MCMASTER UNIVERSITY’S VISION/MANDATE
Vision Statement
To achieve international distinction for creativity, innovation, and excellence.
Mission
“At McMaster, our purpose is the discovery, communication, and preservation of knowledge. In our teaching, research, and scholarship, we are committed to creativity, innovation, and excellence. We value integrity, quality, inclusiveness, and teamwork in everything we do. We inspire critical thinking, personal growth, and a passion for lifelong learning. We serve the social, cultural, and economic needs of our community and our society.”
When and how are today’s prospective undergraduate students entering the recruitment funnel and moving through it? This report provides funnel conversion and yield rate benchmarks for particular student groups and particular entry points, such as in-state vs. out-of-state FTIC (first-time-in-college) students, campus visitors, transfer students, and other groups. By comparing these external benchmarks to their own internal benchmarks, campus enrollment teams can more accurately forecast the conversion and yield rates to expect at each stage of the college decision process.
I was taking advantage of some down time, cleaning out some of my old files on my computer, when I ran across a great article I saved that covered student personality types. When I originally read this article, I only had several years of experience working in the distancelearning realm. Now, years later, I have seen all these student types at one time or another, and
throughout the years, noticed several others worthy of mention.
Before moving into some observations, I do need to provide some context for the environment in which I work. Our population consists of postgraduate students working in middle management positions. The classes are small, 18 students to one instructor, and progress through the year as a group. The yearlong curriculum is not self-paced. The college delivers
the content in a mix between asynchronous and synchronous modalities. Blackboard is the asynchronous platform that delivers the lesson material using a combination of computerbased instruction, online exams, and discussion board forums. We use Blackboard Ultra and/or Defense Connect Services for the synchronous portions of the curriculum, which
include delivery of student briefing products. Of course, there are the standard necessities like email, telephone, and administration that accompany facilitation.
The Canadian Trans Youth Health Survey was a national on-line survey conducted by researchers from several Canadian universities and community organizations. The survey had 923 trans youth participants from all 10 provinces and one of the territories. The survey included somewhat differ- ent questions for younger (14-18 years) and older (19-25 years) trans youth about a wide range of life experiences and behaviours that influence young people’s health. This national report is a first snapshot of survey results.
Educational Assessment: Designing a System for More
Meaningful Results
The past few years have ushered in more strident calls for accountability across institutions of higher learning. Various internal and external stakeholders are asking questions like "Are students learning what we want them to learn?" and "How do the students' scores from one institution compare to its peers?" As a result, more institutions are looking for new, more far-reaching ways to assess student learning and then use assessment findings to improve students' educational experiences.
However, as Trudy Banta notes in her article An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators, “just as simply weighing a pig will not make it fatter, spending millions simply to test college students is not likely to help them learn more.” (p. 6)
While assessing institutional effectiveness is a noble pursuit, measuring student learning is not always easy, and like so many things we try to quantify, there’s much more to learning than a number in a datasheet. As Roxanne Cullen and Michael Harris note in their article The Dash to Dashboards, “The difficulty we have in higher education in defining and measuring our outcomes lies in the complexity of our business: the business of learning. A widget company or a fast-food chain has clearly defined goals and can usually pinpoint with fine accuracy where and how to
address loss in sales or glitches in production or service. Higher education is being called on to be able to perform similar feats, but creating a graduate for the 21st century workforce is a very different kind of operation.” (p. 10)
This special report Educational Assessment: Designing a System for More Meaningful Results features articles from Academic Leader, and looks at the assessment issue from a variety of different angles. Articles in the result include:
• The Faculty and Program-Wide Learning Outcome Assessment
• Assessing the Degree of Learner-Centeredness in a Department or Unit
• Keys to Effective Program-Level Assessment
• Counting Something Leads to Change in an Office or in a Classroom
• An Accountability Program Primer for Administrators
Whether you’re looking to completely change your approach to assessment, or simply improve the efficacy of your current assessment processes, we hope this report will help guide your discussions and eventual decisions.
It’s no secret that high youth unemployment and record high debt levels mean youth in Canada are facing a difficult future. While the economy continues on a slow recovery, students and youth are being left behind through decreased program funding, ineffective employment plans, and a lack of federal strategies.
