Audience response systems (ARS) are electronic applications in which a receiver captures information entered by students via keypads or hand-held devices. Students’ responses can be displayed instantly, usually in the form of a histogram. Professors typically use ARS to increase student interaction and for formative assessment (to measure students’ understanding of material during a lecture; Micheletto, 2011). In some cases, audience response systems have also been used to pose real research questions and follow an interactive sampling approach (not to be confused with experiment data collection). For example, imagine that a research study concluded that females respond more quickly to red stimuli than do males. An interactive sampling session in the classroom would present students with coloured stimuli, and the instructor would ask students to respond, as quickly as possible and using the ARS, when they see the red stimuli. The instructor would then display the students’ responses and compare the students’ data to results from the published research study. Barnett & Kriesel (2003) propose three criteria that classroom interactive sampling should meet if it is to stimulate discussion among students:
. 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
Centrality of language proficiency in academic achievement Proficiency in language is recognized as an essential component of student success at Ontario's colleges and in the provincial workplace. Research indicates that postsecondary underachievement, failure, and attrition are highly correlated with academic under-preparedness, especially with respect to deficits in language proficiency. Contemporary college students in Ontario do not represent a homogeneous population; rather, they exhibit a wide range of abilities and needs related to language proficiency. Additionally, an increasing percentage of Ontario college students have second language challenges. The identification of students who are at-risk of not successfully completing their programs due to deficits in language proficiency, and the provision of timely and appropriate remediation where necessary, represent critical priorities in supporting student success.
To be the most personally connected learning organization in Canada – a catalyst for individual, organizational, and community transformation. Through partnerships, we will connect people from all walks of life to extraordinary learning experiences that will inspire innovation and prepare them for life and career success. With a reputation for excellence, Georgian graduates
will be in demand by employers and will contribute to the economic vitality, sustainability, and quality of life in their communities. Our learners and employers will feel a lifelong connection to Georgian because of the positive difference we have made in their lives.
What is on the five-year horizon for higher education institutions? Which trends and technologies will drive educational change? What are the challenges that we consider as solvable or difficult to overcome, and how can we strategize effective solutions? These questions and similar inquiries regarding technology adoption and educational change steered the collaborative research and discussions of a body of 56 experts to produce the NMC Horizon Report: 2015 Higher Education Edition, in partnership with the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI). The NMC Horizon Report series charts the five-year horizon for the impact of emerging technologies in learning communities across the globe. With more than 13 years of research and publications, it can be regarded as the world’s longest-running exploration of emerging technology trends and uptake in education.
Post-secondary education is the great equalizer. It gives us all a chance to reach higher no matter where we come from or whatever our background. Both of my parents came from very modest upbringings and saw a university degree as a ticket to a good job and an entry to Ontario’s middle class. They, in turn, placed a high importance on post-secondary education and encouraged my sister and I to follow in their footsteps.
There is a lot about Ontario’s colleges and universities that we can be proud of, but we need to ensure our
students are getting the best value for their tuition. In Ontario today, we see far too many students graduate
with degrees and deep debts who can’t find a job.
We are spending a lot more money as a province, but we aren’t seeing the results. Government funding has increased by 84% since 2003, yet Ontario universities are slipping in international rankings, tuition keeps rising, new graduates keep heading out West and there are many jobs in the skilled trades that can’t be filled. This has got to change. We need to make the necessary changes to ensure our schools are the best in the world at preparing students for a career. The key will be incenting excellence, harnessing market forces, encouraging specialization and being honest. We cannot ignore the fact that increasingly university students end up in colleges, after accumulating significant student debt. We need a culture shift in our sytem. Promoting a ‘College First’ approach in our high schools will recognize the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the skilled trades and applied learning at risk of going unfilled and will help alleviate pressure on our universities while preparing those students who decide to
continue on to pursue a university degree.
We also cannot ignore the fact that our university rankings on the global stage have been slipping for some time. Our universities should be focused on quality, not quantity. Allowing undergraduate instructors to focus on teaching full time will improve the student experience by incenting excellence in teaching. Let us make no mistake about the promise we can offer our young graduates and the taxpayers who fund the system. A purposeful evolution of post-secondary education has the potential to do more for the long term health of Ontario than any other program or policy imaginable.
Progressive Conservatives Ontario
Motivating students to be enthusiastically receptive is one of the most important aspects of mathematics instruction and a critical aspect of any curriculum. Effective teachers focus attention on the less interested students as well as the motivated ones. Here are nine techniques—based on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation—that can be used to
motivate secondary school students in mathematics.
Strategies, Challenges and Opportunities
As online education moves from the fringes to the mainstream, one question still persists:
“How do I know what my online students have learned?” There are no simple answers, just as there aren’t in face-to-face courses, but with a little creativity and flexibility, you soon discover that the online learning environment opens up a host of new student assessment possibilities. And, just as with traditional courses, the trick is finding the right combination that works best for your particular course.
This special report features 12 articles from Online Classroom that will cause you to examine your current methods of online assessment, and perhaps add something new to your assessment toolbox. It even talks about some of the common assessment mistakes you’ll want to avoid.
