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.
High expectations are an essential condition for student success. Simply put, no one rises to low expectations. But establishing high expectations is no simple matter. It requires more than just words, more than telling students that the community college holds high expectations for them. It also requires the establishment of policies and practices — and in turn, patterns of faculty, staff, and
student actions — that reinforce those words in everyday practice. High expectations have to be experienced, not simply heard.
The purpose of this research study was to investigate if and how mobile devices could be used to support the required program outcomes in a blended pre-service teacher education degree. All students enrolled in an educational technology course during the fall 2011 semester were provided with ViewSonic tablets. Through faculty interviews, student online
surveys, and a post- course focus group, the study participants indicated that mobile devices could be useful for supporting future professional responsibilities (e.g., career-long learning, collaboration) and facilitating student learning but less effective for planning, assessment, and managing the classroom environment.
Student mobility refers not to just the physical ability of a student to move from one institution to another, but the more comprehensive understanding of a student as an independent agent who - as their own needs and desires change - requires the ability to move from one institution to another to achieve their educational goal, be it a college certificate, diploma, or undergraduate degree. The policy has been broken into three key pillars, which cover the mobility needs of Ontario’s postsecondary students: Transparency, Consistency, and Student Support.
Under the broad research question, “Can multiple electronic learning resources improve students’ academic performance in a large first-year General Chemistry course?”, this study examines how students used a wide range of online resources during the Fall 2011 and Winter 2012 academic terms and correlates this information with their academic success, measured by their grades on two midterms, a final exam and their final course grade.
Since 1996, Professor Robert Burk has taught Carleton University’s large first-year chemistry course, CHEM 1000. The course was a full credit course and spanned the fall and winter terms. In 2010, the Department of Chemistry adjusted the curriculum and the course has since then been offered as two half-credit courses – CHEM 1001, which runs in the fall term, and CHEM 1002, which runs in the winter term. Only students who achieve a passing mark in the fall term are eligible to enroll in the winter section of the course. Course enrollment has increased from 350 in 1996 to 700 in 2011.
This report examines skill trends in 24 OECD countries over the past several decades. The skill measures used include broad occupation groups, country-specific direct measures of skill requirements from international surveys, and direct skill measures from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) database applied to both United States and European labour force surveys. Each kind of data has its own strengths and limitations but they tell a consistent story.
Michael Skolnik
Canadian higher education has in the past few years succumbed to a mood of despair and defensiveness. Until just a few years ago, it was characterized by a confident, forward-looking energy, secure in the notion that it was the pre eminent engine of national development. Since then, we have seen our relative salaries decline; our plant,
equipment, and libraries erode; our jobs threatened; and the value of our contribution to Canadian society severely questioned. A number of explanations could be given for this dramatic reversal of our fortunes, with emphasis ranging from demographics to poor public relations, from economic stagnation to short-sighted political manoeuvering. One popular
explanation is that Canadian higher education is now Qustly) paying off debts it incurred in a Faustian compact with homo economicus. We financed our tremendous growth of yesteryear, this explanation purports, on promises of contributing substantially (or worse, by ourselves, delivering) unprecedented economic growth and industrial expansion. Now that industrial expansion has come to a standstill (and even declined), the primary case for generous funding of higher education is at best called into question, and at worst severely undermined. For those who accept this retributional explanation of the cause of the current crisis of finance and purpose in higher education, Global Stakes
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.
This study was motivated by the premise that no nation grows further than the quality of its educational leaders.
The purpose of this theoretical debate is to examine the wider context of leadership and its effectiveness towards improving school management. This academic evaluation examines recent theoretical developments in the study of educational leadership in school management. It begins with a concise overview of the meaning and concept of leadership in terms of research, theory, and practice. This is followed by an examination of the theories of leadership, principles and styles of leadership. Each section ends with an identification of contemporary issues and possible means of amelioration. This article concludes that success is certain if the application of the leadership styles, principles and methods is properly and fully applied in school management
because quality educational leadership tradition offers great opportunity to further refine educational leadership and management policies and practices by accepting and utilizing the basic principles and styles of educational leadership.
One of the advantages of academic-occupational integration is that it provides an opportunity to teach reading and writing skills in
the context of the workplace applications, permitting literacy skills and content knowledge to develop simultaneously. This
approach, a form of contextualized instruction (Mikulecky, 1998) is distinctly different from traditional approaches which see
literacy skills as a prerequisite to learning content (Sticht, 1995). The purpose of this segment is to provide descriptions of a variety of ways in which instructors in community colleges are contextualizing literacy instruction in occupational content. The
instructional activities are discussed in Perin (2000a).
