The Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology of Ontario (CAATs) are engaged in a wide range of international activities which have not previously been the subject of any in-depth study. This thesis provides the first comprehensive examination of the international student recruitment and educational export activities of the CAATs. This study, relying on literature reviews, a survey of the colleges and interviews with college administrators, explores the historical evolution of recruitment and export activities, the motivation behind participation in these activities and the financial implications of export and recruitment. The study also reviews some of the linkages between international student recruitment and export and internationalization and globalization.
Teens share a wide range of information about themselves on social media sites;1 indeed the sites themselves are designed to encourage the sharing of information and the expansion of networks. However, few teens embrace a fully public approach to social media. Instead, they take an array of steps to restrict and prune their profiles, and their patterns of reputation management on social media vary greatly according to their gender and network size. These are among the key findings from a new report based on a survey of 802 teens that examines teens’ privacy management on social media sites:
Teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they did in the
past. For the five different types of personal information that we measured in both 2006 and
2012, each is significantly more likely to be shared by teen social media users in our most recent
survey.
Teen Twitter use has grown significantly: 24% of online teens use Twitter, up from 16% in 2011.
The typical (median) teen Facebook user has 300 friends, while the typical teen Twitter user has
79 followers.
Focus group discussions with teens show that they have waning enthusiasm for Facebook,
disliking the increasing adult presence, people sharing excessively, and stressful “drama,” but
they keep using it because participation is an important part of overall teenage socializing.
60% of teen Facebook users keep their profiles private, and most report high levels of
confidence in their ability to manage their settings.
Teens take other steps to shape their reputation, manage their networks, and mask information
they don’t want others to know; 74% of teen social media users have deleted people from their
network or friends list.
Teen social media users do not express a high level of concern about third-party access to their
data; just 9% say they are “very” concerned.
On Facebook, increasing network size goes hand in hand with network variety, information
sharing, and personal information management.
In broad measures of online experience, teens are considerably more likely to report positive
experiences than negative ones. For instance, 52% of online teens say they have had an
experience online that made them feel good about themselves.
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.
The goal of this workshop is to establish a change process that successfully accomplishes large-scale reform as measured by teacher and student engagement, and increases in student achievement including raising the bar and closing the learning gap for all students.
This article compares aspects of an educational program offered at Nipissing University through the Centre for Continuing Business Education (CCBE) with the guidelines for successful adult learning programs that were developed by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning. Through the use of a survey, the students of the CCBE were asked to provide their opinions on the evidence of adult learning success factors from their experience with the program. Analysis of the results showed that the students did find evidence of these factors in the program, and other areas for research were identified.
Résumé
Cet article compare les aspects d'un programme d'éducation offert à la Nipissing University par le truchement du Centre for Business Education (CCBE) en suivant les lignes directrices que le Council for Adult and Experiential Learning a élaborer pour assurer le succès des programmes d'apprentissage pour adultes. Au moyen d'un questionnaire, et à partir de leur expérience dans le programme, les étudiants du CCBE ont fourni leurs opinions sur les facteurs de succès de l'apprentissage des adultes. L'analyse des résultats a montré que les étudiants avaient trouvé ces facteurs dans le programme et a mis en évidence d'autres points méritant une étude approfondie. 16
This paper examines the role of affiliated and federated universities in Ontario’s higher education system. It addresses the question: Do affiliated and federated institutions make a distinctive contribution to the differentiation of postsecondary education in Ontario?
Ontario has 16 affiliated and federated universities that historically were church-governed and that became associated with one of the publicly supported universities. Each of them offers primarily secular academic programs today. Carleton, Laurentian, Ottawa, Toronto, Waterloo and Western each have one or more federated or affiliated university.
College prices have increased by 45 percent on average over the past decade, while household income has declined by 7 percent in the same period. According to a Lumina/Gallup survey in 2015, more than three-quarters of American adults do not think education beyond high school is affordable for everyone in the nation who needs it.
While the most traditional metric, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), measures all goods and services produced by a country, it has two critical shortcomings. First, by focusing exclusively on the economy, GDP fails to capture areas of our lives that we care about most like education, health, environmental quality, and the relationships we have with others. Second, it does not identify the costs of economic growth — like pollution.
To create a robust and more revealing measure of our social progress, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) has been working with experts and everyday Canadians since 1999 to determine how we are really doing in the areas of our lives that matter most. The CIW measures overall wellbeing based on 64 indicators covering eight domains of vital importance to Canadians: Education, Community Vitality, Healthy Populations, Democratic Engagement, Environment, Leisure and Culture, Time Use, and Living Standards. The CIW’s comprehensive index of overall wellbeing tracks progress provincially and nationally and allows comparisons to GDP.
Comparing the CIW and GDP between 1994 and 2010 reveals a chasm between our wellbeing and economic growth both nationally and provincially. Over the 17-year period, GDP has grown almost four times more than our overall wellbeing. The trends clearly show that even when times are good, overall wellbeing does not keep up with economic growth and when times are bad, the impact on our wellbeing is even harsher. We have to ask ourselves, is this good enough?
Study shows faculty members remain skeptical of digital course materials and generally unfamiliar with open educational resources.
Much has been written about the challenges of teaching an online course. While not discounting the unique (and sometimes frustrating) aspects of the online learning environment, it could be said that, despite the numerous differences, many of the same course management strategies that are essential to success in a traditional classroom also apply in the online classroom. These strategies include the importance of a strong syllabus, clear directions, well-organized materials, and timely feedback.
