Educational disparities in U.S. adult mortality are large and have widened across birth cohorts. We consider three policy relevant
scenarios and estimate the mortality attributable to: (1) individuals having less than a high school degree rather than a high school degree, (2) individuals having some college rather than a baccalaureate degree, and (3) individuals having anything less than a laureate degree rather than a baccalaureate degree, using educational disparities specific to the 1925, 1935, and 1945
cohorts.
The New Technologies: New Pedagogies project endeavoured to take an innovative approach not only in the creation of new, authentic pedagogies for mobile devices but also in the action learning approach adopted for the professional development of participants. The project involved 19 people including teachers, IT and PD personnel. It was a large and ambitious project that resulted not only in a range of innovative pedagogies, but in the creation of more knowledgable and confident users of mobile technologies among teachers and students in the faculty of Education at the University of Wollongong.
Learning to Lead Change - The Pathways Problem
Over the last decade the global economy has become more competitive, and the jobs needed in that new economy have grown more technologically complex. As a result, educators, education researchers, and national and state policymakers have emphasized that students must graduate from high school “ready for college and career.” While college and career readiness has become the goal for all individuals, opinions have recently begun to differ about what college and—especially—career readiness actually means and how best to assess it.
As laptops become smaller and more ubiquitous, and with the advent of tablets, the idea of taking notes by hand just seems old-fashioned to many students today. Typing your notes is faster — which comes in handy when there's a lot of information to take down. But it turns out there are still advantages to doing things the old-fashioned way.
For one thing, research shows that laptops and tablets have a tendency to be distracting — it's so easy to click over to Facebook in that dull lecture. And a study has shown that the fact that you have to be slower when you take notes by hand is what makes it more useful in the long run.
Reading instruction has been reformed successfully in the primary grades, but with no consequent improvement in adolescent literacy. This commentary asks the question: What changes can the states and federal government make to education policy that will boost adolescent reading achievement?
Background/Context: The rapid pace of technological change, undergirded by near ubiquitous access to the web, is producing a new learning ecology—a new ecology of information, of knowledge, of reading, of teaching, and of thinking. This instant availability of digital resources frees both time and cognitive energy that may be used to facilitate higher order thinking. This article provides a framework through which to better understand, evaluate, and scaffold the generative synthesis of knowledge in a web-mediated world.
Purpose/Objective: The purpose of this article is to describe a theory that can stimulate additional scholarly work examining higher order, or generative, thinking in web-mediated environments.
“Pop leadership” philosophy abounds in our culture today. Book stores have shelves full of books on leader ship. Leaders and leadership are discussed daily on tele vision, radio, newspapers, magazines and on the web. As a result, many mixed messages about leadership are expressed. So – how do you decide what is accurate?
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 development initiatives using blended learning strategies.
Before you even print off the application forms to request funding for your research project, take some time to review these tips.
Community college systems were established across North America from the early 1960s through the early 1970s. The new systems had two principal models: in one model, the college combined lower-division, university-level general education with technical education programs; in the other, most or all of the colleges were intended to concentrate on technical education. Ontario was the largest of the provinces and states in North America that opted for the second model. Many of the issues that planners confronted when designing these college systems have either persisted or re-emerged in recent years. This article re-examines the debate on the design of Ontario’s colleges that took place when they were founded and considers its implications for the present.
On behalf of the Ontario Council on Articulation and Transfer (ONCAT), we are pleased to present a submission to the provincial government on credit transfer, in an effort to inform the roundtable discussions on credit transfer reform.
Established in 2011, ONCAT was created to enhance student pathways and reduce barriers for students looking to transfer among Ontario’s 44 publicly funded postsecondary institutions. As a member driven organization, ONCAT has continued to play a leadership role in the development of credit transfer policies and practices in Ontario. With the ministry’s ongoing funding of $15 million over two years, ONCAT is committed to continuing to drive innovation for credit transfer in the province with the goal of achieving the ministry’s vision by 2015.
Ask most people who don’t teach online about the likelihood of academic dishonesty in an online class and you will likely hear concerns about the many ways that students could misrepresent themselves online. In fact, this concern about student representation is so prevalent it made its way into the Higher Education Opportunities Act (HEOA). Passed into law in 2008, the act brought a few big changes to online education, including a new requirement to “ensure that the student enrolled in an online class is the student doing the coursework.” Although there’s some disagreement as to whether distance education is more susceptible to academic dishonesty than other forms of instruction, what isn’t up for debate is the fact that for as long as there’s been exams, there’s been cheating on exams. The online environment simply opens up a different set of challenges that aren’t typically seen in traditional face-to-face courses. Promoting Academic Integrity in Online Education was developed to help you understand the latest tools and techniques for mitigating cheating and other unethical behaviors in your online courses. The report features nine articles from Distance Education Report, including:
• Combating Online Dishonesty with Communities of Integrity
• 91 Ways to Maintain Academic Integrity in Online Courses
• The New News about Cheating for Distance Educators
• A Problem of Core Values: Academic Integrity in Distance Learning
• Practical Tips for Preventing Cheating on Online Exams
Online education didn’t invent cheating, but it does present unique challenges. This report provides proactive ways for meeting these challenges head on.
