How do you blend General Education competencies (i.e. communication, ethical/logical/mathematical reasoning) across an institution and curriculum? Kaplan University’s General Education program integrates and assesses student proficiency in General Education disciplines across all undergraduate programs. The datais used to inform curricular improvements in a continuous process for maximizing student learning.
Arguably, the greatest barrier to the academic development and functioning of Ontario's twenty-two Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs) is the hostile and suspicion laden relationship which exists between management and the union which represents the academic staff of the CAATs - the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). This was the conclusion of the commission on workload in the CAATs which I chaired in 1985 (IARC, 1985) and was corroborated in a study of CAAT governance by a Special Adviser to the Minister of Colleges and Universities the following year (Pitman, 1986). An indication of the degree of concern felt by the Ontario Government regarding managementunion relations in the CAATs is that the largest (in terms of time and resources) public commission on the CAATs to date has been the Colleges Collective Bargaining Commission (Gandz, 1988).
York University is partnering with the Government of Ontario to conduct leading-edge research with the potential to transform educational programming and inform targeted approaches to addressing the needs of students. This research will take the form of a feasibility study into collecting additional province-wide data to further inform understanding of student populations and school communities, as well as address the principles outlined in the Ontario Ministry of Education’s Achieving Excellence: A Renewed Vision for Education in Ontario.
Concerns over the usefulness and validity of student ratings of instruction (SRI) have continued to grow with online processes. This paper presents seven common and persistent concerns identified and tested during the development and implementation of a revised SRI policy at a Canadian research-intensive university. These concerns include bias due to insufficient sample size, student academic performance, polarized student responses, disciplinary differences, class size, punishment of rigorous instructor standards, and timing of final exams. We analyzed SRI responses from two mandatory Likert scale questions related to the course and instructor, both of which were consistent over time and across all academic units at our institution. The results show that overall participation in online SRIs is representative of the student body, with aca-demically stronger students responding at a higher rate, and the SRIs, them-selves, providing evidence that may moderate worries about the concerns.
Interaction is a critical component of successful online learning and by extension an important component inoverall online program quality. The researcher studied the impact of course design on participation in an online university course. The participants were university students’ (n= 62, male= 33, female= 29). Their responses from online discussions were analyzed using repeated measures factorial ANOVA finding a statistically significant decrease in student participation in weeks when major assignments were due. The impact of assignments was similar for female and male participants. Measures of effect size indicated that course design accounted for more variation in online participation than gender. The key finding of the study was that course design can have a significant impact on level of participation and therefore student success in the online course. Ways to prevent or mitigate the impact of the reduction in student participation are presented.
In this qualitative self-‐‑study, we explore how curriculum theory informed the learning of teacher candidates within an intensive semester that serves as the foundation for a Secondary Teacher Education Program (STEP). Wanting to immerse teacher candidates in educational theory and position them as learning professionals from the first days of their program, we engaged them with the work of eleven curriculum theorists (Appendix A). Guiding questions for this inquiry include: How
did teacher candidates take up and negotiate theory as part of their emerging professional identities? How did teacher candidates understand the relationship between pedagogy and their learning of/through curriculum theory? How did teacher candidates embody diverse theories and understand the significance of this within and beyond this foundational semester? And finally, as teacher educators, how is our pedagogy developing through self-‐‑study?
What research direction is needed in the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education? Over a decade ago, Windschitl (1998) advocated for more research on in- creasing student inquiry through the World Wide Web and illuminating web-based stu- dent communication. The release and then extensive development of a model of online communities of inquiry (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) responded to Windschitl’s call. In addition to continued work in these two areas, a stronger research focus on learn- ing theory and everyday use of Web 2.0 technologies is required (Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009; Zawacki-Richter, Anderson, & Tunca, 2010).
Students from a number of groups remain underrepresented in Ontario’s universities and colleges, including low-income students, Aboriginal students, first generation students whose parents did not attend a post-secondary institution, rural and northern students, and students with dependants. Improving access to higher education for these and other underrepresented groups is widely acknowledged as essential to building a more equitable society and to competing in the increasingly knowledgebased economy. Indeed, Premier McGuinty has stated his desire to see 70 per cent of Ontarians complete post-secondary education, and achieving this target will require a concerted effort to reduce participation gaps.
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.
Media and policy commentary have focused lately on Canadian employers’ apparent inability to find employees with the desired labour market skills. To explore this issue further, HEQCO reviewed and summarized the current discourse surrounding a “skills gap” in The Great Skills Divide: A Review of the Literature and conducted an analysis of Canadian job advertisements geared toward recent postsecondary graduates in Bridging the Divide, Part I: What Canadian Job Ads Said. In the latter publication, 316 job advertisements for entry-level positions requiring postsecondary education were examined to ascertain the education credentials, work experience and essential skills employers were seeking. To follow-up on Bridging the Divide, Part I, the current report analyzes survey responses from 103 employers that posted job advertisements included in the preceding study.
