Background: Via the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), stronger accountability proponents are now knocking on the doors of the colleges of education that prepare teachers and, many argue, prepare teachers ineffectively. This is raising questions about how effective and necessary teacher education programs indeed are. While research continues to evidence that teachers have a large impact on student achievement, the examination of teacher education programs is a rational backward mapping of understanding how teachers impact students. Nonetheless, whether and how evaluations of teacher education programs should be conducted isyet another hotly debated issue in the profession.
Attraction and retention of apprentices and completion of apprenticeships are issues of concern to all stakeholders involved in training, economic development and workforce planning. The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum (CAF) has forecast that by 2017 there will be a need to train 316,000 workers to replace the retiring workforce in the construction industry alone (CAF, 2011a). In the automotive sector, shortages are expected to reach between 43,700 and 77,150 by 2021. However, shortages are already widespread across the sector, and CAF survey data show that almost half (48.1%) of employers reported that there was a limited number of qualified staff in 2011 (CAF, 2011a). Given this, retention of qualified individuals in apprenticeship training and supporting them through to completion is a serious issue. There is some indication that registration in apprenticeship programs has been increasing steadily over the past few years, but the number of apprentices completing their program has not kept pace (Kallio, 2013; Laporte & Mueller, 2011). Increasing the number of completions would result in a net benefit to both apprentices and employers, minimizing joblessness and skills shortages.
Observational skills, honed through experience with the literary and visual arts, bring together in a timely manner many of the goals of the medical humanities, providing thematic cohesion through the act of seeing while aiming to advance clinical skills through a unified practice. In an arts observation pedagogy, nature writing serves as an apt model for precise, clinically relevant linguistic noticing because meticulous attention to the natural world involves scientific precision; additionally, a number of visual metaphors employed in medicine are derived from close observation of the natural world. Close reading reinforces observational skills as part of integrative, multidisciplinary clinical practice. Literary precision provides an educational bridge to recognizing the importance of detail in the clinical realm. In weighing multiple perspectives, observation applied to practice helps learners understand the nuances of the role of witness, activating reflection consonant with the viewer’s professional identity. The realization that seeing is highly filtered through the observer’s values allows the act of observation to come under scrutiny, opening the observer’s gaze to disturbance and challenging the values and precepts of the prevailing medical culture. Application of observational skills can, for example, help observers recognize and address noxious effects of the built environment. As learners describe what they see, they also develop the communication skills needed to articulate both problems and possible improvements within their expanding sphere of influence. The ability to craft
this speech as public narrative can lead to interventions with positive impacts on physicians, their colleagues, and patients.
This article was written in response to concerns that have been expressed about the possible consequences of an increasing number of countries overtaking the United States in educational attainment. International statistics on educational attainment were analyzed, questions about comparability of data were discussed, and the impact of different approaches to the
organization of higher education on attainment rates was examined. The author concluded that comparing the rate of attainment of subbaccalaureate credentials between the United States and other countries is problematic both because of definitional issues, and as a consequence of the major transfer function of American community colleges. The article explains how colleges that previously offered short term vocational training in many European countries have evolved into vocationally-oriented baccalaureate granting institutions that have enabled their nations to achieve rapidly rising levels of baccalaureate degree attainment. It suggests that the experience of these countries may provide useful lessons—and cautions—for policy makers and educational leaders with respect to expanding the role of community colleges in awarding baccalaureate degrees.
Using a variety of research approaches and instruments, previous research has revealed what university students tend to see as benefits and disadvantages of the integration of research in teaching. In the present study, a questionnaire was developed on the basis of categorizations of the research–teaching nexus in the literature. The aim of the Student Perception of Research Integration Questionnaire (SPRIQ) is to determine the factors that capture the way students perceive research integration in their courses. The questionnaire was administered among 221 students from five different undergraduate courses at a research intensive university in The Netherlands. Data analysis revealed four factors regarding research integration: motivation, reflection, participation, and current research. These factors are correlated with students’ rating of the quality of the course and
with their beliefs about the importance of research for their learning. Moreover, courses could be distinguished in terms of research intensiveness, from the student perspective, based on the above-mentioned factors. It is concluded that the SPRIQ helps to understand how students perceive research integration in specific courses and is a promising tool to give feedback to teachers and program managers who aim to strengthen links between research, teaching, and student learning.
