Writing assignments, particularly for first- and second-year college students, are probably one of those items in the syllabus that some professors dread almost as much as their students do. Yet despite the fact that essays, research papers, and other types of writing assignments are time consuming and, at times, frustrating to grade, they also are vital to furthering student learning.
Teacher has a great responsibility on determining the success of learning process of a language classroom as there are many elements that teachers need to take into account in establishing effective learning environment for their students whom may vary in terms of cultures, races, intellect, learning strategies and many more others. Hence, well thought leadins are indeed crucial to be applied in language classroom as it Arrendas (1998) has explained that leadin is a strategy that been used by teachers in the initial part of the lesson which aims at exposing the students to the content of the lesson as well as enabling the students to correlate the idea with their prior knowledge in order to create meaningful learning environment for the students. Prior to this matter, leadins is another important element in pedagogy that should not be taken lightly among the teachers and has to be explored deeper in order to be utilized effectively in their classrooms. As there is not much studies that are focused in this matter, it is hoped that it is the academic gap that the researchers hoped to fill in into the rapid development of academic field.
Ignoring that advice I took close to maximum time to complete my PhD (well, that's how it felt): working, partaking in further study and publishing widely before formally graduating. I have the scars on my back to prove it, but it helped me get my start in academe.
The role of the PhD as a rite of passage to becoming an academic is but one of many contradictions in the profession.
Ontario higher education system has moved far and fast in the past decade. The early 1990s saw "modest modifications and structural stability." Since 1995, under a neo-liberal government in Ontario, major policy initiatives, with objectives not unlike those already at large in western Europe and most of the United States, have quickly followed one another. The author proposes an explanation of the timing and dynamics of the Ontario reforms, describing the driving forces behind reform.
Introduction
“ We are looking at replacing the legacy of the residential schools with a vibrant new learning culture in every First Nation, grounded in our proud heritage, identity and language. Through a new confidence, we can resume our rightful place as proud Nations walking side-by-side with the Canadian federation and within the North American economy. “To get there, we need to work with every university and college, with school boards, corporations, and foundations and indeed all people in Canada... But with trust, we can and will achieve great success – uniquely Canadian success grounded in the true history and real potential of this land.”
The expansion of public, postsecondary education and the attendant additional costs associated with that expansion are significant concerns to governments everywhere. Ontario is no exception. Innovation in the delivery of academic programs holds the potential to contain costs, improve quality, and enhance accountability. This project is intended to assist the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HECQO) to better understand how a shift to competency-based education might affect the cost and quality of higher education programs, institutions and systems and to investigate how competency-based education might enhance the productivity and accountability of public higher education systems and institutions.
What has been called “degree recognition” has become the subject of considerable attention in Canadian higher education within the past decade. While concerns similar to those that are being voiced today have arisen occasionally in the past, the scale of this phenomenon today is unprecedented historically. In response to the increased demand for degrees that began in the late twentieth century, a great number of diverse types of institutions and organizations have sought the authority to award degrees; and governments in four provinces have decided that it is in the public interest to allow some of these new providers to offer degree programs in Canada, thus ending the monopoly on degree granting formerly held by the publicly funded universities.These new providers include: public colleges and institutes; private postsecondary institutions; corporate universities in both the private and public sector; virtual universities; transnational degree programs; and special mission institutions such as aboriginal colleges.
This report provides a systems perspective on the state of skills and higher education in Canada an identifies areas where the sector could improve in producing highly skilled graduates. It is one of the three foudational studies for the Centre for Sills and Post-Secondary Education, that, together, offer the first steps in a diagnosis of the sector and its performance.
As the nation slowly emerges from the Great Recession, the patterns of student aid are returning to the paths they were on
before the economy crashed. The federal government, which dramatically stepped up its subsidies to students in 2009-10 and
2010-11, continues to play an expanded role, but not a growing role. Students continue to borrow at levels that are high by
historical standards, but that represent a retreat from the soaring debt levels of a few years ago. New data allow a clear focus
on the characteristics of students who are most at risk from debt. As Trends in Student Aid 2015 documents, those who do
not graduate are particularly vulnerable. Older, independent students, those who take longer to earn their degrees, African-
American students, and those who attend for-profit institutions accumulate more debt than others.
In 2007, business, education and labour leaders came together to form Ontario’s Workforce Shortage Coalition, dedicated to raising awareness of the emerging skills shortage challenge. The coalition represents more than100,000 employers and millions of employees.
A Conference Board of Canada report prepared for the coalition predicted Ontario will face a shortage of more than 360,000 employees by 2025. Employers will need more highly skilled workers as technology changes and competition for customers grows tougher. As well, baby boomers are retiring and the number of young workers is about to plummet.
