This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fourth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency and are having an increasing effect on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of Educational Technology in The Open University collaborated with researchers from the Center for Technology in Learning at SRI International. We proposed a long list
of new educational terms, theories, and practices. We then pared these down to ten that have the potential to provoke major shifts in educational practice, particularly in post-school education. Lastly, we drew on published and unpublished writings
to compile the ten sketches of new pedagogies that might transform education. These are summarised below in an approximate order of immediacy and timescale to widespread implementation.
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) recognizes that all members of the University community should be able to work, tach, and learn in an environment where they are free from harassment, discrimination, and violence. Sexual activity without consent is sexual assault. Sexual assault is a criminal offence in Canada.
This paper examines the policies surrounding international students and international education from the perspective of college students in Ontario. The goal of this paper is to inform the discussion on the federal, provincial, and institutional policies surrounding international students as they pursue Ontario credentials and international education in general. International student currently represent about 10% of the overall college population. Their experiences are different from typical college students’, in part because international students undergo a different process of applying to an Ontario college. Furthermore, these students typically come from cultures that are different than that of Ontario, and may have difficulties in adapting to the way of life and the stresses associated with being an international student. It is important to make sure there are supports in place to address the differing needs these students have as they study in Ontario.
Robert R. Blake and Anne Adams McCanse1 refined the Leadership Grid® which identified various types of man- agerial leadership based on concern for production cou- pled with concern for people. While they consider the “team management” style of leadership to be ideal, they recognize that it may be difficult to implement in some work situations. Effective managers have great concern for both people and production. They work to motivate employees to reach their highest levels of accomplish- ment. They are flexible and responsive to change, and they understand the need to change.
This white paper was developed through the collaboration of a dedicated advisory team of community college practitioners and assessment industry experts who worked diligently through meetings, email correspondence, and conference calls to develop the philosophy, content, and structure of the Assessment Framework for the Community College. Questionmark Corporation committed resources to the project to draft the paper, facilitate meetings of the advisory team, and produce the final copy. The paper is labeled version 1.0, indicating that the framework will continue to evolve as educators apply its concepts and principles and identify ways in which to improve and expand its focus.
After years of teaching face to face, many instructors are able to begin teaching a traditional, classroom-based course without having the entire course laid out ahead of time. This approach doesn’t work very well in the online classroom where careful planning and course design is crucial to student success.
Good online course design begins with a clear understanding of specific learning outcomes and ways to engage students, while creating activities that allow students to take some control of their learning. It also requires a little extra effort upfront to minimize
two of the most common frustrations of online learning: 1. confusing course organization (how course elements are structured within the course) and 2. unclear navigation (what links or buttons are used to access these elements).
The development of outcomes-based educational (OBE) practices represents one important way in which a learning outcomes approach to teaching and learning can be applied in the postsecondary sector. This study adopts a multiple case study design and profiles seven OBE initiatives being implemented in Ontario’s colleges and universities to better understand the scope of outcomes-based educational practices in the province’s postsecondary sector. ‘OBE initiatives’ are defined as purposeful actions undertaken by postsecondary providers directed at defining, teaching toward and assessing learning outcomes in their educational practice (modified from Jones, Voorhees & Paulson, 2002).
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 following Post-Secondary Student Support Program (PSSSP) and University and College Entrance
Preparation Program (UCEPP) National Program Guidelines will be in effect as of April 1, 2015.
These program guidelines include program and eligibility information. Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC) regional offices may provide additional detail for the delivery of the programs and their services.
In Canada and elsewhere, a great deal of research has described patterns of youth unemployment and difficulties in youth school to work transitions. A significant proportion of this has focused on the types of barriers facing particular groups of youths who, in turn, become marginalized in relation to labour markets access, career development and society. The Following the Success (FTS) project builds on this research and explores additional issues that are less well represented in the literature. These issues spring from three general gaps. First, despite a solid understanding of the effects of marginalization on youth labour market outcomes, the perspectives of both youth and employers on forms of marginalization are less well understood. Second, the bulk of existing research essentially tracks failed labour market transitions. This is important. However, equally valuable is research devoted to understanding instances of ‘success’ during which youth obtain stable and potentially career-establishing positions in the labour market. And third, the bulk of research in this area frames marginalization as a relatively static process. What is needed is a dynamic perspective that takes into account how both youth and employers learn to overcome these
marginalizing factors to varying degrees within youth employment. The FTS project was designed to respond to these three main gaps in the research literature in order to further supplement knowledge of the relationship between workplace learning practices, employment and marginalized youth success.
Many countries strive to make postsecondary education maximally accessible to their citizens under the assumption that educated citizens boost innovation and leadership, resulting in social and economic benefits. However, attempts to increase access, especially in contexts of stagnant or diminishing financial support, can result in ever-increasing class sizes. Two aspects of large classes are extremely worrisome. First, economic and logistical constraints have led many such classes to devolve into settings characterized by lectures, readings and multiple-choice tests, thereby denying students experience and exercise with important transferable skills (e.g., critical thought, creative thought, self-reflective thought, expressive and receptive communication). Second, such classes are depicted as cold and impersonal, with little sense of community among students.
The Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA) exercise was intended to address at least three desired
outcomes:
1. To promote the government’s stated goal1 of increasing the differentiation of the Ontario
postsecondary system by asking each Ontario postsecondary institution to articulate an
institutional mandate statement identifying its distinctive strengths or aspirations and to
identify key objectives aligned with that aspiration.
2. To advance and inform the discussion about how the Ontario system could increase its
productivity to deliver a quality education to more students within the financial constraints
expected in the public sector.2
3. To elicit the best thinking from institutions about innovations and reforms that would support
higher quality learning and, in its most ambitious form, transform Ontario’s public
postsecondary system.
Many international comparisons of education over the past 50 years have included some measure of students’ opportunity to learn (OTL) in their schooling. Results have typically confirmed the common sense notion that a student’s exposure in school to the assessed concepts, operationalized in some sort of time metric, is related to what the student has learned as measured by the assessment. What has not been demonstrated is a connection between the specifics of what students have encountered through schooling and their performance on any sort of applied knowledge assessment such as PISA. This paper explores this issue in 2012 PISA which, for the first time, included several OTL items on the student survey. OTL demonstrated a significant relationship with student performance on both the main paper-and-pencil literacy assessment as well as the optional computer-based assessment at all three levels – country, school and student. In every country at least one if not all three of the constructed OTL indices – exposure to word problems, formal mathematics topics, and applied mathematics problems – demonstrated a significant relationship to the overall PISA measure of mathematics literacy as well as the four sub areas of change and relationships, shapes and space, quantity, and uncertainty and data. Additionally, results indicated that variability in OTL was related to student performance having implications for equality of opportunity.
The governance of complex, decentralised, multi-level education systems poses two fundamental questions for both policy- and research discussions: What are innovative contemporary governance strategies for the central level in education systems? How can these approaches be described and analysed to identify commonalities that might help to understand how and if they work? In addressing these questions, this paper’s aim is twofold: first, to inform the policy-discussion by presenting empirical examples of new governance mechanisms that central governments use to steer systems across their levels; and second, to contribute to the conceptual discussion of how to categorise and analyse the evolution of new governance structures. To do so, the paper starts with identifying core features of multi-level governance and the respective conceptual gaps it produces. It then introduces a simple analytical categorisation of modes of governance. An analysis of three
empirical cases (an institutionalised exchange between governance levels in Norway, a capacity building programme in Germany, and the Open Method of Coordination within the European Union) then shows how various education systems address these gaps and design the role of the central level in complex decision-making structures. A comparison of the three cases identifies – despite the heterogeneity of the cases – several communalities, such as multi-staged policy processes,
transparency and publicity, and soft sanctions. The paper concludes that the Open Method of Coordination, even though often criticised for its inefficiencies, might serve as a promising template for national approaches to soft governance in education. Further research on OECD education systems is needed to gather more empirical examples; these may help to get a better
understanding of what is needed for successful steering from the central level in decentralised contexts.
Based on principles that look to improve overall wellbeing amongst student populations, this policy on student health and wellness takes a broad look at a range of health concerns felt by Ontario’s post-secondary students, as identified by the student membership of OUSA. These policy recommendations seek to bring greater attention to the current mental and physical health care needs amongst our students regardless of their current health or socio- economic standing, or physical and mental ability. With this policy, OUSA hopes that students will be provided with the resources and service
their overall
wellbeing and success.
With what confidence can we guarantee that graduates are ready for the challenges of 21st-century life, work, and citizenship? For years I have worked with district leaders to help principals, teacher coaches, and so many other educators build credibility, coherence, and community around their education transformation efforts. District leaders must manage a myriad of priorities, and I often tell them that the best first step they can take to ensure our students’ success in life, work, and citizenship is to develop and adopt a graduate profile.
Professional capital has a fundamental con-nection to transforming teaching every day, and we’ve seen many examples of this at work in schools and school systems around the world. Here, we explore the powerful idea of capital and articulate its importance for professional work, professional capacity, and professional effectiveness. Systems that invest in professional capital recognize that education spending is an investment in developing human capital from early childhood to adulthood, leading to rewards of economic productivity and social cohesion in the next gen-eration (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012).
Professional capital requires attention not only to po-litical and societal investments in education but also to leadership actions and educator needs, contributions, and career stages.
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.
This article explores the literature that focuses on the various roles librarians and libraries play in distance education settings. Learners visit libraries either in person or via networked computing technology to ask for help with their online courses. Questions range from how to upload a document with a learning management system, to how to use software and hardware, to more complex questions about how to locate and research articles for term papers. The literature reviewed provides a
glimpse into the historical roles, current roles, as well as possible new roles that libraries and librarians may play in the future. This article identifies various library services that are essential to distant learners and distance education settings, and will explain how librarians and libraries are providing these services online.
Abstract: The paper presents the results of the second stage of training academia in designing e-learning courses in a foreign language. An action research conducted during such staff development project showed high appreciation of continuous mutual support, need for established channels for sharing, and raised confidence in designing own electronic courses by young specialists.
Key words: Staff Development, e-Learning, Higher Education, Language Teaching.