Over the last five years, high youth unemployment has been a constant challenge in the Canadian labour market. Attainment of a post-secondary education has become a prerequisite for participation in Canada’s workforce. It’s time for Canada to prioritise youth employment. We have looked abroad to find solutions, and Germany’s Dual Vocational Training System is a plan that values the work of youth and has long-term rewards for the economy and society. Publicly funded, and with no tuition fees, Germany serves as a model for us in Canada on how to build a thriving economy that values workers.
First Nations, Inuit and Métis have long advocated learning that affirms their own ways of knowing, cultural traditions and values. However, they also desire Western education that can equip them with the knowledge and skills they need to participate in
Canadian society. First Nations, Inuit and Métis recognize that “two ways of knowing” will foster the necessary conditions for nurturing healthy, sustainable communities.
A large number of college graduates enroll at Lakehead University each year to further their education. Within the Ontario University system Lakehead is tied with Ryerson as the university having the largest share of Ontario transfer students compared to its share of Ontario system full-time equivalent students. Because Lakehead is an important destination for college transfer students, it is important to study the success of these students as has been done for traditional direct entry
(straight from high school) students. This report compares and contrasts the success of the following three groups of college students entering Lakehead:
those entering through bilateral or multi-lateral agreements with block transfer,
advanced standing college transfer students (those who have completed a college diploma and
are eligible for transfer credit) and,
other college students without transfer credits (students who have upgraded their high school
credential at a college, those who only partially completed a diploma, or those whose average is
below the requirement for transfer credit).
Specifically, this report explores whether there are any significant differences in the success rates and / or profile of the three types of college transfer students. Comparisons will be made with direct entry students. Success will be measured using modifications of measures traditionally applied to first-time, full-time freshmen including retention rate, six-year graduation rate, and grade-point average.
How do changing economic conditions and uncertain market opportunities affect young adults’ transition from their undergraduate
college years to adult roles and responsibilities? The Arizona Pathways to Life Success (APLUS) project is uniquely positioned to answer this question. Launched in 2007, APLUS examines what factors shape and guide individual life trajectories — the pathways that young adults tread on their way to independence and self-sufficiency.
How do changing economic conditions and uncertain market opportunities affect young adults’ transition from their undergraduate college years to adult roles and responsibilities? The Arizona Pathways to Life Success (APLUS) project is uniquely positioned
to answer this question. Launched in 2007, APLUS examines what factors shape and guide individual life trajectories — the pathways that young adults tread on their way to independence and self-sufficiency.
Can we step out of our bubble for a moment? I hope so, because unless we do we will not see that we are losing the battle.
What battle is that? Just the one for the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens, within the nation and without. Just the contest between the forces of rationality and those of darkness and ignorance. Just the eternal struggle to make ideas, and not force, relevant to the plight of those oppressed by ignorance and bad rhetoric. Just that.
If you have not seen the mainstream media lately, if you prefer more filtered sources of experience or retreats into sanity, maybe this is not obvious. However, a glimpse into the abyss of larger public discourse is enough to make the point vivid. Academic research, once celebrated as the vanguard of the best that was thought and expressed, is on the run. Enrolments are down. Public denunciations are routine, running a gamut from casual dismissal (“useless” degrees and the
like) to open hostility (“incubators of social justice warriors,” “ideological fog-machines,” etc. etc.).
Businesses in Canada urgently need to get more innovative. According to the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, Canada is falling steadily behind its global competitors on key measures of innovation. Most notably, Canada ranks 26th among
international competitors for business spending on research and development as a share of gross domestic product, sitting at just over one-third of the threshold amount spent by the top five performing countries.
To overcome Canada’s innovation shortfall, it is essential for all players in science, technology and innovation to collaborate for change. Canada’s colleges and institutes, well-established in their communities and connected with business, government, health care and community organizations, are fast becoming innovation hotspots. By leveraging their equipment, infrastructure and the expertise of faculty and students, colleges and institutes are responding creatively to the research and development requirements of partners in small business, industry and the community — at the same time, helping students develop
innovation skills they can use throughout their work lives.
. Unique value-added in the research “market-placeâ€;
. Experience in applying new knowledge to solve industry problems and achieve industry goals;
. Personnel with expertise and experience across key sectors of the economy;
. The ability to rapidly move innovative ideas through the early stages of development and commercialization;
. State-of-the-art facilities, equipment and space to support the development of new products and applications; and
. A sustained commitment to a culture of innovation.
