In this summary we provide a list of practices for universities to consider when creating or expanding a student retention or degree completion grant program. These practices were gathered from a series of interviews with ten urban-serving institutions. More
comprehensive information from those interviews and additional background information are presented in the full report.
Between June 2013 and June 2014, 11 graduates from the School of Education at Laurentian University, most teaching in smaller communities scattered across northern Ontario, were interviewed about their recent experiences. The purpose of these interviews was to determine how well the concurrent education program had prepared these graduates for the realities of teaching in First Nation, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) remote and rural communities in the province. Five of the graduates’
administrators or school principals were also interviewed to determine how thoroughly teacher training had prepared the graduates to work in the north and how the program could be improved.
ABSTRACT
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.
RÉSUMÉ
Depuis le début des années 1960 et jusqu’au début des années 1970, lorsqu’on créait des réseaux de collèges communautaires partout en Amérique du Nord, deux modèles majeurs étaient proposés pour ces nouveaux réseaux. Dans un des modèles, le collège combinait l’enseignement général universitaire de division inférieure avec les programmes d’enseignement technique ; dans l’autre, la plupart des collèges, sinon tous, se concentraient sur l’enseignement technique. L’Ontario était la plus importante parmi les provinces et les États en Amérique du Nord qui ait opté pour le deuxième modèle. Beaucoup des défi s auxquels les planifi cateurs ont été confrontés lorsqu’ils ont conçu le réseau des collèges sont encore présents ou sont réapparus au cours des dernières années. Cet article réexamine l’ancien débat sur la conception des collèges de l’Ontario et considère ses implications actuelles.
This report is a summary of research undertaken for Gabriel Dumont Institute Training and Employment, a branch of the Gabriel Dumont Institute, about the Gabriel Dumont Institute’s Aboriginal Apprenticeship Initiative. The initiative was administered by Gabriel Dumont Institute Training and Employment.
The report is divided into five sections. The next section (Section 2) provides a general overview of the labour market in Saskatchewan with particular emphasis on Aboriginal people and the skilled trades. Included in that section is a short-term outlook for employment in the apprenticeable trades. Section 3 describes the Saskatchewan apprenticeship system including statistics about the total number of apprentices and the number of Aboriginal apprentices in Saskatchewan.
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:
1. Interactive sampling should be conducted to demonstrate class concepts.
2. Students should be providing responses in a controlled setting.
3. Students’ responses should be compared to behavioural hypotheses derived from theory.
This paper exploits longitudinal tax-filer data to provide new empirical evidence for Ontario on i)
overall PSE participation rates on an annual basis over the last decade, ii) how access is related to a number of important individual and family characteristics, including sex, family income, area size of residence and family type, andiii) how these relationships have changed over time. This is done for Ontario as a whole, in comparison to the rest of Canada, and then broken down by region within Ontario. The findings are informative, in some cases surprising, and highly relevant to public policy regarding access to postsecondary education.
The findings are many, and there is room to mention only a few of the most important ones here. Our focus here was on access to university – although we do present results for college attendance as well. We do this for two main reasons. The first is that the PSE-related tax credit information available in the Longitudinal Administrative Databank (LAD) dataset which we employ to identify participation in PSE do not do as good a job of finding college students, simply because the credits available are not generally worth as much to college students as they are to university students. Secondly, the effects of individual and family background characteristics on PSE ttendance – a principal focus of our study – tend to come out much more strongly in
(net) effects on college attendance are more unambiguous and are almost always found to be much smaller from an empirical perspective.
This paper presents the findings from a research study on the implementation of an alternative evaluation strategy into a third-year class, which changed the learning environment by allowing students to choose how they would be evaluated. The specific objective of the study was to determine if the implementation of this evaluation strategy would improve student engagement, the quality of the learning experience and address challenges associated with increased diversity in student
capabilities.
During the Winter 2012 and Winter 2013 semesters, PSY3523: Psychologie de la famille (Psychology of the Family) was taught at the University of Ottawa as a course offered to a maximum of 100 students per semester. The course incorporates various teaching methods, including traditional lectures, the use of documentaries and group discussions, as well as student-led mini-classes. The course implemented an evaluation strategy that combined traditional examinations (midterm and final exams)
with the option of completing a term project. If students elected to complete a term project, they could choose from two different options (i.e., to prepare a mini-class or to participate in the Community Service Learning program at the University of Ottawa). Additionally, teaching assistant (TA)-led tutorials were scheduled throughout the semester to help students succeed in both the
traditional examinations and the term project. Finally, material presented in the tutorials, as well as weekly quizzes, were made available online for students to consult as needed throughout the semester to support their engagement and success in the course.
This research was conducted to gain in-depth knowledge about mature1 students’ persistence2 in a university-college environment, with the ultimate aim of informing institutional student retention policies and practices. The specific purpose of this exploratory study was to broaden and deepen our understanding of the multifaceted nature of mature students’ lives and those factors exerting important influences on mature students’ educational commitment and persistence. Of particular interest were those quality of life dimensions and relevant contextual factors that are associated with mature students’ decisions to persist or withdraw in their first year of post-secondary education. This research is important, as there are few studies that take into consideration adult learners’ unique life circumstances and educational challenges, and fewer still that explore adult quality of life influences on student retention.
The signatory institutions to this protocol agree to maximize their contribution to a sustainable future and are committed to their role as leaders to their internal and external communities.
In the context of this protocol, sustainability is institutionally defined and may include environmental, economic and social dimensions.
