Years ago, the process of faculty evaluation carried few or none of the sudden-death implications that characterize contemporary evaluation practices. But now, as the few to be chosen for promotion and tenure become fewer and faculty mobility decreases, the decision to promote or grant tenure can have an enormous impact on a professor’s career. At the same time, academic administrators are under growing pressure to render sound decisions in the face of higher operating costs, funding shortfalls, and the mounting threat posed by giant corporations that have moved into higher education. Worsening economic conditions have focused sharper attention on evaluation of faculty performance, with the result that faculty members are assessed through formalized, systematic methods.
Background
According to a report by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (2005) , 30 to 40% of all students enrolled in four-year degree programs drop out, and 78-80% of those who do drop out will do so in their first year. Similar levels have been reported in other provinces, such as Québec (25-35%, Montmarquette, Mahseredjian, & Houle, 2001). In a paper for the Commission of Inquiry on Canadian University Education, Gilbert (1991) estimated that after five years the non-completion rate for university undergraduates is approximately 42% across Canada. Of particular concern, research on student retention has demonstrated that some disciplines have higher drop-out rates than others; science, mathematics, and engineering students are more likely to drop out than students in other disciplines (Daempfle, 2004). Moreover, each year approximately 35% of undergraduates fail introductory mathematics and science classes (Useem, 1992). Because of these growing concerns, research is needed that focuses on increasing retention and achievement in undergraduate science. This research addresses these
concerns by implementing a different approach to providing feedback to students that may result in higher achievement and increased retention at the undergraduate level of education.
How much time does it take to teach an online course? Does teaching online take more or less time than teaching face-to-face? Instructors, department chairs, deans, and program administrators have long believed that teaching online is more time-consuming than teaching face-to-face. Many research studies and practitioner articles indicate instructor time commitment as a major inhibitor to developing and teaching online courses. However, while they identify the issue and provide possible
solutions, they do not empirically measure actual time commitments or instructor perceptions when comparing online to face-to-face delivery and when comparing multiple iterations of delivery. The results of this study show distinct differences in developing online courses relative to developing face-to-face courses and distinct differences in teaching online courses relative to teaching face-to-face courses. The data from this study can be used by instructors, administrators, and
instructional designers to create higher quality course development processes, training processes, and overall communication.
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 apprenticeship system has a long history as an effective vehicle for work-based learning. The ancient Greeks and Romans used apprenticeships as a tool for transferring knowledge and skills and the Babylonian code of Hammurabi specified that artisans were to pass the skills of their craft on to young apprentices. Modern times, however, have seen negative attitudes
towards apprenticeship and a poor image of trades, as well as a lack of information and awareness of apprenticeship. This is unfortunate because in the contemporary Canadian context, apprenticeship can help to address two distinct problems:
labour shortages in the skilled trades and youth unemployment.
This report examines the postsecondary attrition and academic performance of males (compared to females) and students with disabilities, two groups on which limited research is currently available. The research addresses four main issues: 1) differences in attrition patterns among the targeted sub-populations, 2) a comparison of the background, demographic, psychosocial and study skill variables that lead to attrition and poor first semester performance, 3) the predictive value of these variables for the targeted sub-populations in identifying students who are at risk at the time they enter college and 4) reasons given by students for leaving postsecondary study prior to completing their diplomas. The analysis included those students who commenced studies for the first time at a large non-residential English college in Quebec between 1990 and 2007. The college offers three-year career programs (26% of enrolments) and two-year programs leading to university entrance (68% of enrolments). Six percent of students are also enrolled in qualifying studies. In addition to the high school average, we compared three groups of variables 1) six background variables obtained from the students’ records (Records variables), 2) nine variables obtained from the college’s annual incoming student survey (ISS variables) and 3) ten psychosocial and study skill variables obtained from the Student Readiness Inventory (SRI variables) (ACT Testing Services, 2008). The following provides a summary of the findings
related to each of our research questions.
This report examines the use and benefits of tutorials in a large enrolment first-year economics course. The primary objective of this study was to measure the relative merits of two different kinds of tutorials, a traditional tutorial, in which students listen to a teaching assistant work through a problem related to course material, and a collaborative tutorial, in which students work through a problem together in small teams with guidance from the teaching assistant. Assuming that at least part of the purpose of having tutorials in large classes is to increase student engagement, the study also examined student attendance in both types of tutorials as a proxy for engagement.
This paper explores the nature of complexity theory and its applications for educational reform. It briefly explains the history of complexity theory and identifies the key concepts of complex adaptive systems, and then moves on to define the differences between simple, complicated, and complex approaches to educational reform. Special attention is given to work currently underway in the fields of healthcare, emergency management and ecology that draws on complexity theory to build more resilient and robust response systems capable of adapting to changing needs and of identifying key pressure points in the system. Finally, this paper presents several examples of educational reform programmes undertaken worldwide that have implemented complexity theory principles to achieve positive results. It also recommends involving multiple stakeholders across the different levels of governance structure, increasing lateral knowledge-sharing between schools and districts, and transforming policy interventions to bring greater flexibility to the reform process. This move toward feedback-driven adaptive reform allows for better targeting of programmes to specific contexts and may prove a key way forward for educational policymakers
This report provides a systems perspective on the state of skills and higher education in Canada an identifies areas where the sector could improve in producing highly skilled graduates. It is one of the three foudational studies for the Centre for Sills and Post-Secondary Education, that, together, offer the first steps in a diagnosis of the sector and its performance.
