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.
As students venture off campus for university-sponsored activities, are they at risk, given that universities are better able to control risk factors on cam-pus than they can for their off-campus activities? Co-operative education is a formalized and longstanding academic program that often sees students spend upwards of a third of their time off campus during the completion of a degree; thus, a discussion of the risks in co-operative education could provide a basis for assessing levels of risk for other off-campus activities. This quali-tative, descriptive case study examines co-operative education co-ordinators’ perceptions of the risks to students in co-operative education programs in Ca-nadian universities. Fourteen co-ordinators from across Canada participated in one-on-one interviews. Co-ordinators acknowledged that of the partners in co-operative education, the student is the most at risk. However, they viewed co-operative education as a safe endeavour for students, and there was agree-ment that the actual risk to students is minimal. The risk factors identified by co-ordinators included personal safety, harassment, youth or limited life experience, and mental health.
Puisque les universités contrôlent mieux les facteurs de risque des activiteurqu’elles parrainent qui ont lieu sur campus plutôt que hors campus, les étudiants sont-ils à risque lorsqu’ils s’aventurent hors campus pour de telles activités? Établi depuis longtemps, l’Éducation coopérative est un programme académique structuré qui voit souvent des étudiants passer plus du tiers de leur temps hors campus pendant leurs lôment. Une analyse
des risques en matière d’éducation coopérative pourrait donc fournir une base d’évaluation des niveaux de risque des autres activités hors campus. Cette étude de cas à description qualitative examine les perceptions des coordonnateurs en éducation coopérative quant aux risques encourus par les étudiants des programmes d’éducation coopérative des universités canadiennes. Quatorze coordonnateurs de partout au Canada ont participé à des entrevues individuelles. Ceux-ci reconnaissent que de tous les partenaires en éducation coopérative, l’étudiant est le plus à risque. Ils considèrent toutefois l’éducation coopérative comme un effort relativement sûr pour les élèvesion, et ils s’entendent pour dire que le risque réel pour les étudiants est minime. Les facteurs de risque relevif par les coordonnateurs sont liés à la protection personnelle, au harcèlement, à la jeunesse ou au peu d’expérience de vie, et à la santé mentale.
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.
The growth of competency-based education in an online environment requires the development and measurement of
quality competency-based courses. While quality measures for online courses have been developed and standardized, they do not directly align with emerging best practices and principles in the design of quality competency-based online courses. The purpose of this paper is to provide background and research for a proposed rubric to measure quality in competency-based online courses.
This article examines the impact of culturally responsive pedagogy in an introduction to university course developed in collaboration with local and place-based First Nations communities, Aboriginal Access Studies and the Faculty of Education of the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus. In keeping with requests that Indigenous worldviews be incorporated into curriculum, the content of EDUC 104, modelled on the University of South Carolina’s University 101 Programs, was adapted to incorporate Indigenous traditions of teaching and learning. The introductory course included a holistic approach aimed at supporting the social and emotional well-being of students. Facilitated by peer mentoring, collaborative circles of learning introduced seminal concepts and facilitated the progressive use of newly learned skills. As part of a longitudinal research, the following presents the content of interviews conducted at the conclusion of the courses. Analysis indicated that three themes emerged emphasizing the importance of the circles of learning, peer mentoring, and the relationship with the instructor. In particular, the results demonstrated the perceived value of the course from the students’ perspectives.
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.
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 thesis of this book is that the present approach to the provision of baccalaureate education in Ontario is not sustainable and
is in need of significant modification. The stage for the present approach was set by two higher education policy decisions that
were made in the 1960s: (1) that the colleges would have no role in the provision of baccalaureate credit activity; and (2) that the
publicly supported universities would have complete autonomy in deciding on their purpose, mission, and objectives. While the
universities had been primarily teaching institutions until the 1960s, since then a single idea of the mission of the university—the
research university—has been adopted by all. A key element of the research university model to which the university community
in Ontario has subscribed is that of the teacher-researcher ideal: that undergraduate students should be taught only by
professors who are active researchers.
This report examines the apprenticeship systems of seven jurisdictions – Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Australia, England, France and the United States – to draw comparisons with Ontario’s apprenticeship system. The purpose of this work is to help us think differently about how the challenges that Ontario’s apprenticeship system faces have been addressed abroad. While knowledge of Ontario’s apprenticeship system is assumed, the report closes with profiles describing each of the seven apprenticeship contexts in detail.
The comparative analysis proceeds according to six different dimensions: historical and cultural factors; governance; scope; participation; apprenticeship structure; and qualifications and completion rates. For each case, common practice abroad is contrasted with Ontario’s apprenticeship system with the purpose of highlighting the differences that exist.
