Student pathways increasingly rely on transfer between postsecondary institutions as greater numbers of students move between institutions, pursue multiple credentials, or return to postsecondary education. In a 2011 survey of Ontario college students, 41% reported having some post-secondary experience; the same survey also found that 19% of respondents said their main goal in applying for their current program was to “prepare for further university or college study.” Transfer of credit for prior learning is clearly an increasingly mainstream educational activity, and institutions are under increasing pressure to improve the processes by which this occurs.
For more than six years, HEQCO has conducted research on the differentiation of Ontario’s public postsecondary system, where institutions build on and are accountable for their specific strengths, mandates and missions. This report identifies clear distinctions between universities in terms of their research and teaching missions. The data point to critical pathways to achieve the benefits of greater differentiation. The goal is a system that is more cohesive, more sustainable and of higher quality.
During this latest recession the enormous losses being incurred by university endowment funds received extensive media attention. Ontario university administrators were sounding the alarm, warning that their institutions would have to cut expenses and take a hard line at thebargaining table as a result of endowment fund losses.
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.
For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate riginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and,
to cease to exist as distinct nd operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be
described as “cultural genocide.”
Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological
genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the
destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States
that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the
targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is
restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are
forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to
the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission
of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next.
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
Among the most prevalent emerging trends in postsecondary education is a migration from traditional face-to-face instruction to models that leverage online and digital learning resources. Whether instruction takes place completely online or involves a hybridization of online and traditional approaches (e.g., “blended learning”), technology-mediated learning modules have the potential to address student preferences for “24/7” access to resources.
Le projet Comprendre le concept de force en sciences est né de l’initiative des ministères de l’Éducation de l’Ontario et du Québec dans le cadre d’une entente de collaboration signée par les deux Premiers Ministres de ces provinces concernant le secteur de l’éducation ainsi que d’autres secteurs d’activité.
C’est une étude comparative, de nature collaborative et de type exploratoire, qui s’est déroulée de mai 2007 à mai 2008. Elle pourrait être suivie d’une étude plus approfondie et de plus d’envergure selon l’intérêt des résultats présentés ci-dessous de même que la disponibilité des ressources disponibles.
While much literature has considered feedback and professional growth in formative peer reviews of teaching, there has been little empirical research conducted on these issues in the context of summative peer reviews. This ar- ticle explores faculty members’ perceptions of feedback practices in the summative peer review of teaching and reports on their understandings of why constructive feedback is typically non-existent or unspecific in summative reviews. Drawing from interview data
with 30 tenure-track professors in a research-intensive Canadian university, the findings indicated that reviewers rarely gave feedback to the candidates, and when they did, comments were typically vague and/or focused on the positive. Feedback, therefore, did not contribute to professional growth in teaching. Faculty members suggested that feedback was limited because of the following: the high-stakes nature of tenure, the demands for research productivity, lack of pedagogical expertise among academics, non-existent criteria for evaluating teaching, and the artificiality of peer reviews. In this article I argue that when it comes to summative reviews, elements of academic culture, especially the value placed on collegiality, shape feedback practices in important ways.
The overarching message of this report is that equality does not happen by accident.
The research reviewed suggests that education policy makers should ensure that gender equality is a
real rather than a rhetorical priority and that change is substantively resourced in teacher
education and in school practices.
The publication of this report is part of our ongoing commitment to promoting gender equality in European schools and societies. A complementary report on gender and educational attainment will be published by Eurydice in November 2009. Also in November, a conference on gender and educational attainment organised by the Swedish Presidency of the European Union will bring together many of the key actors with the aim to providing an improved basis for further European policy
cooperation in this 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.
In 2011, HEQCO issued a call for research projects related to technology-enhanced instruction. Part of a broader effort to identify and evaluate innovative practices in teaching and learning, HEQCO’s purpose in commissioning these projects was both to inform best practices at the classroom, institution and policy levels, as well as to encourage institutions and faculty members to assess the effectiveness of what they were doing in the classroom.
