This article focuses on high school to university transitions for Indigenous youth at universities in British Columbia, Canada. The study is premised on an Indigenous research design, which utilizes the concept of visioning and a storywork methodology (Archibald, 2008). The results challenge existing in-stitutional and psychological approaches to transitions in revealing that they are deeply impacted by a variety of lived experiences and that a visioning process is vital to Indigenous youths’ participation in university. The paper concludes with implications for practitioners working in educational and Ab-original community-based settings.
Social Media Usage Trends Among Higher Education Faculty
The numbers surrounding social media are simply mind boggling.
750 million. The number of active Facebook users, which means if Facebook was a country it would be the third-largest in the world.
90. Pieces of content created each month by the average Facebook user.
175 million. The Twitter accounts opened during Twitter's history.
140 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day in February 2011.
460,000. Average number of new Twitter accounts created each day during February 2011.
120 million. LinkedIn members as of August 4, 2011.
More than two per second. The average rate at which professionals are signing up to join
LinkedIn as of June 30, 2011.
All of these stats, which come from the respective companies’ own websites, serve as proof points to what we already knew: social media is growing at breakneck speed. Yet the story of social media is still being written as organizations and individuals alike continue to evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of social media in the workplace. When that workplace is a college or university, there’s a cacophony of opinions in terms of the most effective uses, if any.
For the past two years, Faculty Focus conducted a survey on Twitter usage in higher education, this year we expanded the survey to include Facebook and LinkedIn, while changing a number of the questions as well. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are considered "the big three" in social media, and we thank those who recommended we take a broader look at the landscape.
All three platforms have their strengths and weaknesses, and are better used for some things than others. But how are the three being used in higher education today? It’s our hope that these survey results provide at least some of the answers while lending new data to the discussion.
Mary Bart
Editor
Faculty Focus
The increases in tuition and fee prices in 2015-16 were, like the increases in the two preceding years, relatively small by historical standards. However, the very low rate of general inflation makes this year’s increases in college prices larger in real terms than those of 2014-15 and 2013-14. Significantly, and perhaps counter to public impressions, price increases are not accelerating over time. However, the average published tuition and fee price of a full-time year at a public four-year institution is 40% higher, after adjusting for inflation, in 2015-16 than it was in 2005-06.The average published price is 29%
higher in the public two-year sector and 26% higher in the private nonprofit four-year sector than a decade ago.
Americans reaching traditional retirement ages during the past two decades and today face a different retirement environment than did prior cohorts. Mandatory retirement has been eliminated for the vast majority of American workers, and important work disincentives (or retirement incentives) in Social Security and in employer pension plans have been eliminated or reduced. Americans are living longer and healthier lives, fewer have physically arduous jobs, and technology has increased the options about where and when people work. In addition, the age of eligibility for ‘full’ Social Security retirement benefits has been increased from 65 to 66 (and will soon increase to 67), which is equivalent to an across-the-board benefit cut, and fewer firms are offering employer-sponsored post-retirement health insurance. There are concerns about the future of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Some of these changes are good news for older workers and some bad, but they all have altered the relative attractiveness of work and leisure late in life in favor of work.
HIGHER EDUCATION IS IN TRANSITION – one as significant as when Gutenberg’s printing press hastened the transition from a world based on oral communication to one based on the written word. Consider the following challenges higher education faces: ፖ Public funding for higher education provides less than half of what it did at its height in the 1980s1. ፖ College tuition and fees increased 600% since 1980, much faster than real household income, inflation, and healthcare costs2. ፖ 70% of people with high school degrees (or equivalent) seek post-secondary education opportunities, up from less than 40% just a generation ago. The total number of people seeking higher education soon will hit 20 million3. ፖ 85% of higher-education seekers are older than 24, attending part time, seeking a degree other than a baccalaureate, and not living in or around a residential university4. Yet we continue to wedge the majority of students, the so-called “nontraditionals,” into inflexible educational structures that were built for 18-22 year olds and that have changed very little in almost a millennium. ፖ Students and faculty have equal access to today’s “Google world” of ubiquitous information, shifting educational needs from information access to information evaluation, information application to solve complex problems, and creation of new knowledge. Some say that higher education is dead5, the next “bubble” about to burst. At the very least, it’s an enterprise ripe for disruption6.
Friendships can blossom naturally between scholars and students, but are they always problematic? Nina Kelly
navigates the boundaries.
