OUSA asked students to answer questions about their experience with high-impact learning, active and participatory learning, work-integrated learning, and online courses. Students were also asked to provide their impressions about what
resources should be prioritized within their university, as well as how they viewed the balance between teaching and learning at their institution.
Bloom's Taxonomy was created in 1956 under the leadership of educational psychologist Dr Benjamin Bloom in order to promote higher forms of thinking in education, such as analyzing and evaluating concepts, processes, procedures, and principles, rather than just remembering facts (rote learning). It is most often used when designing educational, training, and learning processes.
When building an online program, there are certain big questions that need to be answered. Among them are: What kind of program you want it to be – high tech or low tech? Professor intensive or adjunct driven? Blended learning or fully online? What kind of technology will be used to deliver course content? What about opportunities for collaboration?
The International Network of Tomorrow’s Leaders (INTL) organized and facilitated ‘International Education Leadership of Tomorrow: Where are We and Where Do We Need To Go?’ an interactive webinar to explore the status of leadership skills in
Canada’s international education sector, and identify leadership development needs for the future generation of international educators. In total, 60 Canadian international educators from eight provinces participated in this webinar, representing 40 universities, colleges, institutes and K-12 school boards across the country.
(Toronto, August 19, 2016) – For the first time in Ontario, McDonald’s employees can now receive credits towards
a college business diploma, thanks to a new agreement between Colleges Ontario and McDonald’s Restaurants of
Canada Limited.
The agreement will create a provincewide partnership with McDonald’s Canada, a leading Canadian business, to
establish a prior-learning recognition system. McDonald’s employees, who have completed specific McDonald’s training, will be eligible to be granted the equivalent of first-year credit for a business or business administration program at one of twenty-four (24) public colleges in Ontario. This may lead to significant cost-savings for eligible employees by reducing the number of courses and time required to earn a diploma – with potential savings of up to $4,500.
Canada’s natural resource sector employs 1.8 million people and generates billions of dollars of tax revenues and royalties annually. Hundreds of resource projects are underway and many more are planned for the near future which, according to the federal government, could represent a total investment of $650 billion. Responsible resource management has significant implications for all Canadians, with revenues from projects supporting local and regional infrastructure development and social programs.
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 preeminent 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 (justly) 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.
Every generation has a transformative effect on the economy, but the actions of Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation, promise to carry special impact. Gen Y, the largest generation in U.S. history, comprises young, educated, ethnically diverse, and economically active individuals. These Gen-Yers, or Millennials, as they are known, are entering the labor force as the “powerhouse of the global economy” and arriving at critical points of financial decision making in their adult lives
(Deloitte, 2009).
Administrators at many colleges and universities have had online courses at their institutions for many years, now. One of the hidden challenges about online courses is that they tend to be observed and evaluated far less frequently than their face-to-face course counterparts. This is party due to the fact that many of us administrators today never taught online courses ourselves when we were teaching. This article provides six "secrets" to performing meaningful observations and evaluations of online teaching, including how to use data analytics, avoid biases, and produce useful results even if observers have never taught online themselves.
The focus of this project is on the assessment of transferable skills, and specifically resilience. Resilience has been defined as “the capacity of the person, family, or community to prevent, minimize, overcome, or thrive in spite of negative or challenging circumstances” (Wagnild & Young, 1993). In this report, Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) investigates the most appropriate measures to assess resilience as a learning outcome of Ontario’s postsecondary education (PSE) system. The long-term aim is to support the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) in its efforts to determine the role of PSE in enhancing resilience as a transferable skill.
With major strides in access to postsecondary education for all students in recent decades, it is tempting to assume that such progress has erased disparities in college enrollment and completion in the United States. Yet despite having one of the highest college participation rates in the world, large gaps persist in terms of access to and success in higher education in this country, particularly for low-income, minority, and first-generation students.
Given the pressure to remain competitive in the global knowledge economy, it is in our shared national interest to act now to increase the number of students who not only enter college, but more importantly earn their degrees, particularly bachelor’s
degrees. Due to the changing demographics of the United States, we must focus our efforts on improving postsecondary access and success among those populations who have previously been underrepresented in higher education, namely low-income and minority students, many of whom will be the first in their families to go to college.
Background: The number of non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF), including both full-time (FT) and part-time (PT) positions, has risen to two-thirds of faculty positions across the academy. To date, most of the studies of NTTF have relied on secondary data or large-scale surveys. Few qualitative studies exist that examine the experience, working conditions, and worklife of NTTF. The study is framed by the theory advanced by Berger and Luckmann that reality is socially constructed and the broader sociological tradition of symbolic interactionism described by Blumer, Denzin, and Stryker.
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.
"Alternative facts" have gotten quite a bad rap lately, which — while understandable — is a shame. Because virtually any argument worthy of the name involves competing sets of facts. That's why it's an argument, not a hug-fest. And to pretend otherwise is actually counterproductive, especially if we want our students to be able to engage in constructive arguments.
Take trial lawyers, for example. To exonerate their clients, defense attorneys often present alternative theories, based on alternative facts, most of which are actually facts. Perhaps the accused can prove he was never at the crime scene, even though his blood was found on the victim. In its deliberations, the jury must weigh these seemingly disparate facts — although what they may really be judging is which lawyer made the better argument. Much the same is true of political debates.
My work in change over the past 40 years started with the premise of finding out as much as possible about the problems of
implementation. The more we found out the more we got drawn to doing something about it. In the last decade and a half in particular, we have been teaming up with local practitioners and system politicians to cause greater implementation. What we discovered is wonderful news for research, namely ‘to do is to know more.’
This paper seeks to address the challenges faced by international students pursuing a post-secondary education in Ontario, and to consider more broadly the growing internationalization agenda within education. OUSA recognizes the benefits both of international students coming to Ontario, both in economic and socio-cultural terms, and for Canadian students undertaking a period of study abroad. However, it is evident that increasing internationalization requires institutions, governments and students to address various concerns that impact the ability of international students to succeed, and to ensure we are building strong intercultural university communities. To this end, we offer recommendations in the following areas, aimed at improving the international student experience:
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.
As a newly recruited department chair, you have barely moved into your office when several insiders arrive to inform you of urgent personnel problems:
A certain staff member has been failing at his job for years. He is habitually late, and his
work — when he manages to complete it — is full of errors.
An assistant professor is not going to get tenure. Her teaching is consistently rated as
poor, her research record is lackluster, and her service is mediocre.
The director of the department’s graduate program "retired on the job" years ago. All the
metrics of the grad program are getting worse, and morale among the students is low.
Your informants look at you expectantly. What are you going to do about this "problem" person?
Background: In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012, state legislatures considered a flurry of legislation that would allow school districts to arm their teachers. In at least 15 states such legislation has been signed into law. Parallel to these developments, a lively and at times strident public debate on the
appropriateness of arming public school teachers has emerged in the media, especially as a result of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. Although the two sides of the debate offer illuminating insights into the pitfalls and promises of arming teachers, both tend to focus almost exclusively on the empirical issue of student safety. As a
result, the public debate fails to address several central ethical issues associated with arming public school teachers. This article is an effort to pay these issues their due attention.
ENVER -- The public -- and heck, many people in higher education -- widely assume prestigious colleges and universities provide the best quality education. That's why employers often want to hire their graduates and why many parents want their children to attend them.
And the assumption partially explains the fascination from the media and others in recent years with massive open online courses from Harvard and Stanford and other elite universities: the courses were believed, rightly or wrongly, to be of higher quality than all other online courses precisely because they came from name-brand institutions