Student ratings of teaching have been used, studied, and debated for almost a century. This article examines student ratings of teaching from a statistical perspective. The common practice of relying on averages of student teaching evaluation scores as the primary measure of teaching effectiveness for promotion and tenure decisions should be abandoned for substantive
and statistical reasons: There is strong evidence that student responses to questions of “effectiveness” do not measure teaching effectiveness. Response rates and response variability matter. And comparing averages of categorical responses, even if the categories are represented by numbers, makes little sense. Student ratings of teaching are valuable when they ask the right questions, report response rates and score distributions, and are balanced by a variety of other sources and methods
to evaluate teaching.
Purpose: Barriers to simulation-based education in postgraduate and continuing education for anesthesiologists have not
been well studied. We hypothesized that the level of training may influence attitudes towards simulation-based education
and impact on the use of simulation. This study investigated this issue at the University of Toronto which possesses two sites
equipped with high-fidelity patient simulators.
During 2008/09 – 2012/13, transfer students constituted about one-third of the student population at the institutions that are members of the Research Universities’ Council of British Columbia, as in 2003/04 – 2007/08. The majority of transfer students moved between Lower Mainland institutions. Three quarters of transfer students brought at least enough credits to transfer to the second year. Among those, 22% of students brought 60-64 credits, which means that they were eligible to transfer to third year.
The use of non-tenure-track and part-time faculty in U.S. colleges and universities is on the rise, altering the composition
of the academic workforce in fundamental ways. Who, then, are contemporary faculty? In what ways do they differ from their predecessors? In which institutions and sectors are the trends most pronounced?
This project investigated the “contingency movement” using a variety of analytic approaches, including extensive literature review, quantitative analysis of over two decades of national institutional data, and onsite interviews with contingent and non-contingent faculty at a research university, a private liberal arts college, and a public masters-level institution.
Accelerated courses continue to be part of the changing academic landscape at Canadian universities.
However, there is limited evidence to support their efficacy in relation to knowledge retention. A greater understanding of knowledge retention associated with accelerated courses (i.e., intensive full-day course for a one- or two-week duration) as compared to traditional courses (i.e., one three-hour lecture once a week for 12 weeks) will provide university stakeholders and
administrators with evidence to determine whether quicker courses should be pursued in the postsecondary education environment.
You’ve probably heard "ivory tower" jokes or other ways of lampooning academic researchers and scholars. Here’s
one: How many college professors does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Eight. One to secure funding for the
light bulb, one to observe and record the changing of the bulb, one to consider the theoretical implications of the
change, one to write the research paper, two to edit the journal to which the research paper is submitted, and two
more to serve as blind peer-reviewers for the manuscript. (The actual changing of the bulb will be done by a
graduate student.)
We set out to determine whether hybrid delivery of a college program could facilitate completion of an apprenticeship. We found unanticipated complexity in the answer. The hybrid program delivered completion rates and average student grades that were comparable to those in a program delivered entirely in the classroom, but in only half the required time. However, we found that performance in the in-class portion of the program was not always linked to apprenticeship completion. The factors affecting completion are varied, in part because different stakeholders place a different value on completion.
The purpose of this study was to document the implementation of an intergenerational literacy program that incorporated authentic literacy activity with the goal of raising low-English literacy levels of the parent and the English emergent literacy levels of their non-English speaking young children.
Learning Study is a collaborative, action-research approach to improve the effectiveness of student learning by enhancing the professional competence of teachers. This is achieved through the collaborative construction of the pedagogical content knowledge enabling them better to teach specific objects of learning. Through inquiry and authentic learning by the teachers, it takes account of students’ prior knowledge in the lesson planning and so creates an authentic learning environment for the students. This paper explains how the Learning Study approach relates to the set of approaches known as “Lesson Study” and how it incorporates the principles for high quality learning proposed by the OECD project on Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) in its design and implementation. It examines how Learning Study helps to integrate the factors comprising innovative learning environments. It analyses the critical conditions that support its development and practice in schools and in professional learning networks and education systems in general.
In 2011, as part of a comprehensive research agenda on learning outcomes development and measurement, the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) began supporting eight Ontario institutions to assess the generic skills acquisition of their students. This report summarizes the activities and results of the eight institutions that piloted the Council for Aid to Education’s Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), a written examination designed to assess the critical thinking and problem solving skills of entering and graduating students. It reviews the rationale for the project, the challenges and issues encountered with CLA test administration and implementation, and the institutions’ impressions of the value of the resulting data. While there is significant interest from institutions and programs in measuring the generic skills of students and understanding the amount of learning that can be attributed to the institution, the experiences of the institutions that participated in this project highlight certain administrative and methodological challenges that arise in the move from theory to practice in large scale assessments.