Take a look at some of the articles you will find in Assessing Online Learning: Strategies,
Challenges and Opportunities:
• Authentic Experiences, Assessment Develop Online Students’ Marketable Skills
• Four Typical Online Learning Assessment Mistakes
• Assessing Whether Online Learners Can DO: Aligning Learning Objectives with
Real-world Applications
• Strategies for Creating Better Multiple-Choice Tests
• Assessing Student Learning Online: It’s More Than Multiple Choice
• Using Self-Check Exercises to Assess Online Learning
• Measuring the Effectiveness of an Online Learning Community
• Ongoing Student Evaluation Essential to Course Improvement
Online courses enable a strong student-centered approach to learning and, as a result,
assessment. We hope this report helps you design and develop online assessment strategies
that take full advantage of the many formal and informal assessment tools now at
your fingertips.
Rob Kelly
Editor
Online Classroom
The more than one million undergraduate students heading to Canadian universities this fall will benefit from innovative
approaches to teaching and learning, including more opportunities for experiential learning. After graduation, they’ll enjoy
higher earnings and better employment outcomes than those without degrees.
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.
You heard about it happening to others. Perhaps the victim was a graduate student in a seminar, or an administrator at a high-stakes meeting. Maybe it was a young scholar at an academic conference where passions for a subject tend to run high and unbridled egos may roam. But you never really thought it would happen to you — until it does. Blindsided. Maybe the full impact didn't sink in until after the fact: You’d been smacked by an academic sneer.
Do your school reform efforts frequently sputter or stall? In this indispensable sequel to the
bestseller Motion Leadership, Michael Fullan shares the real-life strategies and results of educators who have
used motion leadership to propel entire organizations and systems forward. Success stories from the
US and around the world illustrate how educators can use a small number of specific actions to
generate momentum for lasting change. Motion Leadership in Action addresses:
• Creating and leading movement in the right direction and at the right time
• Implementing a "ready-fire-aim" mindset
• Emphasizing the importance of collaboration
• Forging relationships while handling resistance
• Establishing your change stance in order to get better results
The Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Working Group (SAPRWG) was established in the summer of 2013, as one of several interrelated working groups reporting through the Health and Wellness Steering Committee, to advance a more strategic approach to addressing sexual assault prevent and response at Queen‘s. The Working Group was focused on student experiences of
sexual assault on campus.
While community colleges have existed more than a century, their role began to shift in the late 1940s from primarily serving as a transfer/junior college to that of supporting the greater community in addressing the need for highly skilled talent required by a 21st century economy. Community colleges remain a vehicle to transfer students to “senior” colleges and universities, but also provide an essential bridge to employment in local communities and beyond. As a result, community colleges are now major players in providing businesses with the talent they need to compete in local, regional, and national economies.
During the spring and summer of 2013, 41 Canadian universities conducted a survey of their baccalaureate graduates six or seven years following graduation (i.e. 2006 and 2007 graduates). Over 21,000 graduates provided information about their current employment situation, educational activity following their bachelor's program and their current social and civic involvement; and they assessed various elements of their academic program and university experience overall and the impacts these have in their lives today.
June 2014
The Canadian University Baccalaureate Graduate Outcomes Project
This report is the first in a series that will report the key findings of the survey. Future reports will cover other survey topics, including the relationship between current occupation and academic program, educational activity following baccalaureate graduation, graduates' assessments of the strengths,weaknesses and impacts of their academic program, and discipline-specific analyses (e.g. for the STEM disciplines, Humanities and Liberal Arts, etc.).
Universities play an increasingly prominent role in shaping regional, social, and economic development. In Canada, however, spatial, economic, and so- cial differences between universities and their host communities continue to challenge positive town–gown relationships and undermine the benefits associated with high concentrations of prospective young, “creative” graduates. The purpose of this article is to identify the factors that lead to positive town– gown relations and,
subsequently, encourage graduate retention. Through this research, university and town administrators were found to play a key role in establishing a positive relationship between students and community members. Local employment opportunities were also found to help students build an experiential relationship with their localities and make them more
likely to settle there after graduation.
To provide a detailed account of the nature and scope of recommendations for promoting faculty grant proposal success in academic medical settings.
In 2004, former Ontario Premier Bob Rae was invited to lead the Postsecondary Education Review to provide advice on the seemingly intractable job of reconciling the province’ aspirations for a high quality, highly accessible and affordable postsecondary education system with the level of financial support that governments have felt able to provide for this endeavor. The report was considered extremely successful in providing 28 recommendations that were “sensitive to long- standing patterns of public opinion, articulated new public goals, [and] recognized the important role to be played by each major stakeholder.”(Clark and Trick, 2006, p. 180).
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.
A great deal of research has been conducted and published on the topic of hybrid or “blended” learning in university settings, but relatively little has been conducted within the college environment. The purpose of this multi-method study was to identify the impact of hybrid course delivery methods on student success and course withdrawal rates, and to evaluate faculty and
student experience of hybrid instruction from within the Canadian college environment.
Quantitative findings suggest that students achieved slightly lower final marks in hybrid courses as compared to the face-to-face control courses offered in the previous year, though the magnitude of this effect was very small, in the order of -1%. Further analysis revealed that students with high academic standing were successful regardless of course mode, while students with low GPAs performed slightly worse in hybrid classes. Course mode did not have an effect on withdrawal from the course, suggesting that the format does not impact course completion.