Training packages are based on the divorce of learning outcomes from processes of learning and curriculum. Policy insists that training packages are not curriculum, and that this ‘frees’ teachers to develop creative and innovative ‘delivery strategies’ that meet the needs of ‘clients’. This paper argues that training packages deny students access to the theoretical knowledge that underpins vocational practice, and that they result in unitary and unproblematic conceptions of work because students are not provided with the means to participate in theoretical debates shaping their field of practice. Tying knowledge to specific workplace tasks and roles means that students are only provided with access to contextually specific applications of theoretical knowledge, and not the disciplinary framework in which it is embedded and which gives it meaning. The paper illustrates this argument by comparing the current Diploma of Community Services (Community Development) with a previous
qualification that preceded training packages in the same field.
Labour market information (LMI) helps Canadians find information about jobs and labour market trends and outlooks.
LMI should allow employers to see who is available to recruit, what their skills are, where they are located and what kind of workers will be coming on stream, including via post-secondary education and immigration.
The engagement, productivity, and vitality of the faculty are extremely important to the success of academic institutions in fulfilling their missions. This paper presents data from a survey of 1,775 tenured associate and full professors at seven public universities, showing that many are frustrated about leadership turnover and the corresponding shifts in mission, focus, and priorities, and also about salary. In addition, associate professors are less satisfied than full professors on critical factors such as support for research, collaboration, and clarity of promotion, and women are less satisfied than men on numerous dimensions including mentoring support for research and interdisciplinary work, and clarity of promotion.
Medical schools have been engaged in curricular reform for over 20 years, although the 2010 release of the Carnegie Foundation’s Educating Physicians: A Call for Reform of Medical School and Residency1 galvanized the effort across the United States and
Canada. The report’s authors suggested four key elements, which we describe below along with some examples of how they can be implemented.
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.
Continuous advances in health care and technology are contributing to a longer life expectancy. Institute of
Medicine (IOM) (2001). One major downside of this situation is that chronic conditions are now becoming the leading cause of illness, disability and mortality. Globally, many health care ministries are realizing the advantages of having health care professionals from different professions working together to provide interprofessional care as the most efficient and effective
means of supporting patients with chronic or complex needs (Russell et al. 2009). Our project focused on the needs of children with developmental disabilities, specifically Down syndrome and autism. Both of these chronic conditions benefit from teams of health professionals working collaboratively to provide integrated, efficient care for families. Although there is a wealth of
clinical expertise in this specialty, educating large groups of undergraduate health sciences students to provide interprofessional care in a busy pediatric setting is not feasible, nor is it feasible to train a two year- old child to simulate such a patient. In this research report, we have considered the feasibility of teaching large groups of interprofessional health
sciences students in a pediatric setting, while concurrently evaluating students’ understanding of how interprofessional teams function. Our study compared a series of facilitated and non-facilitated video vignettes demonstrating a well-functioning interprofessional pediatric team while it assessed one child with Down syndrome and one child with autism.
Despite recent innovations, it remains the case that most students experience universities as isolated learners whose learning is disconnected from that of others. They continue to engage in solo performance and demonstration in what remains a largely show-and-tell learning environment. The experience of learning in higher education is, for most students, still very much a "spectator sport" in which faculty talk dominates and where there are few active student participants. Just as importantly, students typically take courses as detached, individual units, one course separated from another in both content and peer group, one set of understandings unrelated in any intentional fashion to what is learned in other courses. Though there are majors, there is little academic or social coherence to student learning. It is little wonder then that students seem so uninvolved in learning. Their learning experiences are not very involving.
