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.
It is either ironic or absolutely unsurprising that while instructors love peer-review sessions for student writing, students mostly do not.
Having undergrads read and respond to each others' drafts is such a promising pedagogical idea: Students receive feedback on their writing, they get to see how others have tackled the same writing project, and the instructor doesn't have to do all the heavy lifting for once.
An in-class peer-review workshop is a part of the process for every major essay I assign. But I've made it a habit to ask my students about their previous experiences with such workshops, and their answers are almost uniformly negative. My students tell me these workshops are never useful and are a waste of time for both reader and writer. Through some combination of trial and error, dumb luck, and doing some reading on the subject, I think I've evolved some ways to ensure that peer-review sessions are helpful to students. I thought I'd share my advice here.
This paper reports the results of a study of provincial level arrangements for coordination of planning and operations between university and college sectors in Canada. The data are drawn from a survey of senior government and sector officials in which respondents were asked to describe existing arrangements for coordination and to comment upon the importance attached to, and priority issues for, coordination; characteristics of effective structures for coordination; and their satisfaction with existing arrangements. The findings indicate that inter-sector coordination is perceived as an important issue; that coordination structures are most developed in the provinces in which there is the strongest mandate for articulation between sectors; and that efforts are under way in most provinces to refine and improve structures for inter-sector coordination.
This essay is primarily analytic and historical with respect to the conceptualizations that should guide the contextualization of assessment in education.
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.
Older workers’ (aged 50-64) job retention in the paid labour force has come to the fore because of the shortfall in availability of skilled labour now and in Canada’s future and the projection of a ‘greying population.’ Employing mixed methods, the research focused on the unique approaches and challenges experienced by older professionals in informal learning, the everyday experiences in which people learn. In addition, the research focused on the practices of documenting (methods for keeping track of learning), assessing (making judgements about learning), and supporting (methods that facilitate learning) that are helpful for older workers’ informal learning practices. The project focused on Certified Management Accountants (CMAs), knowledge workers whose continuous learning is urgent in Canada’s ‘hot economy’ and whose professional associations have made learning a priority.
This paper examines the relationship between individuals’ personal exposure to economic conditions and their investment choices in the context of human capital. Focusing on bachelor’s degree recipients, we find that birth cohorts exposed to higher unemployment rates during typical schooling years select majors that earn higher wages, that have better employment prospects, and that more often lead to work in a related field. Much of this switching behavior can be considered a rational response to differences in particular majors’ labor market prospects during a recession. However, higher unemployment leads to other meaningful changes in the distribution of majors. Conditional on changes in lifetime expected earnings, recessions encourage women to enter male-dominated fields, and students of both genders pursue more difficult majors, such as STEM fields. These findings imply that the economic environment changes how students select majors, possibly by encouraging them
to consider a broader range of possible degree fields. Finally, in the absence of this compensating behavior, we estimate that the average estimated costs of graduating in a recession would be roughly ten percent larger.
The Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) is an internationally recognized, peer-based, educational development program involving 24 hours of structured intensive instruction designed to strengthen instructors’ skills in planning, teaching, feedback and critical reflection through a student-focussed process. For over 30 years, the ISW has been offered at more than 100 institutions worldwide as a method of facilitating the development of student-centred, reflective instructors (Day, 2004). Although based on best pedagogical principles for teaching adult learners (Day, 2005), little empirical research has been performed to assess the impact on faculty of participating in the ISW (Macpherson, 2011). Research performed to date has typically shown that individuals who participate in this workshop report that it is transformative to their teaching in the classroom (Macpherson, 2011). The present study sought to extend these findings by conducting a pre-post analysis of ISW and non-ISW participants. The goal of this research was to investigate the influence of the ISW on developing a student-centred approach to teaching in university and college faculty.
In recent years, there has been much discussion and a great deal written about the economic and social well‑being of young people. Are they encountering more problems today than in the past? Are some doing better than others? This article paints their socioeconomic portrait and looks at where they are in the labour market in terms of unemployment and certain work conditions.
This report examines data on operating expenditure per full-time equivalent student at community colleges in the United States and Ontario. Depending on the method used to equate U.S. and Canadian currency, expenditure per FTE student in Ontario sits somewhere between 74% and 92% of a comparable U.S. value. Notwithstanding this relative disadvantage, students in Ontario support, through tuition and other fees, a higher proportion of college operating expenditure than do students in the United States (30.8% vs. 23.5%).