Of course, the big challenge for online instructors is that the very nature of online education amplifies the importance of properly addressing these management issues, while throwing a few more additional obstacles into the mix. Choosing the right communication tools and protocols, addressing technology problems, managing student expectations, and building community are just some of issues that can stretch online instructors to the breaking point.
11 Strategies for Managing Your Online Courses was created to help online instructors
tackle many of the course management issues that can erode the efficiency and effectiveness
of an online course. It features 11 articles pulled from the pages of Online Classroom,
including:
• Syllabus Template Development for Online Course Success
• The Online Instructor’s Challenge: Helping ‘Newbies’
• Virtual Sections: A Creative Strategy for Managing Large Online Classes
• Internal or External Email for Online Courses?
• Trial by Fire: Online Teaching Tips That Work
• The Challenge of Teaching Across Generations
It’s important to keep in mind that you’re not the only one who may be a little anxious
about going online. Students often have anxiety when taking their first online course. It’s
up to you to help them feel more confident and secure, all the while keeping your
workload at a manageable level. The course management tips in this report will help.
Rob Kelly
Editor
Online Classroom
Students enter college hoping it will be a major step up from what they were doing before, writes Roger Martin, but
they are often disappointed.
This study examines online and offline political engagement and pays special attention to the role of social networking sites in people's political activities.
Cooperative learning is an example of how theory validated by research may be applied to instructional practice. The major theoretical base for cooperative learning is social interdependence theory. It provides clear definitions of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning. Hundreds of research studies have validated its basic propositions and demonstrated that cooperative learning (compared with competitive and individualistic learning) increases students’ efforts to achieve, encourages positive relationships with classmates and faculty, and improves psychological health and well being. Operational procedures have been derived from the validated theory to implement cooperative learning in university classes, including those needed to implement formal cooperative learning, informal cooperative learning, and cooperative base groups.
The 2011 Meeting of the OECD Council at Ministerial level is the first milestone in the Gender Initiative, which was launched by the OECD to help governments promote gender equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship (the “three Es”). Reducing persistent gender inequalities is necessary not only for reasons of fairness and equity but also out of economic
necessity. Greater economic opportunities for women will help to increase labour productivity, and higher female employment will widen the base of taxpayers and contributors to social protection systems which will come under increasing pressure due to population ageing. More gender diversity would help promote innovation and competitiveness in business. Greater economic empowerment of women and greater gender equality in leadership are key components of the OECD’s wider agenda to
develop policies for stronger, better and fairer growth.
Just over 9% of all students attended more than one institution during the 2012-13 academic year.
The postsecondary student mobility rate is the percentage of students, across all levels of study, who enrolled in more than one institution in a single academic year (including summer and concurrent enrollments.) It provides a current indicator of the prevalence of multi-institutional student pathways.
This report, representing the views of Ontario’s 24 colleges, highlights a systemic dearth of applied research and innovation funding opportunities for colleges at the federal level. Applied research and innovation at Ontario colleges are undertaken in collaboration with private and public sector partners. College applied research and innovation regularly lead to innovations and the commercialization of knowledge that result in new products and services benefiting the Canadian economy.
The time for meaningful transformation in Ontario’s postsecondary system is now. To meet the needs of the emerging
economy, reform must focus on innovation and applied learning that vaults our province ahead of its competition in creating the best-educated, best-prepared workforce in the world. Composed of distinct but equally valued and complementary partners, Ontario’s transformed postsecondary system will ensure that all students can reach their full potential through a broad array of theoretical and applied learning opportunities. Colleges will continue to be student focused, specializing in applied learning that leads to good jobs for graduates, addresses labour market needs and affords access to the broadest possible population. Colleges and universities will offer a range of credentials within their systems and collaborate on a multitude of programs that
offer students the best of both. Expanded pathways will give students the opportunity to customize their post-secondary
experience to match their interests. Online and blended learning, married to leading-edge technology, will enable students
to learn anywhere, anytime, and in ways best suited to their learning styles. Students will be better prepared than ever before to meet the demands of the economy, and they will achieve their goals faster and at less cost.
Interest in adult college completion, both for adults with some college credit and those who have never before attended college, has dramatically increased across the higher education community. This report draws from the considerable body of recent research focused on various populations of adult learners, including data gathered during Higher Ed Insight's recent evaluation of Lumina Foundation's adult college completion efforts. The goal of the report is to synthesize what has been learned about the needs of adult college students, particularly those returning to college after stopping out, as well as to identify areas where further inquiry is needed in order to demonstrate effective ways to support degree completion for adults.
This paper provides one of the first analyses of the benefits to the university student of scholarships and bursaries in Ontario and Canada and has potentially important policy implications. Entry scholarships and bursaries have two main potential benefits: 1) they may attract stronger students to a given university, and 2) they may promote better performance in university. The first type of benefit mainly accrues to the individual school and not to the student or the province as a whole. The second type of benefit, however, may apply to all students who receive entry scholarships and hence leads to improved academic performance throughout
the system.
Students persisting to completion of their educational goals is a key gauge of student success, and therefore institutional success. Two most frequently cited statistics in connection with student success are the freshman-to-sophomore retention rate, or first-year annual return rate, and the cohort graduation rate. The freshman-to-sophomore retention rate measures the
percentage of first-time, full-time students enrolled at the university the following fall semester. The cohort graduation rate is defined as the percentage of an entering class that graduates within three years with an associate’s degree, and within four, five, or six years with a baccalaureate degree. Since the annual return rate of students as they progress through a program
is directly related to their degree/certificate completion, the concept of retention usually includes year-by-year retention or persistence rates as well as graduation rates. Together, these statistics represent student success.