In this retrospective account of their scholarly work over the past 45 years, Alexander and Helen Astin show how the struggle to achieve greater equity in American higher education is intimately connected to issues of character development, leadership, civic responsibility, and spirituality. While shedding some light on a variety of questions having to do with fairness and equity, this research has not succeeded in removing the structural barriers to progress among underrepresented groups. Accordingly, the authors advocate that colleges and universities focus greater attention on developing student values and other personal qualities that will produce a new generation of citizens who are committed to creating a more just and equitable
society.
Abstract
The demands on academic staff in all sectors to adopt best ODL practices to create effective and efficient models of learning in the face of increasing external pressures show no signs of abating. The massification of higher education, diversified access, and pressures to meet institutional visions and research objectives demand of teaching staff an increasingly public design process subject to peer review in numerous forms. Expectations of systematized pedagogical planners and embedded templates of learning within the institutional virtual learning environments (VLEs) have, so far, failed to deliver the institutional efficiencies anticipated. In response, a new model of learning design is proposed with a practical, accessible, and freely available “toolkit” that embodies and embeds pedagogical theories and practices. The student-owned learning-engagement (SOLE) model aims to support professional development within practice, constructive alignment, and holistic visualisations, as well as enable the sharing of learning design processes with the learners themselves.
Keywords: Learning design; constructive alignment; pedagogical planners; toolkit
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning
Embodied and Embedded Theory in Practice: The Student-Owned Learning-Engagement (SOLE) Model
Simon Atkinson
London School of Economics and Political Science, UK
This study1 was designed to develop a better understanding of the characteristics of the young people who do not pursue post-secondary education (PSE) directly after leaving secondary school, and the factors that shaped their decision making.
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.
In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy and crew are so intimidated by the Wizard's enigmatic personality that they struggle to talk with him on equal footing. Fear and frustration overwhelm them as they blindly accept a suicide mission to slay the Witch of the West. In return, they each receive a treasured prize: a heart, a brain, courage, and a way home. Ironically, they already have these gifts -- which they only discover after unveiling the man behind the curtain posing as the grumpy wizard.
Differentiated instruction (DI) casts a spell on educators as to how it meets all students' needs. The skillset required to differentiate seems mystical to some and incomprehensible to others in this environment of state standards and high-stakes tests. Where does one find the time? The reality is that every teacher already has the tools to differentiate in powerful ways for all learners. I address some of these elements, such as assessment fog, in other Edutopia posts.
The Aboriginal Girls’ Circle (AGC) is an intervention targeted to increase social connection, participation and self-confidence amongst Aboriginal girls attending secondary schools. Researchers from the University of Western Sydney (UWS)’s School of Education sought to evaluate the AGC pilot undertaken at Dubbo College and to provide recommendations for the program’s further development. The following specific aims were outlined for this pilot research.
The thesis of this book is that the present approach to the provision of baccalaureate education in Ontario is not sustainable and
is in need of significant modification. The stage for the present approach was set by two higher education policy decisions that
were made in the 1960s: (1) that the colleges would have no role in the provision of baccalaureate credit activity; and (2) that the
publicly supported universities would have complete autonomy in deciding on their purpose, mission, and objectives. While the
universities had been primarily teaching institutions until the 1960s, since then a single idea of the mission of the university—the
research university—has been adopted by all. A key element of the research university model to which the university community
in Ontario has subscribed is that of the teacher-researcher ideal: that undergraduate students should be taught only by
professors who are active researchers.
Background/Context: Very little empirical research has been conducted on the issue of educator sexual misconduct (ESM) in secondary settings. The few reports available typically treat a larger social issue, such as sexual harassment or child abuse; therefore, data on ESM specifically must be extrapolated. When such data are obtained, the focus has been on rates of incidence rather than the nature of the problem. Feminist scholars have theorized embodiment in education and debated whether and to what extent an eroticized pedagogy is desirable, but scant attention has been paid to how and why erotic pedagogy can go awry.
Let's put the worries about our new curriculum into perspective. We live in an increasingly challenging, complex, inter-connected and unpredictable world beset by a range of seemingly insoluble problems.
This is the view of Thomas Homer-Dixon (pictured), an expert in peace and conflict studies, who believes these problems arise from "tectonic stresses". He identifies five: population stress, energy stress, environmental stress, climate stress and economic stress (the ever-widening gap between rich and poor people).
In this article, we describe a teacher education program that attempted to deal with a teacher quality agenda by changing both the content and mode of operation of a pre-service teacher education program. We first describe the program and its differences from the standard BEd model, and then comment on research conducted into the program. We conclude the article with the proposal that robust, syndicated partnerships between schools and universities are the most likely arrangement to foster significant changes in teacher education.
Extrinsic incentives and constraints, such as the promise of a reward or the expectation of an evaluation, have long been used by educators to motivate students. Previous research has consistently found that expected reward consistently undermines intrinsic task motivation and creativity of products and performance in students of all ages. For a majority of learners, the promise of a reward made contingent on engagement in an open-ended task frequently serves to undermine intrinsic task motivation and qualitative aspects of performance, including creativity.