Think back to your first few years of teaching. If you’re like most educators, you probably ade your share of mistakes. To be sure, we all do things differently now than we did when we were first starting out. Thank goodness for that! When Faculty Focus put out a call for articles for this special report on teaching mistakes, we really didn’t know what to expect. Would faculty be willing to share their earlier missteps for all to see? Would the articles all talk about the same common mistakes, or would the range of
mistakes discussed truly reflect the complexities of teaching today?
We were delighted at the response, not only in terms of the number of instructors willing to share their stories with our readers, but by the variety of mistakes in the reflective essays. For example, in “You Like Me, You Really Like Me. When Kindness Becomes a Weakness,” Jolene Cunningham writes of her discovery that doing everything you can for your students is not
always the best policy.
In “If I Tell Them, They Will Learn,” Nancy Doiron-Maillet writes about her realization that it’s not enough to provide information to students if they don’t have opportunities to then apply what you are trying to teach them.
Other articles in Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom include:
• When Expectations Collide
• Things My First Unhappy Student Taught Me
• Understanding My Role as Facilitator
• Don’t Assume a Student’s Previous Knowledge
• What Works in One Culture May Not Work in Another
We thank all the authors who shared their stories and know that the lessons learned will help
prevent others from making these same mistakes.
Mary Bart
Editor
Faculty Focus
This paper examines the implications of expanding the number and scope of college-to-university transfer arrangements as a means of meeting the demand for undergraduate degrees in Ontario. It focuses on two research questions:
1. What are the differences in the learning outcomes of students in college-to-university transfer arrangements compared with those in four-year university programs?
2. What are the differences in the cost per student for college-to-university transfer arrangements compared with four-year university programs?
One of the many lessons learned from the early years of distance education is the fact that you cannot simply pluck an instructor out of the classroom, plug him into an online course, and expect him to be effective in this new and challenging medium. Some learned this lesson the hard way, while others took a proactive approach to faculty training. All of us continue to refine our approach and discover our own best practices.
Today, it’s possible to learn much from the mistakes and successes of those who blazed the trail before us. Faculty development for distance educators is a critical component of all successful distance education programs. Well thought-out faculty development weaves together needed training, available resources, and ongoing support, and carries with it the same expectations for quality teaching that institutions of higher education have for their face-to-face
classes.
This special report, Faculty Development in Distance Education: Issues, Trends and Tips, features 12 articles pulled from the pages of Distance Education Report, including:
• Faculty Development: Best Practices from World Campus
• Developing Faculty Competency in Online Pedagogy
• A Learner-Centered, Emotionally Engaging Approach to Online Learning
• How to Get the Best Out of Online Adjuncts
• Workload, Promotion, and Tenure Implications of Teaching Online
• Four Steps to Just-in-Time Faculty Training
This report is loaded with practical strategies that can help you build a comprehensive faculty development program, helping ensure that instructors stay current in both online pedagogy and practical technical know-how. No matter what the particular character of your program is, I think you’ll find many ideas you can use in here.
Christopher Hill
Editor
Distance Education Report
chill@magnapubs.com
Six years ago, Sallie Mae started a conversation with American families, asking them important questions about how they meet the cost of higher education and how they view the value of that investment.
The How America Pays for College study, conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, shows that American families are settling into a post-recession reality with regards to how they pay for college. Since 2010, families have reduced how much they spend on college, with parents’ contributions in particular seeing a significant decline.
The use of grants and scholarships, now the largest contributor, and student borrowing have increased to make up for some of this deficit. In 2013, the use of college savings plans has also increased to its highest level ever.
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.
ACT has been measuring college readiness trends for several years. The Condition of College & Career Readiness
is ACT’s annual report on the progress of the graduating class relative to college readiness. This year, 54.3% of the graduating class took the ACT® college readiness assessment. The increased number of test takers enhances the breadth and depth of the data pool, providing a comprehensive picture of the current graduating class in the context of readiness levels as well as offering a glimpse of the emerging educational pipeline.
Recognise your social and digital media efforts as part of the research process
We are aware that social media can often feel like an additional burden to academics’ already busy workload. To avoid social media burnout, find out where these tools might fit more systematically in the wider network of interactions informing and communicating your research. Research has always been a social process and there are bound to be many opportunities for you to explore these social aspects further. Our book aims to provide a framework to help you explore different ways of employing social media throughout the research lifecycle.