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.
Change seems to be the new constant regarding our country’s educational systems – at every level. Major changes in K-12 are, in part, a result of the new Common Core, which is intended to eliminate the need for developmental education. The standards of the new Common Core are excellent and seem to align with and exceed the “college-ready indicators” assessed on current college placement tests. However, developmental education is not going away anytime soon.
This study breaks new ground by examining data from Canada's last three censuses — 1996, 2001 and 2006 — to measure the income gap between Aboriginal peoples and the rest of Canadians.
Not only has the legacy of colonialism left Aboriginal peoples disproportionately ranked among the poorest of Canadians, this study reveals disturbing levels of in- come inequality persist as well.
In 2006, the median income for Aboriginal peoples was $18,962 — 30% lower than the $27,097 median income for the rest of Canadians. The difference of $8,135 that existed in 2006, however, was marginally smaller than the difference of $9,045 in 2001 or $9,428 in 1996.
While income disparity between Aboriginal peoples and the rest of Canadians narrowed slightly between 1996 and 2006, at this rate it would take 63 years for the gap to be erased.
Ironically, if and when parity with other Canadians is reached, Aboriginal peoples will achieve the same level of income inequality as the rest of the country, which is getting worse, not better.
The study reveals income inequality persists no matter where Aboriginal peoples live in Canada. The income gap in urban settings is $7,083 higher in urban settings and $4,492 higher in rural settings. Non-Aboriginal people working on urban re- serves earn 34% more than First Nation workers. On rural reserves, non-Aboriginal Canadians make 88% more than their First Nation
colleagues.
The study also reveals income inequality persists despite rapid increases in educational
attainment for Aboriginal people over the past 10 years, with one exception.
Ontario’s colleges share the provincial government’s belief that apprenticeship must play a greater role in addressing skills shortages and contributing to innovative, high-performance workplaces that enhance Ontario’s competitiveness.
Given the severity of the economic downturn, Ontario faces an immediate, serious challenge as apprenticeship workplace training is disrupted. Businesses are less able to take on apprentices and registrations drop as apprentices are often last on a company’s payroll and first off. To help apprentices and their employers, Ontario’s colleges propose that the government:
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research
Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) (“the Agencies”) are federal granting agencies that promote and support research, research training and innovation within Canada. As publicly funded organizations, the Agencies have a fundamental interest in promoting the availability of findings that result from the research they fund, including research publications and data, to the widest possible audience, and at the earliest possible opportunity. Societal advancement is made possible through widespread and barrier-free access to cutting-edge research and knowledge, enabling researchers, scholars, clinicians, policymakers, private sector and not-for-profit organizations and
the public to use and build on this knowledge.
Digital resources are changing the ways students engage in learning and provide increased opportunities for student success. New technologies also provide improved assessment tools for measuring learning outcomes and student engagement. These benefits come without an additional cost burden to students.
The Ministry of Training, Colleges, and University’s (MTCU) recently released Tuition Fee Framework and Ancillary Fee Guidelines for Publicly-Assisted Universities (December, 2013) indicates support for the use of digital learning materials, including materials used in assessment. The new framework reflects a change in the Ministry policy concerning ancillary fees and enables the use of digital learning resources. This position paper explains Ontario universities’ support of MTCU’s new guidelines.
A different kind of learning occurs when there is no exam to study for, no essay to write – just the opportunity to apply the knowledge and skills that have been learned to a real life project. From medicine to engineering and fine arts, experiential learning is where curiosity gets tested in the real world.
Applied, or work-integrated, learning is one of the fastest-growing areas for universities in Ontario, a testament to its tremendous value to students and employers. It began with practicums for students in health sciences, expanded later to those studying business and engineering, and today, spans all disciplines and faculties with hundreds of programs on university campuses. Through internships, co-op programs, community service learning and placements, students are working in businesses, sports franchises, community organizations and international development agencies. Students can also acquire experiential learning through programs on campus that encourage them to take on roles such as investment managers, campaign planners and entrepreneurs.
Historic High in the History of the Learning Technology Industry
The investments made to learning technology companies in the first half of 2015 were the highest for a half year period in the history of the learning technology industry and exceeds the total amount for the entire year of 2014. In the six month period between January and June 2015, $2.51 billion was invested in learning technology companies across the globe. This is astonishing considering that the total global investments made to learning technology companies for the entire year of 2014 was $2.42 billion, which set a record in the industry.
University Works uses empirical data to report on the outcomes of university graduates in terms of employment levels
and earnings, as well as average debt upon graduation.
University graduates experienced the highest employment growth of any educational attainment group over the last decade.
