With all the post-Harvey-Weinstein wringing of hands about why it takes so long for abuse to be revealed, especially when everyone clearly knows it’s happening, I was reminded of what my department head had said to me when I asked for a member of my dissertation committee to be removed:
"Please don’t ask me to do this. He’ll make my life miserable."
I had approached the chair for help after it became clear that this professor and I had an "unworkable relationship." Ditching him, another faculty member told me, was the only way I could finally finish a lagging doctorate. I’d even sought help from a therapist who told me, "He doesn’t seem to want to let you go," and added, "but you have to get away."
The test of a leader lies in the reaction and response of his followers. He should not have to impose authority.
Bossiness in itself never made a leader. He must make his influence felt by example and the instilling of
confidence in his followers. The greatness of a leader is measured by the achievements of the led. This is the ultimate test of his effectiveness.
In the second edition of Six Lenses for Anti-Oppressive Education: Partial Stories, Improbable Conversations, editors Bic Ngo and Kevin Kumashiro bring together multiple perspectives that examine, analyze, and bring to the fore systemic oppressive social relations. They investigate racism, (hetero)sexism, white privilege, classism, and the global neoliberal economic system, as well as offer tools—or lenses—for conceptualizing anti-oppressive education.
Getting students to take their reading assignments seriously is a constant battle. Even syllabus language just short of death threats, firmly stated admonitions regularly delivered in class, and the unannounced pop quiz slapped on desks when nobody answers questions about the reading don’t necessarily change student behaviours or attitudes. Despite the correlation between reading and course success, many students remain committed to trying to get by without doing the reading, or only doing it very superficially, or only doing it just prior to exam dates. In return, some exasperated instructors fall into the trap of using valuable class time to summarize key points of the readings. It’s not a new problem, and clearly we can’t simply bemoan the fact that students don't read. Furthermore, doing what we’ve been doing — the threats, the endless quizzes, the chapter summaries — has failed to solve the problem. The better solution involves designing courses so that students can’t do well without reading, and creating assignments that require students to do more than just passively read.
Featuring 11 articles from The Teaching Professor, this special report was created to give faculty new ways of attacking an age-old problem. Articles in the report include:
. Enhancing Students’ Readiness to Learn
. What Textbook Reading Teaches Students
. Helping Students Use Their Textbooks More Effectively
. Text Highlighting: Helping Students Understand What They Read
. When Students Don’t Do the Reading
. Pre-Reading Strategies: Connecting Expert Understanding and Novice Learning
Whether your students struggle with the material or simply lack the motivation to read what’s assigned, this report will help ensure your students read and understand their assignments.
Executive Summary
While there has been great interest and progress in terms of defining core learning outcomes related to the completion of various postsecondary programs, there has been far less progress in terms of elucidating powerful ways to assess these outcomes. Without clear assessment methods it is difficult to see how one could perform course or program redesign with these learning objectives in mind.
To date, attempts to address this “assessment of learning outcomes” gap have focused mostly on the use of qualitative tools that are given to students as they leave some institution or program, tools like the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) questionnaire or the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) index. But these tools rely on subjective report, are often difficult to administer repeatedly at scale, and typically only provide an “after education” snapshot of learning. This report highlights and validates a different assignment- based approach that has much greater potential to provide quantitative data with much higher resolution.
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
Over the last decade the global economy has become more competitive, and the jobs needed in that new economy have grown more technologically complex. As a result, educators, education researchers, and national and state policymakers have emphasized that students must graduate from high school “ready for college and career.” While college and career readiness has become the goal for all individuals, opinions have recently begun to differ about what college and—especially—career readiness actually means and how best to assess it.
Any seasoned academic who has been involved with job searches knows there are two sets of criteria for some positions: the ones in the published ad and the "hidden" ones.
"The dean says we must hire a woman this time," reports the chair. Or the dean says: "The department’s lack of racial diversity is becoming a problem, you’ve got to fix that with this year’s search." Or the department’s star faculty member tells the chair, "If you don’t hire my spouse into a permanent line finally, we will take jobs elsewhere next year." All of those fall into the hidden-criteria column.
Teaching preparation is enriched by opportunities for teacher candidates to participate in practicum experiences where they integrate classroom theory into practice. Typically, such practicum placements take place in classroom settings where teacher candidates facilitate the learning of school-aged children by teaching the established curriculum of the jurisdiction. However, some teacher education institutions are offering teacher candidates alternative practicum experiences that may take different forms. One of those forms is a service learning practicum. However, the advantages and challenges to a teacher candidate’s professional growth resulting from involvement in this alternative form of community-based practicum are not yet fully understood. This study examines the experiences of two groups of teacher candidates who engaged in 120 hours of pre-service community-based service learning placements in different models, and reports on teacher candidates’ perceptions of their learning. The major difference between the two placement models was the configuration of time allowed for service learning in the programs. On one campus, teacher candidates engaged in service learning for four consecutive weeks in the final term of their five-year program. On the other campus, teacher candidates could configure 120 hours of service learning over an extended time period during their fourth year of the program. The perceptions of each group of participants allow for comparisons of the benefits of each model and provide an overview of the associated learning outcomes of the entire group.