In particular, employers were asked if they had filled the advertised position or, if not, the reasons for being unable to find someone to hire. Those employers that had filled the position were also asked about the successful candidates’ qualifications and performance on the job so far.
The Canadian College and University Environmental Network (CCUEN-RCCUE) is an organization established to bring together environmental educators at universities, colleges, CEGEPs, technical institutes, and similar organizations that offer educational programs in any environmental field.
Since the initial meetings of college and university educators in 2002 and 2003 the Canadian College and University Environmental Network (CCUEN) - Réseau Canadien des Collèges et des Universités en Environnement (RCCUE) has aspired to become the primary voice of Canadian college and university environmental educators. One of the core activities is the annual CCUEN1 conference. This conference brings together researchers, employers and educators, students and related associations together to explore a range of issues and challenges for environmental educators.
The Survey of Earned Doctorates, the data source for this report, is an annual census of individuals who receive research doctoral degrees from accredited U.S. academic institutions. The survey is sponsored by six federal agencies: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Agriculture, and U.S. Department of Education. These data are reported in several publications from NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. The most comprehensive and widely cited publication is this report, Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities.
This report calls attention to important trends in doctoral education, organized into themes highlighting important questions about doctorate recipients. Online, the reader is invited to explore trends in greater depth through detailed data tables and interactive graphics (www.nsf.gov/statistics/ sed/). Technical notes and other online resources are provided to aid in
interpreting the data. The data tables are available as PDF and Excel files for easy viewing, printing, and downloading.
Reporting mandates, new leeway in using federal aid, and the chance to make it a school-quality indicator all raise the issue’s profile.
The latest Ontario government survey of graduates from undergraduate programs shows 94 per cent have secured employment two years after graduation. The average salary for university bachelor’s degree graduates in full-time jobs was $49,001 two years after graduation, up from the average $42,301 six months after graduation.
The survey of Ontario university students who graduated in 2012, conducted for the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, concludes that university graduates get jobs related to their education. The best path to career success for Ontario students is still a university degree.
In 2003 Ontario’s schools were in a troubled state. The achievement of students was ‘good’ but flat lined — stagnant results year after year. Morale of teachers was low; the schools as a whole could be characterized as ‘loosely-coupled’ and without focus. The system was downtrodden.
Now in early 2013, the overall performance of the almost 5,000 schools in the province has dramatically improved on most key measures, and continues to improve. According to international measures and independent expert assessment, Ontario is recognized as and is proven to be the best school system in the English-speaking world — and right up at the top with Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
To meet the challenges currently facing it—chief among them, to remain viable in an era when traditional sources of funding such as state funding and tuition are decreasing or reaching their market limits—higher education depends on its leaders’ capacities to deal with current challenges, envision change, and make that change happen. In March 2012, the TIAA-CREF Institute hosted a summit on leadership and governance to explore what it will take to steer higher education through this new landscape.
This paper argues that competency-based training in vocational education and training in Australia is one mechanism through which the working class is denied access to powerful knowledge represented by the academic disciplines. The paper presents a modified Bernsteinian analysis to argue that VET students need access to disciplinary knowledge using Bernstein’s argument that abstract, conceptual knowledge is the means societies use to think ‘the unthinkable’ and ‘the not-yet-thought’. I supplement Bernstein’s social argument for democratic access to the disciplines, with an epistemic argument that draws on the philosophy of critical realism.
Keywords: competency-based training; academic disciplines; sacred and profane knowledge; vertical and horizontal discourse.
Ontario’s colleges are eager to partner with the Government of Ontario to expand college capacity by at least 10 percent and double the number of apprentices over the next five years. Assuming that Government will continue to fund enrolment growth, colleges are fully prepared to improve access to applied education and increase enrolment levels. Ontario’s colleges are also committed to working with the Government of Ontario to improve the quality of applied education and to make postsecondary
education more affordable.
A recent Globe and Mail article pointed out that Canadian universities appear to be slipping in world rankings. This is not a good thing. Higher education institutions — because of the students they teach, the research and discoveries they make, and the communities they support — are some of the most critical public institutions in Canada positioning us for a robust economy with plentiful good jobs and the quality of life and civil society Canadians want and merit.
The challenge Canada faces in higher education is best summarized in this question: How can we deliver a better education to more students with no more money?
One of the most intriguing expressions of human behavior is the leader-follower phenomenon. Since the beginning of civilization, people have sought answers to the questions of who becomes a leader and why. Philosophers, political scientists, and psychologists have produced extensive literature on leaders and leadership, but despite this, there is still no consensus as to why and under what circumstances some become leaders and others remain followers. There is no universal theory of leadership and no precise formula for producing leaders, and the answers are elusive. Furthermore, the debate continues about whether effective leadership and successful management are synonymous. Perhaps one of the best ways to answer
some of these questions is to describe some of the views about leadership. This provides a beginning for defining leadership, for explaining the power associated with it, for discussing the various current theories about it and for determining where theories coalesce and diverge.