The Ontario university sector is already somewhat differentiated. A policy decision to increase the differentiation of the postsecondary system brings the following benefits:
• Higher quality teaching and research programs
• More student choice with easier inter‐institution transfer and mobility
• Greater institutional accountability
• A more globally competitive system
• A more financially sustainable system
The provision of blended learning strategies designed to assist academics in the higher education sector with the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for effective teaching with technology has been, and continues to be, a challenge for teaching centres in Canada. It is unclear, first, whether this is an ongoing issue unique to Canada; and, second, if it is not unique to Canada, whether we might be able to implement different and/or more effective strategies based on what others outside Canada are doing. Teaching centre leaders in Australia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Britain, Scotland, and the United States (n=31) were interviewed to explore how their units used blended learn- ing strategies. Findings suggest that, as in Canada,
there is a “value gap” be- tween academics and leaders of teaching centres regarding teaching development initiatives using blended learning strategies.
In response to stronger demand for access to degree programs and changing expectations from employers due to labour market needs, the Ministry made a number of decisions about how to increase access to a broader range of degree opportunities in April 2000. One of those decisions was to allow Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) to offer degrees in applied areas of study. These degrees differ from research-focused degrees because they have a strong focus on preparation for entry to practice occupations. The first degree programs began development in 2001. As of the evaluation period, thirteen of the twenty four colleges in Ontario were offering college degree programs.
For over a centur the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments and Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal people to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.”
Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the
targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.
If you imagine the typical college student as someone who just left a Canadian high school, you are increasingly wrong. “There’s no sort of linear path, and a lot of the assumptions about who chooses what type of training are being thrown out the window,” says Christine Trauttmansdorf, vice-president of government relations and Canadian partnerships at Colleges and Institutes Canada.
I wish to thank the Association of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario, and particularly the organizers of this conference, for giving me the honour of delivering the Sisco Address. It is always a privilege to speak to members of the college community, and, owing to the great respect and admiration that I had for Mr. Sisco, it is a special privilege to be giving the
address which bears his name.
The invitation did not carry with it a request that I speak on a particular theme or topic. This freedom can be both an opportunity and a problem. It is an opportunity to have a captive audience, for a while, at least - depending upon how easy it is to get to the exit doors - to hear me hold forth on something that I think is important. On the other hand, the whole domain of community
colleges, past, present, and future, is a daunting universe from which to craft remarks for a late afternoon on a winter's day.
In what I hope will turn out to have been a sensible, if no doubt ambitious, choice, I decided to try to focus my remarks on one of those big themes that has long been of interest to me, that of the identity, or essence, of the Ontario colleges; and whether, and if so, how, it may have changed over time. I believe that these questions are of speculative, philosophical interest to people who
care about the colleges, and that is sufficient justification for us to consider them in a forum like this. However, these questions also have important practical consequences. In dialogue about proposals for change in the colleges, what has often been deemed a vital questi
Canadians are making sacrifices to prepare themselves for a changing workforce. Federal and provincial government
decisions are forcing students to take on more education related debt than any previous generation, while middle class
earnings have largely stagnated in the past twenty years.
Skyrocketing tuition fees and the prevalence of loan-based financial assistance have pushed student debt to historic
levels. This past year, almost 425,000 students were forced to borrow in order to finance their education. The aggregate of
loans disbursed by the Canada Student Loans Program, less the aggregate of loan repayments received is resulting in student
debt increasing by $1 million per day.
A fraternity member from the University of Oklahoma is videotaped chanting a racist song. At the University of Missouri, a slow response to racial slurs and graffiti fueled protests and led to the resignation of top administrators. At Bowie State University, a
swastika was spray-painted on the Martin Luther King Jr. Communications Art Center. Other incidents on campuses ranging from Yale University and Ithaca College on the east coast to Claremont McKenna College in California, led to campus protests and calls for change.
All of this and more occurred in 2015, leading the Washington Post’s Michael E. Miller to conclude “Whatever you call it, what’s clear is that unrest is spreading across American universities. One by one, campuses are lighting up with protests, demonstrations and — in a handful of cases — death threats, plunging the country into a broader debate about lingering racism
more than half a century after the Civil Rights Act.”
To be sure, today’s college students are helping to shine a spotlight on race, cultural differences, and the need for more inclusive, respectful campuses. It’s no surprise that faculty play an important role.
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.
Accelerated courses continue to be part of the changing academic landscape at Canadian universities. However, there is limited evidence to support their efficacy in relation to knowledge retention. A greater understanding of knowledge retention associated with accelerated courses (i.e., intensive full-day course for a one- or two-week duration) as compared to traditional courses (i.e., one three-hour lecture once a week for 12 weeks) will provide university stakeholders and administrators with evidence to determine whether quicker courses should be pursued in the postsecondary education environment.
Recruitment of participants is a challenging and very important aspect of research on postsecondary education. Many studies founder when students are not interested in participating, when students drop out before finishing a study, or when the students who respond do not represent the diversity of the student population. Recruitment is complex: students must know about the
study, want to participate, be able to participate and, finally, log in or show up.Researchers can improve recruitment by being flexible, explaining how the research is relevant to a diverse student body, devoting extra resources to recruiting students who are less likely to participate, and practicing patience and persistence.
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.
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.