Key Word: Tinto
Vision
Enriching lives and fulfilling dreams
Mission
Providing outstanding applied education and training for a changing world
Programs that allow foreign workers to occupy positions in Canada have existed since the 1960s and were formally introduced in legislation in the 1970s. While they generally focused on skilled workers, they were expanded to lower-skilled occupations in 2002.
While generally considered beneficial from an economic perspective, foreign workers have received significant public attention in recent years. This is the case especially in relation to foreign workers occupying low-skilled positions, considering that most unemployed Canadian workers would meet the minimum requirements to fill these jobs satisfactorily.
Are there too many Canadian young people at university? I think the question is a fair one, but you would not think so from the reaction to the issue being raised. A report I prepared for the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, Career Ready, attracted way more attention for the suggestion that we could do with 30% fewer university students than at present.
It is a fundamental responsibility and obligation of government and of institutional leaders to assure that postsecondary institutions are sustainable and capable of providing a high quality academic experience.
This paper offers a conceptual framework for examining the sustainability of Ontario’s public postsecondary institutions. It discusses the definition of the term “sustainability,” how it can be measured and the various tools and strategies available to both institutions and government to meet sustainability risks when they are identified.
Schools and school systems all across the world are seeking ways of improving student achievement to respond to the growing public recognition of the importance of education for individual and societal progress and success. Ontario has adopted an exciting approach to supporting school improvement that is research and evidence based. Unlike many jurisdictions around
the world that have adopted simplistic practices, Ontario has recognized that sustained improvement depends on schools, districts, and provinces adopting an aligned approach that builds the capacity of teachers, school leaders, boards, district leaders, parents, and community allies. Ontario is putting that approach into practice in elementary schools through the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy and Secretariat, and in secondary schools through the Student Success Strategy. In both strategies, the Ministry of Education is closely working with schools and school districts to develop common approaches to mean- ingful change focused on improved school and classroom practices. We recognize that within these broad parameters there can be many different ways to proceed, taking into account the diverse demographics and contexts of Ontario schools.
Koichiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, asserts that education is one of the most effective instruments that society can employ in the effort to adopt sustainable development. This paper is a first effort to explore the degree to which Canadian institutions of higher education, including colleges and universities, have embraced this assertion. It includes the first census
of the existing environment/sustainability policies and/or plans of Canadian postsecondary institutions (n = 220), and an examination of the relationships between the existence of an environment/sustainability policy/plan and the presence of other sustainability initiatives on campus. The focus on policies and plans is timely because in public institutions like colleges and universities, actions and practices are determined by policy. The results reveal a number of patterns and insights, including, for example, the influence of provincial legislation on the uptake of policies.
The world has more graduates than ever before. In an era of mass expansion, the proportion of the population with
degrees is at a historical high across many nations, both developed and developing. The world also has more
newspaper and magazine articles, thinktank reports and academic papers than ever before questioning the value of
that expansion.
In recent years, policymakers have been driven by a human capital theory approach to higher education expansion:
their belief has been that as graduate numbers are grown, individual graduates with higher skill levels will boost
national productivity and be rewarded with an “earnings premium”. And universities have been happy to expand to
meet the demand for places on the basis that governments foot the bill, either through grants or student loans.
The Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) has been engaged through a competitive process by the Ontario Ministry of Education (hereafter “the Ministry”) to evaluate the extent to which the Student Success/Learning to 18 Strategy (hereafter “the SS/L18 Strategy”) as currently implemented is aligned with the Ministry’s three overarching goals and is producing the intended
outcomes related to its specific five goals. The evaluation process is composed of two main phases. This Stage 1 report provides a description and chronology of the SS/L18 Strategy-related changes; a catalogue and preliminary analysis of source documents relevant to the initiative; the results of an analysis of interviews with 39 respondents identified for the initial stage of the evaluation; the results of four focus groups conducted with Student Success Leaders (SSLs); preliminary
observations about the conduct of the SS/L18 Strategy, its strengths and vulnerabilities, as well as some preliminary recommendations for the future of the Strategy.