This paper examines the role of affiliated and federated universities in Ontario’s higher education system. It addresses the question: Do affiliated and federated institutions make a distinctive contribution to the differentiation of postsecondary education in Ontario?
Ontario has 16 affiliated and federated universities that historically were church-governed and that became associated with one of the publicly supported universities. Each of them offers primarily secular academic programs today. Carleton, Laurentian, Ottawa, Toronto, Waterloo and Western each have one or more federated or affiliated university.
Hosting international students has long been admired as one of the hallmarks of internationalization. The two major formative strands of internationalization in Canadian universities are development cooperation and international
students. With reduced public funding for higher education, institutions are aggressively recruiting international students to generate additional revenue.
Canada is equally interested in offering incentives for international students to stay in the country as immigrants after completing their studies. In its 2011 budget, the Canadian federal government earmarked funding for an international
education strategy and, in 2010, funded Edu-Canada—the marketing unit within the Department of Education and Foreign Affairs (DFAIT)—to develop an official Canadian brand to boost educational marketing, IMAGINE:
Education in/au Canada. This model emulates the Australian one, which rapidly capitalized on the recruitment of international students and became an international success story. Given current Canadian higher education policy trends, this paper will address the cautionary lessons that can be drawn from the Australian case
This report aims to introduce the reader to the apprenticeship sector in Ontario by providing an overview of the current state of affairs. We begin by outlining the structure and governance of apprenticeship in the province and survey the literature relevant to some of the policy debates regarding apprenticeship. The report then identifies and consolidates key data concerning the various components of this complex system, providing comparative Canadian data where relevant to identify areas of strength and weakness. The intent is for this report to provide a firm foundation from which further discussions concerning apprenticeship might proceed.
Skills shortages1 have regularly been identified as one of the top 10 barriers to competitiveness in Canada by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, costing the Canadian economy billions in lost GDP annually.2 There is now a rare consensus about skills
needs and challenges in this country, across the demand and supply perspectives.3 An aging population will only
exacerbate the problem in the coming years, especially for the most in-demand professions in the
skilled trades and STEM-based occupations (where STEM refers to science, technology, engineering
and math).
With this report the Canadian Chamber of Commerce focuses on the role of the education-to-employment transition in mitigating or aggravating the skills gaps. Specifically, this report addresses the ways in which all stakeholders, including government, employers, workers, education providers and students, will need to adapt and collaborate to improve the efficiency of
the labour market.
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.
A brash tech entrepreneur thinks he can reinvent higher education by stripping it down to its essence, eliminating lectures and tenure along with football games, ivy-covered buildings, and research libraries. What if he's right?
University graduates are more likely to be working at a job related to their studies than college. University graduates' earnings are significantly higher than for any other education group, and these earning premiums start early in graduates' careers.
Universities and colleges strive to grow and fulfill their mission of educating their communities. Communicating the data around that mission—how many students are graduating? What does the student population look like? Is the University managing its finances?— is an important component of any institution’s daily life. In this era of larger data and disparate data sources, that can be especially challenging. However, institutions that have been able to present important data online have been able to tell their stories better and engage with their communities in a meaningful way.
This paper presents eight ways that higher education is using analytics and data visualization, supported by examples from real institutions. It also addresses common issues such as keeping data up-to-date as well as appropriately private and secure.
This paper presents an overview of gender differences in education outcomes in OECD countries. A rich set of indicators describes the improvement of educational attainment among women over the past decades, and various dimensions of male under-performance in education. Possible explanatory factors include incentives provided by changing employment opportunities for women, demographic trends, as well as the higher sensitivity of boys to disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Gender differences in field of study and in performance by subject are found to be related to attitudes and self-perceptions towards academic subjects, which are in turn influenced by social norms. A number of policy options to
address gender gaps are presented in the final section of the paper.
This draft framework has been approved by the Committee of Presidents of the 24 publicly-funded colleges. In approving this template, the presidents recognize that individual colleges may need to make changes to reflect local circumstances during the development of their stand-alone sexual violence and sexual assault policy and protocol. In doing so, the colleges have committed to retaining as much consistency with the template as possible to reflect a similar style, tone, and format that will help students and others easily access information they need no matter which college they approach.
There are about 420 registered private career colleges (PCCs) in Ontario – the number is in constant flux. 60% of schools are ten years of age or younger. They serve 53,000 full time equivalent (FTE) students, or about 1 in 15 Ontario postsecondary students. Their overall vocational revenues are in the order of $360M annually. They are mostly small; 70% have total revenues under $1M and average enrolment is under 200.