This article presents the results of a national study of 39 higher education institutions that collected information about their practices for faculty development for online teaching and particularly the content and training activities used during 2011-2012. An instrument of 26 items was developed based on a review of literature on faculty development for online teaching and analyzed in Meyer (2014). The study found that 72%(n=29) organizations used learning style theory as a basis for their training activities, followed by 69% that used adult learning (Merriam, 2001) and self-directed learning (Knowles, 1975), 64% that used Kolb's (1984)experiential learning model, 59% that used Knowles' (1975) andragogy theories, and 54% that used various instructional design models. Models of good practice were strongly favored (79%) over research on online learning (31%) or theories of learning (23%) in faculty training. Pedagogies of online learning were most important to 92% of the respondents, while research about online learning was most important to only 23% of those who completed the survey. Differences based on Carnegie classification were also found.
A growing number of Canadian universities offer graduate student certificate programs in university teaching. This paper examines such programs at 13 Canadian universities and presents a discussion of program structures and practices. The findings suggest that most programs were offered over one to two years, and upon successful completion, participants were issued a centre-approved certificate paired with a more formalized method of recognition, such as a transcript notation. The core focus of certificate programs appears to be divided between those that emphasize practical skill development (46%) and those that offer practical skill development along with a focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning (54%). Most certificates included ac- tive and authentic assessment methods, such as dossiers (69%), and practice teaching sessions (62%). These findings help to inform the continued evolution of graduate student teaching certificate programs.
Drawing on a vast range of research, much of it focused on the dynamics of school life, Michael Fullan has distilled rich insights and wisdom of great value to the Irish school system in transition. In this paper he puts the spotlight on the pivotal role of the principal in the Irish education reform movement for the twenty-first century. Its tripartite format identifies how principals make a
difference, what barriers prevent them from realising their potential and what actions need to be taken ‘to create a new irreversible momentum of success’. The paper presents a concise and compelling case for constructive action, which we will ignore at our peril. As he remarks, the paper ‘has a decidedly action bias’, and he directs his specific recommendations to three agencies – the government, IPPN and individual principals. Fullan tells us that his recommendations are ‘intended to build on the strong educational traditions and practices in the Irish system’, but he is unequivocal on the need for action to secure the future well-being of the system.
In the wake of student suicides, universities are reflecting on how to respond, and on their approaches to dealing
with mental health.
It can sometimes feel like the final days of a semester can’t come soon enough. Compounding that feeling, because
of where the Easter long weekend fell on the calendar this past academic year, the final exam period at the
University of Guelph ended on a Monday instead of the Friday before. Across the undergraduate residences,
advisers made extra efforts to check in with students to see how they were doing.
One of the first things I saw this morning was a Toronto Star article concerning more First Nations kids taking their lives, and chiefs calling for help to deal with the suicide crisis. In conversation with a friend about it, she said to me “I wish I could help, but as a student I just don’t know how.”
Talking about it more with her, she expressed that she felt as if she couldn’t do anything because she’s non-Indigenous, but also far away both socially and physically from the issues at hand.
But that’s simply not true. It needs to be known that we are all treaty people, and reconciliation needs to be a national movement with 100 per cent of Canadians being a part of it, both non-Indigenous and Indigenous.
Everyone has a role to play, especially young people.
University graduates are more likely to be working at a job related to their studies than college. University graduates' earnings are significantly higher than for any other education group, and these earning premiums start early in graduates' careers.
Canada progress report for the UNESCO Global Report on Adult Learning and Education (GRALE) and the end of the United Nations Literacy Decade
An early consensus in the ongoing discourse about graduate student preparation for diverse careers was that graduates lacked competencies relevant to non-academic professional settings. Lists of missing “skills” were developed that universities and agencies sought to address, most commonly by the offering of generic (transferable) skills workshops or courses. In this paper, we critique this framing of the issue and discuss the limitations of the common approaches taken to address it. We propose a more integrated approach, where students’ thesis research itself is oriented to their possible futures (a practice already occurring in many areas), and where assessment of the competencies so developed is integral to the awarding of the degree. We illustrate the concepts through the stories of two students, and discuss policy ramifications and
the substantial challenges to its realization presented by a highly competitive research
environment and established ways of assessing success in faculty and students.
Mission
•
Confederation College inspires learners to succeed in their lives and careers in Northwestern Ontario and beyond.
Vision
• Confederation College will enrich lives through learning.
On may 16th. 2011, IBM, Baycrest and the Public Policy Forum convened Innovation and the Human Brain. This conference was convened, in part, at the request of the Minister of Research and Innovation in an effort to bring together business, academia and government to tackle one of the main issues which will define Ontario's innovation agenda over the coming decade - brain research.