Systemic barriers that currently limit the degree to which colleges can contribute to the future achievement of Ontario’s productivity and prosperity goals include:
. A permissive but not enabling provincial policy framework for college applied R&D and innovation;
. No operating funding for Ontario colleges supporting applied research activities, resulting in:
. A shortage of funds to strengthen colleges’ institutional capacity to initiate, undertake and manage applied R&D and innovation projects that respond to industry and community needs in a timely way;
. A shortage of funds to support college personnel conducting applied R&D and innovation projects; and
. A shortage of funds to enable college applied R&D personnel to rapidly establish partnerships to address applied R&D challenges and to sustain and foster long-term relationships with key personnel from business, industry and community organizations. To strengthen provincial economic competitiveness and prosperity, Ontario colleges are calling on the government of Ontario to:
. Move beyond merely ermissive policies in relation to applied R&D and innovation activities at Ontario colleges and develop a formal provincial policy and investment framework that recognizes and enables the unique roles colleges can play in support of applied R&D and business and industry innovation activities;
. Explicitly develop Ontario colleges’ applied research, innovation and commercialization
capacity; and
. Enable colleges to increase their capacity for applied R&D and innovation partnerships
with business, industry, federal and provincial governments, and com-
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Leadership and management must go hand in hand. They are not the same thing. But they are necessarily linked, and complementary. Any effort to separate the two is likely to cause more problems than it solves.Still, much ink has been spent delineating the differences. The manager’s job is to plan, organize and coordinate. The leader’s job is to inspire and motivate.
The internationally recognized NMC Horizon Report series and regional NMC Technology Outlooks are
part of the NMC Horizon Project, a comprehensive research venture established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact over the coming five years in education around the globe. This volume, the NMC
Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition, examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in teaching, learning, and creative inquiry within the environment of higher education. While there are many local factors affecting the practice of education, there are also issues that transcend regional boundaries and questions common to higher education; it was with these questions in mind that this report was created. The NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition is the
11th in the annual higher education series of reports and is produced by the NMC in collaboration with the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI).
Ontario higher education system has moved far and fast in the past decade. The early 1990s saw "modest modifications and structural stability." Since 1995, under a neo-liberal government in Ontario, major policy initiatives, with objectives not unlike those already at large in western Europe and most of the United States, have quickly followed one another. The author proposes an explanation of the timing and dynamics of the Ontario reforms, describing the driving forces behind reform.
This chapter examines the policy issues and challenges in planning and implementing e-learning in teacher education. The most significant issue is that implementing e-learning requires organizational and attitudinal change; in other words, e-learning requires the understanding and support of a wide range of stakeholders if it is to be successfully implemented. This chapter looks
at why e-learning requires organizational and attitudinal change, and suggests some strategies for bringing about such change.
State regulators, not the federal government, were in the best position to crack down on Donald Trump's now-defunct educational venture, which has become a hot campaign issue.
ABSTRACT
This paper focuses on the gendered nature of elite academic careers. Of interest is how similar or diff erent the experiences are of women and men who have been appointed to Canada Research Chairs (CRCs). In particular, we examine the impacts of holding a CRC position and consider the factors that shape that experience for women and men. Based on interviews with 60 CRCs, we find that when women and men are given similar opportunities, their experiences are more alike than diff erent. Where diff erences arise, these are often related to the experience of status/prestige associated with the CRC, and to family care responsibilities. Using expectation states theory, we demonstrate that when women are equal to men, the significance of gender as a determinant of the academic experience is diminished.
RÉSUMÉ
Cette étude se concentre sur l’influence du genre dans l’élite des carrières académiques. L’intérêt porte surtout sur le degré de similarité ou de diff érence entre les expériences des femmes et des hommes nommés à des postes de chaires de recherche du Canada (CRC). Nous examinons en particulier les répercussions sur les femmes et les hommes titulaires de CRC en tenant compte des facteurs qui forment l’expérience de ces individus. Nos entrevues avec 60 titulaires de CRC, nous mènent à conclure que les femmes et les hommes obtiennent des occasions similaires et que leurs expériences sont plus semblables que différentes. Lorsque des différences se présentent, elles sont plus souvent liées à l’expérience du statut et du prestige associés à la position de titulaire de CRC et à ses responsabilités familiales. En utilisant la théorie des états d’anticipation, nous démontrons que, lorsque les femmes sont égales aux hommes, la signification du genre en tant que déterminant de l’expérience académique est diminuée.
This study aimed to investigate the effect of two different teaching methods on learning achievement and teacher-student interaction.