Responsible ethics evaluation is the heart of Canada’s research community, but some believe that the evaluation process could be better tailored for the college sector.
Background: In terms of high school graduation, college entry, and persistence to earning a college degree, young women now consistently outperform their male peers. Yet most research on gender inequalities in education continues to focus on aspects of education where women trail men, such as women’s under representation at top-tier institutions and in science and engineering programs. The paucity of research on the realms where women outpace men, namely college enrollment and completion, constitutes a major gap in the literature.
This report is the first in a series of reports examining teenagers’ use of technology. Forthcoming reports will focus on how American adolescents use social media and mobile phones to create, maintain and end their friendships and romantic relationships. This report is a collaborative effort based on the input and analysis of the following individuals.
Vision:
• We create vibrant, engaged and sustainable communities of learning, teaching and research committed to free enquiry and expression.
• We encourage the dynamic interplay of research, teaching and learning, which enhance and energize each other in the classroom and beyond.
• We strive to make valued and socially responsible contributions to our local communities, to Canada, and to the world.
• We support a diversity of faculty, staff and students who share a commitment to the learning experience and are responsive to its challenges.
• We foster an environment where Indigenous knowledge are respected and recognized as a valid means by which to understand the world.
• We offer an enriched learning environment that encourages a passion for all knowledge, the exploration of the creative links between fields of study and a critical engagement with the world.
• We create opportunities for students, staff and faculty to flourish and develop as individuals and as global citizens.
• We affirm our commitment to excellence, to innovation and to leadership in research, academic programmes and community partnerships.
• We commit to building an inclusive intellectual and social community that values the collaboration of all of its individual members
Engaging communities in research increases its relevance and may speed the translation of discoveries into improved health outcomes. Many researchers lack training to effectively engage stakeholders, whereas academic institutions lack infrastructure to support community engagement.
White flight from the center city to better neigborhood schools in the leafy green suburbs has finally arrived in the nation's ivy-covered campuses. The rackial and ethnic stafification in educational opportunity entrenched in the nation's K-12 education system has faithfully reproduced itself across the full range of American Colleges and Universities.
Question (from "Luanne"): I’m in a bullpen office with half a dozen adjuncts, some of us sharing desks, all of us crowded, overworked, and demoralized. But that’s not what I’m writing about.
"Dana" manages to make it so much worse with his chronic complaining. Every day there’s a new crisis — noisy plumbing, bad drivers, barking dogs. He hates the weather in our part of the country, and despises the local politics. His students, he rails, are all morons. And we, his colleagues, will never measure up to the world-class professors he knew at his Ivy League grad school.
He’s known as "Dana the Complainer" and making fun of him behind his back is a common pastime. I’m not happy with that. (I’m probably called "Luanne the Pollyanna.") I can’t get any work done, with his fuming and stomping around.
The Canadian Graduate and Professional Student Survey (CGPSS) is a national survey that was completed by over 51,000 students across 48 universities in 2013. This comprehensive survey includes questions covering a broad array of topics including students’ satisfaction with their departments, programs and advisors, availability of funding, use and quality of university services, and satisfaction with professional development supports (CAGS, 2010). This report uses data and opinions collected from graduate students through the CGPSS in an effort to contribute to the conversation on graduate student education in Canada.
Anyone hoping to understand China and Chinese people’s behaviour in the present day must examine China’s long history and culture, as these often have crystallized into current behavioural patterns. This paper discusses one important push-out factor for Chinese students’ outbound mobility, and an element that is ignored in many futuristic predictions of international student
mobility: traditional Chinese educational culture. I conduct an in-depth analysis of three major aspects of Chinese educational culture in relation to Chinese students’ international mobility: the education-first culture, the saving culture, and the extended-family culture. I argue that these three aspects will continue to drive Chinese students’ outbound mobility.
As I write this, the 42nd Parliament has not yet begun sitting and yet the impacts of the new government continue to reverberate.The steady string of announcements since the election appears almost designed specifically to please the university community. Academics – and researchers more generally – seem particularly heartened by the change in tone from the, let’s just say, churlishness of the previous regime.
The new cabinet, sworn in on Nov. 4, includes not just a Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, but also a Minister of Science, full stop. The day after the swearing in, the new Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan, tweeted: “Looking forward to restoring science to its rightful place in government!”