negatively impact university experiences for these students.
This report focuses on recent Ontario education policies. It is a policy audit of the present state of the public school system in Ontario and a proposal for provincial education policies that will best serve the students of Ontario. Following the most tumultuous decade in Ontario educational history, and seven years after the release of the report of the Royal Commission on Learning,1 we believe it is necessary to examine where Ontario education is now and where the province should be headed in the future.
As they begin taking classes, most incoming adult learners express a strong desire to complete a degree, but many also harbor concerns and attitudes that reduce their motivation and put them at risk for attrition. This report explores a wide range of these noncognitive, motivational attributes that influence completion. The study is based on a national sample of 5,000 first-year adult learners who filled out a 74-item, college completion risk survey in 2014 or 2015 at 50 colleges and universities across the United States.
Within the context of my Ph.D. dissertation, I am interested in (1) the impact of superiors management skills and subordinates’ working skills on the building of their (hierarchical) relationship and (2) the impact this hierarchical relationship has upon the mental health of workers (i.e. both superiors and subordinates). Research to date has revealed the potentially negative consequences that hierarchical relationships can have on mental health; thus, for
example, Brun, Biron, Martel & Ivers (2003) found that poor relations with the supervisor constitutes a significant risk factor for mental health. Leiter and Maslach (2004) report similar findings, that is to say, that the quality of social interactions at work is a major risk factor for mental health.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
International students are increasingly regarded as ‘ideal‘, ‘model‘ or ’designer‘ immigrants for the labour markets of their host countries. Young, educated, and equipped with host country credentials and experiences, international students are
presumed to mitigate future talent shortages, especially in technical occupations in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In an effort to retain more inter- national students for their domestic workforce, many host countries have passed legislation to improve post- study work and residency options for the ‘educational nomads’. However, despite these reforms and a high willingness to stay, many international students fail to find adequate employment. For example in Germany, 30 percent of former international students are still searching for a job more than one year aftergraduation.
In its final report to Canadians, the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) reveals that Canada is slipping down the
international learning curve. The needs in this area are stark. The potential rewards are enormous. But we are falling behind competitor countries and economies. We are on the wrong road and must make a dramatic change in the course we are taking.
The principal cause of this unacceptable and deeply troubling state of affairs is that our governments have failed to work together to develop the necessary policies and failed to exhibit the required collective political leadership.
The necessary approach is voluntary and co-operative, respectful of provincial and territorial responsibility, but involves the development of clear trans-Canadian policies and actions.
The starting point for the proposed directions is the establishment of a federal/provincial/territorial Council of Ministers on Learning. In addition, there must be: clear and measureable national goals for each stage of learning, as described in this report; permanent, independent monitors to compare Canadian learning results to our stated goals; standing advisory groups, including educators and civil society, to consult on requisite national objectives and the means to reach these goals. Through CCL, Canadians were offered an opportunity to set in place a vision, a mission, and a model for continuous learning which could unite Canadians in a common purpose. It was a much-needed national initiative. Although CCL will close in spring 2012, that need continues. Without a sustained trans-Canadian approach, many learners will not reach their objectives. The country requires a national learning framework in order for its regions, provinces and territories to succeed. Without a national framework, we will miss the east–west learning railroad that should connect Canadians of all regions, generations and languages. The vision of CCL was to link Canadians in sharing learning experiences and promoting the enhancement of learning as a core value of a distinctive Canadian society. Hence the transformative image of a trans-Canadian learning architecture which would entrench and maintain our economic stability and social cohesion. CCL closes; the vision endures. This final report summarizes the state of learning for each stage of the life cycle.
Equity and Access to Higher Education?
Participation rates in both university and college vary based on the student’s
family income. That variation is relatively small for college students, but
skews toward children from wealthy families for universities. College students
come almost evenly from the family income quartiles; regardless of
family income, about 25% of students come from each family income quartile.
In contrast, more university students come from wealthy families than
low-income ones. Almost 35% of all university students come from the top
quartile, compared to just under 20% from the poorest quartile.
This research report represents the first phase of a multi-year collaborative research initiative of the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario.1 The initiative is designed to develop a cohesive picture of the pathways from secondary school to college. The major purpose of this phase of the research was to identify secondary school students’ perceptions of Ontario colleges and of college as a possible post-secondary educational destination for them, and to determine the factors that have shaped these perceptions. A second purpose was to identify secondary school student achievement patterns, graduation rates and course enrolments in order to consider their influence on current and future college enrolments.
The main source of data for the study was a survey of 21,385 Grades 11, 12 and Year 5 students enrolled in 73 Ontario secondary schools. The schools were selected to represent Ontario college regions, school size and school type (i.e., Roman Catholic, public, and serving francophone students). In addition to the survey, the schools were asked to provide school calendars or course option sheets and course enrolments in order to assess the availability of college-destination courses and course sequences that lead to college. Sixty-one schools provided information for this analysis. Data from the Double Cohort Study, Phase 3 (2004) and Phase 4 (2005), were also examined in order to conduct a preliminary analysis of the characteristics of college applicants in terms of their secondary school courses taken and marks obtained.
In recent months, there has been much discussion in the media and among academics about the skills acquired by Canadian university graduates. The issues being raised are threefold. The first concerns the question of whether Canada is facing a “skills gap”. While the Conference Board of Canada (2013a) has argued that we definitely are (and that the long-term economic consequences will be severe), reports by economist Don Drummond and TD Bank indicate that the skills gap is largely a
myth (TD Economics, 2013; Goar, 2013). Others have indicated that current discussions about a skills gap often lack an appropriate level of specificity, making it difficult to assess the merit of these arguments or to generate potentially necessary
solutions (Weingarten, 2013)
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.
Ontario firms and organizations are being challenged to increase productivity through innovation in order to compete on the fiercely competitive world stage and improve the quality of life of Ontarians. Yet, Ontario suffers from innovation gaps
that place its productivity and prosperity goals at risk.
Ontario’s 24 Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology have long been recognized for their contributions to career-oriented education and training programs that have strengthened the Ontario economy throughout the latter part of the 20th century.
Poised on the threshold of the 21st century, college-based applied research and development (R&D) and business and industry innovation activities are of ever increasing importance to the achievement of Ontario’s productivity and prosperity
goals.
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).
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.
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.
Phil L. Davison
St. Francis Xavier University
ABSTRACT
This study explores the perspectives and understandings of post-secondary leaders and their contexts as described through the qualitative experiences of 12 Maritime Canadian leaders (presidents and vice-presidents) who work in contemporary, publicly funded, post-secondary institutions. Four themes emerge: balancing daily dissonance, learning experientially to lead,
creating learning spaces, and needing moments of grace. The research reveals that leaders seek deeper understandings of their work and their characterization.