As Canadian businesses look for new ways to empower workplace learning to meet demands to achieve more while having fewer resources available for training and development, interest in delivering programs using different kinds of instructional pproaches (e.g., face-to-face, problem-based learning, coaching) combined with a variety of technologies (e.g. discussion boards, e-content, conference calls) – generally referred to as blended learning – is growing. These blended learning strategies can be designed to provide opportunities for supporting just-in-time (i.e., immediate) access to learning tools and supports anywhere, anytime - especially important when the objective is to improve performance on the job. Generally, research in this area has focused on comparisons of classroom versus online courses versus blended programs indicating blended programs out-deliver either online or classroom when used alone. However, analysis of the impact of different blended learning strategies on personal soft-skills (e.g., coaching, teamwork, critical thinking) development and job performance has not been given much attention. The focus of this research study was to compare the learning impact/outcomes of four different blended learning strategies (offered in parallel in each of four research groups) based on a theoretical model emerging from work reported by Adams (2004). Each level in the model was defined by a different blended learning strategy that moves from a very loose coupling of personal learning with job performance in level 1 (e.g., online learning used as a background resource for self-directed learning), to tighter and tighter couplings of learning with job performance in level 2 (e.g., online materials integrated with a structured classroom course and required as pre-and post work) and level 3 where online learning materials were integrated with personal learning objectives and blended with collaborative discussion forums and peer coaching. Level 4, defined in this model as a very tight coupling of personal learning with job performance in relation to the previous three blended learning strategies mentioned involved using online learning materials to support personal job-based projects where participants worked on the projects as part of their learning (i.e., an action-learning pedagogical approach) where a demonstrable return on learning (ROL) was measured.
This paper examines the implications of expanding the number and scope of college-to-university transfer arrangements as a means of meeting the demand for undergraduate degrees in Ontario. It focuses on two research questions:
1. What are the differences in the learning outcomes of students in college-to-university transfer arrangements compared with those in four-year university programs?
2. What are the differences in the cost per student for college-to-university transfer arrangements compared with four-year university programs?
Operating at the interface between ideas and action, graduate education in geography and planning has a responsibility to provide students with theoretical and practical training. This paper describes service-learning as a form of engaged pedagogy, exploring its ability to interrogate notions related to the “professional turn” and its contributions to transformative learning. Using a case study of a graduate-level service-learning course at the University of Toronto, we address the challenges associated with service-learning and high- light opportunities for students, faculty, universities, and community organizations. Our case study is based on assessment and analysis of the course and contributions to student learning, professional development, and community engagement. We contend that, at the graduate level, service-learning is an underutilized
pedagogical tool. Service-learning can impart high-demand skills to graduate students by transforming how students learn and move from knowledge into ideas and ultimately action, and by offering opportunities for developing higher-order reasoning and critical thinking.
Inside Higher Ed’s eighth annual survey of college and university presidents seeks to understand how these leaders view the opportunities and challenges facing higher education institutions in the U.S.
This study addresses the following questions:
• What effects do presidents perceive the election of Donald Trump had on their campus and on higher education more generally?
• What are presidents’ views of some of the federal policies that affect higher education?
• Are presidents confident in the sustainability of their institution’s financial model over the next 5 and 10 years?
• Do presidents believe the business models used in various sectors of higher education are sustainable?
• Do presidents anticipate that additional colleges will close or merge in the coming year?
• What are presidents’ opinions about tuition resets or tuition freezes?
• What are presidents’ biggest concerns about the size and composition of their student body?
• How do presidents assess race relations at their institution and at colleges nationwide?
• Do college presidents believe that Americans have an accurate view of the purposes of higher education?
• What factors do presidents see as causing declines in public support for higher education?
• How vocal have presidents been about political matters?
• How well prepared do presidents think they were for the various tasks of a college presidency when they first became a president?
Included in this addendum are the fi ndings for the Noel-Levitz 2014 National Freshman Attitudes Report by race/ethnicity for incoming students. These data show the percentage of students within each group that agreed with each item.
This paper presents the findings of a research study on a complete course re-design of a large first-year class, which changed the learning environment and reduced boundaries to allow for more meaningful student engagement and improved student learning. The specific purpose of this study was to determine if a blended course design can increase student engagement and influence students’ approach to learning in a large first-year course.
Despite professors’ education and socialization and the significant rewards they receive for research activities and output, the 80/20 rule seems to apply; that is, there exists a system of stars who produce a disproportionate volume of research such that most research tends to be undertaken by a small percentage of the academy (Erkut, 2002). Although a growing body of research seeks to address this imbalance, studies of research productivity have tended to reveal its institutional and non-behavioural antecedents. As a result, there exists very little re- search that considers the strategies that individuals employ to improve their personal research productivity. This exploratory, questionnaire- based study of a sample of Canadian
professors attempts to address this gap by examining the relationship among a number of strategies, what professors report as being their average annual number of publications over the past five years, and their perceptions of their level of research productivity. Not surprisingly, in this study, we found that the amount of time that individuals invested in research activities
predicted their level of research productivity. Additionally, strategically focusing one’s research positively influenced journal publication levels, both directly and through its interaction with seeking resources (such as research grants). A strategic focus
also positively predicted self-perceived re- search productivity through its interaction with managing ideas. Fi- nally, although the perceived need to free up time from teaching and committee work was negatively related to journal publication levels, it was positively related to perceptions of productivity.
A general debate swirls about the value of going to university. A more focused anxiety simmers as to whether
it is worth studying the humanities compared to the surely much more lucrative STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and math).