Given the pace of technological change and the strong forces to innovate from the global market place, the need to invest in human capital continues to increase as does the requirement for high return on investment (ROI) in training. One of the obstacles of measuring the ROI of training is that many of the benefits of training may not be immediately visible for measurement and it may be impossible to allocate the improvements exhibited by the firm to a particular training event. The lack of longitudinal studies to measure the ROI of training, particularly with respect to supporting the use of technology and intensity of innovation, is an area that will be addressed in this study.
The pace of innovation and technological change in the global market place make it imperative that companies constantly look at improving the skills of their workforce (Bresnahan, Brynjolsson and Hitt, 1999). The investment in human capital through the use of relevant and targeted training is critical in order to keep a business competitive (Rabemananjara and Parsley, 2006). One of the key components to an organization’s competitive advantage is the development of knowledge workers and increasing the value of their human capital.
Trust is indispensable for social and economic relations; it is the glue that holds organisations together and appears to work somehow mysteriously. Overall, trust is a ubiquitous ingredient in policymaking and implementation across many governance systems including education, whether it concerns accountability mechanisms, capacity building or strategic thinking. Yet our understanding, conceptualisation and measurement of these issues remain limited. This working paper asks the question: what is trust and how does it matter for governance, especially in education systems? It explores why trust is key for policymaking and where it fits within current governance issues. The paper examines different definitions of trust, presents various ways of measuring trust and discusses some of their benefits and limitations. It proposes a definition of trust made up of three parts: trust as an expectation, a willingness to be vulnerable and a risk-taking act. The paper then presents a simple model of trust and governance and reviews the relationship between trust and different elements in education systems, such as complexity, asymmetries in information and power, collaboration/cooperation, monitoring and accountability, and professionalisation. It concludes with some policy findings and identifies several research gaps.
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.
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.
Without question, a major classroom challenge facing today’s educators is getting their students to put down their phones and pick up their level of engagement. While a generation ago educators might find their students getting sidetracked by an attractive classmate, an enchanting daydream or passing notes about an upcoming tailgate party, today’s smartphones present educators with a whole new array of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
According to the 2011 article “The Use and Abuse of Cell Phones and Text Messaging in the Classroom: A Survey of College Students,” published in College Teaching, after surveying “269 college students from 21 academic majors at a small Northeastern university,” authors Deborah R. Tindall and Robert W. Bohlander found that “95 percent of students bring their phones to class every day, 92 percent use their phones to text message during class time and 10 percent admit they have texted during an exam on at least one occasion.”
As the global marketplace becomes increasingly competitive and knowledge driven the potential social and economic benefits of education have increased. As a result, the past few decades have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the demand for post-secondary education (PSE) worldwide.
The Canadian Council on Learning monograph series, Challenges in Canadian Post-secondary Education, was launched in November 2009 as a means of examining the impact of this expansion on the PSE sector.
Every professor has had one: the incredible disappearing student. Mine was "James," a talented and innovative thinker who had great things to say in class until he vanished, about halfway through the semester. He didn’t submit his paper. He didn’t show up in office hours. He didn’t respond to my emails. He was just gone. Poof.
Students like James are increasingly common at colleges and universities. Report after report has shown that undergraduates today experience more anxiety and stress than ever before. In extreme cases, the "pressure of perfection" can have tragic consequences. Nationally, suicide rates for 15- to 24-year-olds have risen, and suicide remains the second-leading cause of death for college students.
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.
Post-secondary education is a cornerstone of Ontario’s continued prosperity. The Ontario government realizes this and confirmed its commitment to expanding post-secondary education in the 2010, 2011 and 2012 provincial budgets. The government announced funding allocations in all three budgets to support enrolment growth in the post-secondary sector. The 2011 budget committed the province to creating 60,000 more spaces in colleges and universities.
This edited book fills a gap in what we know about reforms targeting the internationalization of Canadian higher education. Contributions from scholars across Canada (and a few from international contexts) delivered multi-focal approaches to the study of internationalization processes, involving both empirical and theoretical considerations for readers. The book offered everything from descrip- tive accounts of contemporary policies and practices to historical tracings of past policies and their influences on current initiatives, from position papers arguing for more national coordination to crit- ical positions that question foundations to justify international reforms. The topics and paradigmatic approaches imparted in the chapters represent a collection of contributions from a conference held at York University in 2006. The editors argue that the topics lack attention in current literature but warrant significant consideration from scholars and practitioners alike.
Maybe they didn’t think of this back in 2006 when the province scrapped mandatory retirement.
Ten years later, baby boomers in big numbers are blowing past the old retirement age of 65, some working into their
70s.
They can defer pensions for a while, but at 71, they’re forced to collect work and government pensions along with
their paycheques.
Who would want to work that long? You might be surprised.