Background: In the last decade, the effects of teachers on student performance (typically manifested as state-wide standardized
tests) have been re-examined using statistical models that are known as value-added models. These statistical models aim to compute the unique contribution of the teachers in promoting student achievement gains from grade to grade, net of student
background and prior ability. Value-added models are widely used nowadays and they are used by some states to rank teachers. These models are used to measure teacher performance or effectiveness (via student achievement gains), with the ultimate objective of rewarding or penalizing teachers. Such practices have resulted in a large amount of controversy in the education community about the role of value-added models in the process of making important decisions about teachers such as salary increases, promotion, or termination of employment.
Keywords Sustainable development, Higher education, Learning
Abstract It is higher education’s responsibility to continuously challenge and critique value and knowledge claims that have prescriptive tendencies. Part of this responsibility lies in engaging students in socio-scientific disputes. The ill-defined nature of sustainability manifests itself in such disputes when conflicting values, norms, interests, and reality constructions meet. This makes sustainability – its need for contextualization and the debate surrounding it – pivotal for higher education. It offers an opportunity for reflection on the mission of our universities and colleges, but also a chance to enhance the quality of the learning process. This paper explores both the overarching goals and process of higher education from an emancipatory view and with regard to sustainability.
Three years ago, Schreiner University recognized a need for nursing education in south central Texas. Many registered nurses at local hospitals lacked a bachelor’s of science in nursing -- a degree that would open the door to higher salaries and greater responsibilities.
Schreiner decided to address this issue by building an online nursing program. There was just one problem: the private university didn't have the internal expertise and start-up capital to create such a program.
Vision
•Transforming lives and communities through learning.
Mission
•To educate students for career success.
This article reviews the history of large-scale education reform and makes the case that large-scale or whole system reform policies and strategies are becoming increasingly evident. The review briefly addresses the pre 1997 period concluding that while the pressure for reform was mounting that there were very few examples of deliberate or successful strategies being developed. In the second period—1997 to 2002—for the first time we witness some specific cases of whole system reform in which progress in student achievement was evident. England and Finland are cited as two cases in point. In 2003–2009 we began to observe an expansion of the number of systems engaged in what I call tri-level reform—school/ district/government. As Finland, Singapore, Alberta, Canada, Hong Kong, and South Korea continued to demonstrate strong performance in literacy, math and science, Ontario joined the ranks with a systematic tri-level strategy which virtually immediately yielded results and continues to do so in 2009. The nature of these large-scale reform strategies is identified in this article. It can be noted that very little productive whole system reform was going on in the United States. Aside from pockets of success at the level of a few districts since 2000, and despite the presence of a ‘policy without a strategy’ in the form of No Child Left Behind the US failed to make any progress in increasing student achievement. In the final section of the paper I consider the early steps of the Obama
administration in light of the ‘theory of action’ of whole system reform identified in this article and predict that there we will see a great expansion and deepening of large-scale reform strategies in the immediate future, not only in the U.S. but across the world.
The present system of academic credentials awarded by Ontario’s colleges was established nearly a half century ago. It is thus appropriate to consider how well some of those credential titles fit in the global lexicon of academic credentials as it has evolved over the last half century and whether they are still appropriate today.
Presently the term for the credential that is awarded by colleges in Ontario upon completion of a program of two years’ duration is diploma. In 1995, noted community college scholar John Dennison of the University of British Columbia observed that “there is not a clear appreciation of what a diploma means”, and this “results in an undervaluation of the diploma from a CAAT” (Dennison, 1995, p. 13).
This study investigates the relationship between approaches to studying and course completion in two online preparatory university courses in mathematics and computer programming. The students participating in the two courses are alike in age, gender, and approaches to learning. Four hundred and ninety-three students participating in these courses answered the short
version of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (ASSIST). Results show that students demonstrating a deep approach to learning in either course are more likely to complete. In the mathematics course, a combination of deep and strategic approaches correlates positively with course completion. In the programming course, students who demonstrate a surface approach are less likely to complete. These results are in line with the intentions of the course designers, but they also suggest ways to improve these courses. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that ASSIST can be used to evaluate course design.
AAUP sessions center on faculty members' role and responsibilities regarding classroom conversations about race.
This paper examines the long-term labour market premiums associated with completing a college certificate and a bachelor's degree, compared to completing a high school diploma. Several labour market outcomes of individuals are examined with longitudinal data over a 20- year period spanning their mid-30s to their mid-50s. The findings show that individuals who have a bachelor's degree or a college certificate have more favourable labour market outcomes over their working lives than individuals who have only a high school diploma. More specifically, the earnings premium associated with a bachelor's degree over the 20-year period ranges, on average, from $728,000 for men to $442,000 for women. For a college certificate, the premium is $248,000 for men and $180,000 for women, on average. The earnings premium associated with a bachelor's degree is much larger at the top of the distribution for men than it is for women. The study also finds that, for both men and women, a bachelor's degree and a college certificate are associated with more years of coverage in an employer-sponsored pension plan
and fewer layoffs than a high school diploma.