On one hand, young Ontarians hear predictions that most jobs of the future will require postsecondary skills and credentials. They are counselled that a university education still offers them the very best job prospects. Those without one will be disadvantaged, and in a punishing youth job market like today’s they will be disproportionately disadvantaged. Those with one – and that includes graduates from the humanities – will possess a set of transferable skills that will allow them to adapt to the unknowable future.
On the other side, young Ontarians are told about increasing tuition costs and high student debt levels; about university graduates unable to land jobs related to their field of study, especially in the humanities; about an erosion in the financial value of a degree, as the earnings advantage for those with one narrows; and about entrepreneurs and innovators who dropped out of university and made a fortune.
Canada’s “skills gap” has come to dominate both headlines and policy debates. Employers and business
representatives report a growing mismatch between the skills they need in employees and those possessed by job seekers. These concerns have fostered suggestions that the postsecondary system is not graduating students with the skills required by the labour market.
But not everyone is convinced. A growing chorus of voices questions whether or not such a gap actually exists in the Canadian economy. Nor is it clear when the skills gap is discussed that commentators have the same phenomenon in mind. Some consider the skills gap problem to result from a lack of postsecondary graduates to meet the impending demand for high-skilled workers, while others see it as a problem of students graduating with the wrong credentials for the labour market. Some suggest that Canadian students have the right credentials but not the basic essential skills needed by employers. Still others suggest that
students have the right skills but lack the work experience employers demand.
impact on education at all levels. In the past, new technologies such as the telephone, radio, television, cassettes, satellites, and computers were all predicted to bring about a revolution in education. However, after the initial hype, these new technologies left a marginal impact on the general practice of education, each finding a niche, but not changing the essential process of a teacher
personally interacting with learners.
However, the Internet and, especially, the World Wide Web are different, both in the scale and the nature of their impact on education. Certainly, the web has penetrated teaching and learning much more than any other previous technology, with the important exception of the printed book. Indeed, it is possible to see parallels between the social and educational influence of both mechanically printed books and the Internet on post-secondary education, and these parallels will be explored a little further in this chapter.
The application of the Internet to teaching and learning has had both strong advocates and equally strong critics. Electronic learning has been seized upon as the next commercial development of the Internet, a natural extension of ecommerce.
John Chambers, the CEO of the giant American Internet equipment company, Cisco, described education as the next Internet “killer application” at the Comdex exhibition in Las Vegas in 2001 (Moore and Jones, 2001). Chambers linked several concepts together: e-learning is necessary to improve the quality of education; e-learning is necessary to improve the quality of the workforce; and a highly qualified technology workforce is essential for national economic development and competitiveness.
About a third of tenured faculty age 50 or older expect to retire by “normal” retirement age,1 while fully two-thirds anticipate working past that age or have already done so. This latter group is sometimes called “reluctant retirees,” and when their numbers swell on campus, it can lead to productivity declines, limited advancement opportunities for junior faculty, a lack
of openings for new hires, and difficulty reallocating institutional resources. To address a reluctant retiree pheno- menon and better manage faculty retirement patterns, college and university leaders need to understand the thought process among senior faculty regarding whether and when to retire.
In fall 2009, the Chattanooga State Community College math department faced a problem not uncommon to colleges around the nation: Online course offerings had high failure rates and were not a quality experience for students. After examining the data, the department made a bold decision to put a moratorium on online math courses for two years. This move provided time to improve the quality and success of online courses. Since re-offering online mathematics courses again in fall 2011, the college has seen a significant increase in student learning and success. This article outlines the reasons for the decision, the steps taken to improve the program, and the results since reintroducing the courses.
More than 120 years ago, in a small town in British Columbia, a railroad tycoon named Donald Smith hammered the last spike in the Canadian Pacific Railway, linking Canada from the Pacific to the Atlantic with a great ribbon of wood and steel. At the time, many said the project was folly: too expensive, too bold, too difficult. Yet the dreamers behind that tremendous feat
of engineering never wavered in their vision of what the railway would achieve: the opening up of a continent, the
end of geographic and economic isolation, and the physical uniting of a great nation. This vision moved closer to its
realization some decades later, when a vast network of telephone wires, followed by a system of interprovincial highways and roads, further shrank the distances between farm, town, and city.
Very often, we tend to interpret a person's behavior as an act that reflects their character, however, behaviors don’t always tell us everything we need to know about a person's personality. The desire to classify people and judge them prevents us from seeing things that can explain the reason for that behavior, and according to prominent American psychotherapists, Beck, and Arthur Freeman, authors of "Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders," something bigger often hides in abnormal behavior that can indicate a mental illness with the same symptoms. In order for you to try and identify these disorders in their
initial stages and to prevent further development and/or treat it, and especially so as not to rush to judge people because of their behavior, we’ve collected for you eight personality traits that many of you have encountered in a certain person and perhaps interpreted incorrectly.