Ontario’s colleges share the provincial government’s belief that apprenticeship must play a greater role in addressing skills shortages and contributing to innovative, high-performance workplaces that enhance Ontario’s competitiveness.
Given the severity of the economic downturn, Ontario faces an immediate, serious challenge as apprenticeship workplace training is disrupted. Businesses are less able to take on apprentices and registrations drop as apprentices are often last on a company’s payroll and first off. To help apprentices and their employers, Ontario’s colleges propose that the government:
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.
Canadians invest considerable energy, resources, and personal and societal aspiration into postsecondary education. It is good public policy to assess how we are doing and what outcomes we are achieving with that investment. One of HEQCO’s core mandates is to evaluate the postsecondary sector and to report the results of that assessment. To that end, in this report, we have assembled data that assess the performance of Canada’s 10 provincial public postsecondary education systems.
Students today come from all walks of life. Traditional students, straight from a high school setting, now represent only a portion of the student population in colleges and universities. This is largely due to students fulfilling needs around work, family, and obligations outside of the traditional educational setting. These students bring with them wonderful personal and professional experiences that not only enhance the classroom experience, but also shape and contribute to their educational goals and aspirations. Many students feel they should be able to utilize their life experiences as part of their educational journey. This document will examine offering credit for life experiences, and how it can be mutually beneficial for students and institutions.
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.
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.
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!
A survey of faculty participation in paid consulting arrangements in Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology reveals that 34% were involved in at least one project during a specified one-year period. There was significant variation in participation by division of academic appointment and by gender. The authors suggest that further research should be undertaken concerning the nature and role of paid consulting in community colleges. A number of basic questions are raised in an attempt to induce further study on this important topic.
Teaching and assessment in higher education institutions are increasingly supported by digital tools and services. Students, however, perceive and value the importance of such e-learning offerings in very diverse ways. The goal of this article
is to examine which predictors significantly influence students’ perceptions of the value of digital learning formats. Based onKu¨pper’s acceptance model, we generate hypotheses that are subsequently tested using data from a German student survey.
The results show that individual-related characteristics, especially motivation and orientation patterns of students, have a high impact on the perceived importance of digital learning formats. Our analyses indicate that besides individual performance
and motivation, the practical orientation of a student is also a key predictor for a high rating of the importance of digital learning formats. An analysis of characteristics regarding the field of study shows that students who major in economic sciences, especially those who frequently work with digital learning formats in their classes, find them significantly more important than students who major in social science. Regarding innovation-based characteristics, students who express a need for flexible course offerings rate the use of digital learning formats as particularly important. The discussion provides an evaluation of the results of the student study based on the hypotheses and presents further implications.
Keywords: digital learning formats; online learning; online learner characteristics;
motivation; perceived benefit
Canada is now a digital society. Decades of evolving digital technologies have changed how we interact, the amount of cultural content we create and exchange, and the methods we use to create and exchange this content. This reality has profoundly affected the established ways in which memory institutions, such as libraries, archives, museums, and galleries, have been
managing Canada’s documentary heritage for future generations. Indeed, the sheer volume of digital content necessitates new ways of locating, maintaining, and accessing digital holdings that must coexist alongside the continued need for the preservation
of non-digital content.
In the traditional college classroom today, faculty and students arrive with a certain set of expectations, shaped largely by past experiences. And although students may need the occasional (or perhaps frequent) reminder of what's required of them, there's usually something very familiar about the experience for both faculty and students alike. In the online classroom, an entirely new set of variables enters the equation. It's a little like trying to drive in a foreign country. You know how to drive, just like you know how to teach, but it sure is hard to get the hang of driving on the left side of the road, you're not quite sure
how far a kilometre is, and darn it if those road signs aren't all in Japanese. This special report explains the "rules of the road" for online teaching and learning and features a series of columns that first appeared in the Distance Education Report's "Between the Clicks," a popular column by Dr. Lawrence C. Ragan, Director of Instructional Design and
Development for Penn State's World Campus.
The articles contained in the report will help you establish online instructor best practices and expectations, and include the following principles of effective online teaching:
. Show Up and Teach
. Practice Proactive Course Management Strategies
. Establish Patterns of Course Activities
. Plan for the Unplanned
. Response Requested and Expected
. Think Before You Write
. Help Maintain Forward Progress
. Safe and Secure
. Quality Counts
.(Double) Click a Mile on My Connection
These principles, developed at Penn State's World Campus, outline the core behaviours of the successful online instructor, and help to define parameters around the investment of time on part of the instructor. In his articles, Ragan identifies potential barriers and limitations to online learning, and specific strategies to assist instructors in achieving the performance