“This report reinforces the effectiveness of financial aid in closing Canada’s education gap for Aboriginal students. Along with culturally relevant curriculum, programs, and outreach, financial support is key to improving both access and success for Indigenous students in post-secondary education. AUCC is pleased to partner with Indspire and others who share a commitment to getting results.”
Blended learning is on track to become the new normal in education. The approach combines the best of in-person and online learning, offering students the information they need in the method they need to receive it. According to a recent report from Arizona State University’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, “blended learning significantly outperforms face-to-face classroom instruction.”
Trust is important for social and economic well-being, for enhancing social cohesion and strengthening resilience, and for maintaining security and order in our societies. Trust is the foundation upon which social capital is built and it also is intimately related to human capital. This work examines the association between education and levels of interpersonal trust, using data from the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). Our analysis demonstrated that education strengthens the cognitive and analytical capacities needed to develop, maintain, and (perhaps) restore trust in both close relationships as well as in anonymous others. It does so both directly, through building and reinforcing literacy and numeracy in individuals, and indirectly, through facilitating habits and reinforcing behaviours such as reading and writing at home and at work. Education and trust are thus fundamentally intertwined and dependent on each other. While all countries across the OECD have been striving to improve their education systems in terms of student achievement levels, this analysis suggests that there are also concrete elements that could be usefully addressed in order to reinforce and strengthen trust.
PhDs can feel boxed into a limited range of job options, particularly just after graduate school or a postdoc. But doctoral degree holders work in a wide range of roles. I myself work as a life coach and entrepreneur, hardly what I expected I’d do after a history PhD! Career exploration was crucial in my case: I felt lukewarm about all the choices I thought I had; I needed to look elsewhere.
“Don’t be afraid to explore options that are outside your comfort zone,” says Jessica Hartshorn, a forest health specialist for the Minnesota department of natural resources. She encourages new grads to try different things. “People get tunnel vision in the job market and often forget that it’s okay to try things and move on. No matter what you do you will learn a lot about your field, and about yourself, and nothing is permanent.” Dr. Hartshorn echoes what my conference co-host Maren Wood tells PhDs: “Your first job is not your last job.”
Confederation College president Jim Madder delivers his state of the college address on Wednesday; May 24; 2017
(Leith Dunick; tbnewswatch.com)
Thunder Bay school might be celebrating its 50th anniversary, but it's certainly not standing pat says, President Jim
Madder.
Today, students view mobility among, and access to, the different educational experiences as offered by colleges and universities as essential to their success in the workplace; they need to equip themselves with skills in a way that sets them apart from the rest and best speaks to their own interests and aptitude, and move more seamlessly between certificate, diploma, apprenticeship and
degree programs.
While the benefits of strong literacy skills are well established, there is growing concern that Canadians’ literacy skills, including those of students attending postsecondary institutions in Ontario, are not meeting expectations. The timing is especially problematic given that strong literacy skills are critical to students as they graduate into a highly competitive and increasingly globalized labour market.
A review of literacy data from Statistics Canada and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including results from the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), the Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALL) and the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), point to some troubling trends in literacy achievement and a lack of consistency in expectations for high school students who go on to postsecondary education.
OCUFA’s 2015-16 pre-budget recommendations are directed toward enhancing the quality and affordability of university education in Ontario through increased government investment. We are sensitive to the province’s fiscal circumstances, but believe that investment – at any level – will help build a thriving university sector and a more prosperous Ontario. When the provincial government invests in higher education, the entire province will enjoy the benefits.
The Ontario government has indicated its intention to negotiate individual mandate agreements with each of Ontario’s postsecondary institutions and to amend funding formulas to focus resources on what each institution does best. These actions signal the government’s desire to pursue a policy of greater institutional differentiation within the Ontario public postsecondary system. The purpose of this paper is to advance the conversation by examining differences among Ontario’s 24 colleges
on key variables related to programmatic diversity and participation in degree granting.
Discussions of Canada’s so-called “skills gap” have reached a fever pitch. Driven by conflicting reports and data, the conversation shows no signs of abating. On the one hand, economic indicators commonly used to identify gaps point to problems limited to only certain occupations (like health occupations) and certain provinces (like Alberta) rather than to a general skills crisis. On the other hand, employers continue to report a mismatch between the skills they need in their workplaces and those possessed by job seekers, and to voice concern that the postsecondary system is not graduating students with the skills they need.
With the academic job market in full swing, people are applying to multiple positions, in hopes of landing a faculty
job somewhere, anywhere.
For those who don’t make the shortlist — or who may have decided that a professorship isn’t for them after all — a big market for people with Ph.D.s has emerged at Amazon, the retail behemoth.
The retail behemoth has hired nearly 500 Ph.D.s, former professors among them, since the beginning of this year to work in its applied-science and research-science units, according to company figures. The pace and scale of that
hiring are far greater than those of any college or university in the country.