The main players in First Nations’ public finance agree on one thing: The present fiscal regime is
broken, and needs to be fixed. Many of the arrangements that govern aboriginal communities’
revenues, borrowing and spending date back to the 19th century, and remain riddled with
paternalism, uncertainty and inefficiency.
First Nations finances are on a far more fragile footing than other levels of government in
Canada. The provinces and territories obtain a significant portion of their revenues through
federal transfers -- such as the Canada Health Transfer, the Canada Social Transfer and
equalization payments -- based on negotiated and pre-determined formulas. These
jurisdictions, as well as municipalities, also generate substantial tax revenues from a variety of
sources.
GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) is a research program focusing
on culture and leadership in 61 nations. National cultures are examined in terms of nine dimensions: performance
orientation, future orientation, assertiveness, power distance, humane orientation, institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, and gender egalitarianism. In a survey of thousands of middle managers in food processing, finance, and telecommunications industries in these countries, GLOBE compares their cultures and attributes of effective leadership. Six global leadership attributes are identified and discussed. ©
A series of video clip for Higher Education practioners.
OUSA asked students to answer questions about their experience with high-impact learning, active and participatory learning, work-integrated learning, and online courses. Students were also asked to provide their impressions about what resources
should be prioritized within their university, as well as how they viewed the balance between teaching and learning at their institution.
We’ve found that, for the most part, students are accessing high-impact and work-integrated learning at greater rates than ever, and are having a broad selection of pedagogical experiences, We’ve also found that more than half of students have
experienced and online course. Generally, students are either neutral or positive about the impact these experiences have had on their education.
Students prioritize instructor training to a notable margin over increasing research opportunities and reducing class sizes, and feel that universities generally prioritize research over teaching when balancing the two missions.
This study seeks to identify common factors that leaders in online instruction consider most critical to successful teaching and learning at a distance. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the teaching philosophy narratives of the nominees for the University System of Georgia Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award for Online Teaching was conducted. The total number of times a concept was mentioned and the percentage of nominees who cited each concept were computed. The results indicate the relative importance of each concept to these leading practitioners in the field. Rapport, design, engagement, feedback, research, and course improvement emerged as some of the most commonly cited themes, and these correspond with the literature review of best practices for online instruction. However, these instructors also emphasized course content as a significant element, even though this concept is less prevalent in the literature. The emphasis on content by these nominees underscores the importance of this theme and suggests that content is a factor that should be carefully considered in online instruction.
Methodology:
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Longitudinal tracking of Fanshawe College’s Fall 2007 incoming cohort (n = 6,447) over 3 consecutive semesters
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Analysis: correlation of changes in enrolment status with 5 attrition factors
Since 1977, we’ve been recommending that graduate departments partake in birth control, but no one has been listening,” said Paula Stephan to more than 200 postdocs and PhD students at a symposium in Boston, Massachusetts, in October this year. Stephan is a renowned labour economist at Georgia State University in Atlanta who has spent much of her career trying to understand the relationships between economics and science, particularly biomedical science. And the symposium, ‘Future of Research’, discussed the issue to which Stephan finds so many people deaf: the academic research system is generating progeny at a startling rate. In biomedicine, said Stephan. “We are definitely producing many more PhDs than there is demand for them in research positions.”
Older workers’ (aged 50-64) job retention in the paid labour force has come to the fore because of the shortfall in availability of skilled labour now and in Canada’s future and the projection of a ‘greying population.’ Employing mixed methods, the research focused on the unique approaches and challenges experienced by older professionals in informal learning, the everyday experiences in which people learn. In addition, the research focused on the practices of documenting (methods for keeping track of learning), assessing (making judgements about learning), and supporting (methods that facilitate learning) that are helpful for older workers’ informal learning practices. The project focused on Certified Management Accountants (CMAs), knowledge workers whose continuous learning is urgent in Canada’s ‘hot economy’ and whose professional associations have made learning a priority.
The role of academic deans is critical to the success of higher education academic institutions. This study
illustrates the leadership approach of Ohio’s academic deans. This quantitative study researched and analyzed
whether differences exists between the leadership styles of academic deans and the independent variables of age,
number of faculty supervised, and the number of years of experience.. Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid was utilized for this study. Blake and Mouton theory is based on five predominate leadership styles: Data for this study was gathered using a researcher designed instrument along with the Styles of Leadership Survey to gather information about the academic deans. The surveys were administered through U.S. mail to the deans’ office
address. ANOVA methodology was used to analyze the data. It appears from the results of this study that no
significant independent differences exist among the leadership styles and the independent variables.
Keywords: Leadership, Academic Deans, Managerial Grid, Chief Academic officer, University
Why We Need to Act
One in five women is sexually assaulted in college. Most often, it’s by someone she knows – and also most often, she does not report what happened. Many survivors are left feeling isolated, ashamed or to blame. Although it happens less often, men, too, are victims of these crimes.
The President created the Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault to turn this tide. As the name of our new website – Not Alone.gov – indicates, we are here to tell sexual assault survivors that they are not alone. And we’re also here to help schools live up to their obligation to protect students from sexual violence.
Between June 2013 and June 2014, 11 graduates from the School of Education at Laurentian
University,most teaching in smaller communities scattered across northern Ontario, were interviewed about their recent experiences. The purpose of these interviews was to determine how well the concurrent education program had prepared these graduates for the realities of teaching in First Nation, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) remote and rural communities in the province. Five of the graduates’ administrators or school principals were also interviewed to determine how thoroughly teacher
training had prepared the graduates to work in the north and how the program could be improved.