Now that the technology studies have concluded and that most have been published, this report draws some broader conclusions from their methods and findings. First, it reflects on how certain key terms related to technology-enhanced instruction, such as ‘blended’ and ‘hybrid’, have fluid and contextual definitions that can create confusion by disrupting terms of reference that are assumed to be common. Then, it identifies common pitfalls in the implementation of technology in the
classroom to consider how new tools might be introduced and integrated more effectively. Finally, it highlights methodological lessons about the challenges of blending research and practice in the classroom.
Residents of Eastern Ontario are most likely to identify "balancing the budget" as the most important issue currently facing the Ontario government.
As the global marketplace becomes increasingly competitive and knowledge-driven the potential social and economic benefits of education have increased. As a result, the past few decades have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the demand for post-secondary education (PSE) worldwide.
The Canadian Council on Learning monograph series, Challenges in Canadian Post-secondary Education, was launched in November 2009 as a means of examining the impact of this expansion on the PSE sector.
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
Abstract: The unprecedented transformations which took place in the last few decades in contemporary society impose a permanent revision of the training methods of the future teachers. On the European and international level, we notice a change in the perception of the teaching profession. There is a more acute problem of focusing on the qualification at standards of higher quality in their preparation through the assimilation of key skills. From this point of view, the institutions of higher learning have great responsibility in the training of professionals in the didactic field, so that they can accumulate the skills which are sufficient and necessary to continuous training, according to the principle of lifelong learning. The orientations towards the professionalization of the teaching profession impose a training level of the learners which can adapt to social changes, and to the transformations at the level of the profession through permanent accumulation in lifelong learning.
Key words: education, competences, teaching, critical thinking, reforming.
Executive Summary
Centrality of language proficiency in academic achievement
Proficiency in language is recognized as an essential component of student success at Ontario‟s colleges and in the provincial workplace.
Research indicates that postsecondary underachievement, failure, and attrition are highly
correlated with academic under-preparedness, especially with respect to deficits in language
proficiency.
Contemporary college students in Ontario do not represent a homogeneous population; rather, they
exhibit a wide range of abilities and needs related to language proficiency. Additionally, an
increasing percentage of Ontario college students have second language challenges.
The identification of students who are at-risk of not successfully completing their programs due to
deficits in language proficiency, and the provision of timely and appropriate remediation where
necessary, represent critical priorities in supporting
student success.
The time for meaningful transformation in Ontario’s post-secondary 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 post- secondary 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 learn- ing, 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.
Co-operative education was one of the University of Waterloo’s (UW) defining characteristics when it opened in 1957 and it remains a foundational pillar today. With the support of its 4,500 employer partners, UW offers alternating terms of academic and workplace experience to more than 16,500 students from more than 120 different academic programs. These figures make UW the largest postsecondary co-op program in the world.
Maintaining strong employer relationships has been a critical success factor for UW’s co-op program. Both the relevant literature and the feedback received from employers have indicated that employability skills (communication, interpersonal skills, problem solving, etc.) are essential to success in today’s workplace (Hodges & Burchell, 2003; McMurtrey, Downey, Zeltmann & Friedman, 2008; Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006). A number of studies also indicate that employers are not satisfied with the employability skills of new graduates (Casner-Lotto & Barrington, 2006; AC Neilsen, 2000; Hart Research Associates, 2010).
This paper explores general issues relating to globalization and higher education; the internationalization of higher education, and particularly the recruitment of international students. This subject is examined through a range of topics around the global development of the market approach to the recruitment of international students and a focus on the current situation regarding the recruitment of international students in the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology in Ontario (CAATs). As the number of international students seeking educational opportunities grows to 7 million over the next 20 years, the ability of the CAATs, the
Canadian educational system, and the governments of Ontario and Canada to market the welcoming and safe multicultural Canadian experience, and the excellence of the educational offerings and opportunities in CAATs to potential international students will, in great measure, determine their success and their survival in an increasingly globalized world.