If you’re interested in using technology tools to enhance your teaching, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the mountain of information out there. To make matters worse, much of it is either highly technical or simply not very practical for the college classroom. Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning approaches teaching technologies from your perspective — discussing what works, what doesn’t, and how to implement the best ideas in the best ways.
These articles were written by John Orlando, PhD, program director at Norwich University, as part of the Teaching with Technology column on Faculty Focus. You’ll find the articles are loaded with practical information as well as links to valuable resources. Articles in the report include:
• Using VoiceThread to Build Student Engagement
• Wikipedia in the Classroom: Tips for Effective Use
• Blogging to Improve Student Learning: Tips and Tools for Getting Started
• Prezi: A Better Way of Doing Presentations
• Using Polling and Smartphones to Keep Students Engaged
Whether the courses you teach are face-to-face, online, blended, or all of the above, this report explains effective ways to incorporate technology into your courses to create a rich learning experience for students, and a rewarding teaching experience for you.
The relationship between academia and technology is notoriously complicated. Faculty often view IT staffers as gadget-mongers eager to roll out new tech regardless of its value to teaching and learning, while technology specialists are certain they could make life easier for those on the other side — if they'd only listen!
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.
Previous research on blended course offerings focuses on the addition of asynchronous online content to an existing course. While some explore synchronous communication, few control for differences between treatment groups.
This study investigates the impact of teaching a blended course, using a virtual, interactive, real-time, instructor-led (VIRI) classroom, on student engagement, performance, and satisfaction. We use an experimental design with
both a control group and a treatment group. Up to 90 students in a large urban university are randomly assigned by the registrar into two sections of an introductory marketing course. Using a pre- and post-semester questionnaire, the study measures student engagement, performance, and satisfaction. There are no statistical differences in student performance between the control and treatment groups. The only student engagement factor with a statistically significant difference between groups is student interest in their courses. Compared with the control group, the treatment group appears to be more interested (+10%) in their courses at the end of the semester. Finally, fewer than 2 in 10 students express dissatisfaction with their participation in a VIRI course. Blended course offerings are increasing in importance in marketing and business
education. The study provides guidance for fine-tuning the features of those course offerings by demonstrating how a VIRI classroom leverages the capabilities of technology without compromising learning outcomes.
Résumé
Des recherches antérieures portant sur l’offre de cours mixtes ciblent l’ajout de contenu en ligne asynchrone à un cours préexistant. Alors que certains explorent la communication synchrone, d’aucuns effectuent un contrôle des différences entre les groupes de traitement. Cette étude examine l’impact de l’enseignement d’un cours mixte, sur l’engagement, la performance, et la satisfaction des étudiants, en utilisant une classe Virtuelle, Interactive, en temps réel (Real Time), dirigé par un Instructeur ou une Instructrice (VIRI). Nous utilisons un modèle expérimental avec un groupe, à la fois, de contrôle et de traitement. Un nombre d’étudiants qui peu atteindre 90, dans une grande université urbaine, sont aléatoirement répartis par le registraire
en deux sections d’un cours introductoire de marketing. L’étude mesure l’engagement, la performance, et la satisfaction des étudiants en utilisant un questionnaire pré- et post-semestriel. Il n’existe pas de différences statistiques de performance des étudiants entre le groupe de contrôle et celui de traitement. Le seul facteur d’engagement des étudiants ayant une
différence statistiquement significative entre les groupes est l’intérêt des étudiants à leurs cours. Comparé aux étudiants du groupe de contrôle, ceux et celles du groupe de traitement semble être plus intéressés (+10%) à leurs cours à la fin du semestre. En définitive, moins que 2 étudiants sur 10 éprouvent une insatisfaction à l’égard de leur participation à un cours VIRI.
Les cours mixtes gagnent en importance, notamment dans les domaines de l’éducation du marketing et des affaires. L’étude fournit des directives pour affiner les caractéristiques de ces offres de cours en démontrant comment une classe VIRI optimise les capacités de la technologie sans compromettre les résultats d’apprentissage.
The contemporary landscape of university internationalization In recent decades, globalization has become a pervasive force
shaping higher education. Today almost all institutions in Canada and around the world engage to some degree in activities aimed at forging global connections and building global competencies among their students, faculty and administrative units. Developing such activities at many levels within universities is now a central part of institutional planning, structures and programming — a phenomenon known as the internationalization of higher education.
The problem
The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU) in consultation with the universities
has estimated that 53,000 to 86,000 more university spaces will be needed by 2021 to meet student
demand. There will be special pressures in the GTA. Universities’ enrolment plans will not be
sufficient to meet this demand.
The opportunity
With the government’s support, Ontario’s colleges could provide space for tens of thousands of
students in high-quality, career-oriented baccalaureate programs over the coming decade and beyond.
It has been well documented that the nation’s public colleges, universities, community colleges, and career training centers significantly boost the economic mobility of students who pursue and complete degrees and credentials after high school. The skills students acquire at these higher-education institutions lead to jobs that pay a wage premium in a modern economy. However, for many students, families, and society as a whole, decreasing state investments and increasing student-loan debt is threatening the value of a public postsecondary education—that is to say, the idea that a degree or credential beyond high school will deliver on the promise of a higher standard of living. To make sure that higher education attainment leads to improved outcomes for graduates, it is crucial that national policy choices ensure that public colleges remain affordable for
low- and moderate-income Americans and student-loan debt does not overly burdened graduates as they prepare for the workforce.