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.
Transnational Education (TNE) is a component of the wider phenomenon of the internationalisation of education.
The general principal of TNE is that students can study towards a foreign qualification without leaving their home country; meaning that the programmes and providers cross national and regional borders, not generally the student. While robust data is generally lacking, available evidence suggests that TNE is continuing to expand and that modes of delivery and policy approaches to TNE continue to evolve on a country-by-country basis. This report summarises the findings of an ambitious programme of research.
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? Indeed, even though distance learning is no longer in its infancy, and there are a whole discipline- full of best practices learned by those who blazed the trail before you, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the questions and the possibilities of what you want your program to look
like today and five years from now.
We created this special report to suggest some responses to the big questions about distance education: About pedagogy, technology, philosophy and administration of distance learning programs. In this report, you will find concise, informative articles on distance education administration and policy that have appeared in Distance Education Report. Titles include:
• Seeing Where the Distance Education Opportunities Lie
• Dumb is Smart: Learning from Our Worst Practices
• Building a Distance Education Program: Key Questions to Answer
• Eight Steps to On-Campus/Online Parity
• Creating a Business Continuity Plan for Your Distance Education Program
• Integrating Distance Education Programs into the Institution
• Solving the Problems of Faculty Ownership with Online Courses
The mass of program and policy issues confronting distance education administrators grows
every day. We hope this special report will help you conceptualize, manage and grow the
distance education program at your school.
Christopher Hill
Editor
Distance Education Report
The education of students with Special Needs (SN) has been well researched at the school level (K-12) and a growing number of studies have been conducted at the postsecondary education (PSE) level. However, there is little research on transitions of SN students between the two systems. Inclusive policies at both the school and postsecondary level are designed to encourage students with SN to continue with their education. However, relatively few do so. Some students with SN fail to complete their schooling and drop. Others graduate from high school but decide against enrolling in a college or university program. While some of these students may prefer direct entry to the labour market others have postsecondary aspirations for which they are not adequately prepared or supported. The social goal of inclusive education is to accommodate the aspirations of all students, including those designated as SN. The existing research on college and university access suggests that students with SN who aspire to PSE face significant barriers. How effectively they meet these challenges requires a better understanding of the basis for their post-high school pathway choices. Socio-demographic factors like gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status have long been recognized as influencing access to PSE, whether or not the individual is a student with special needs. Whatever their background, high school students who aspire to PSE must meet the academic entrance requirements of the institution (college or university) and, at the same time, develop the self-confidence and dispositions to study that are needed to succeed in a
postsecondary program. Acquiring the necessary capabilities can be especially challenging forat-risk students – those with low levels of achievement and those with special needs. Many, nevertheless, display the resilience needed to plan for, invest in, and realize their PSE aspirations. Schools play a key role in developing these resilient qualities in adolescents. Inclusive policies that emphasize students’ “strengths” rather than “deficits” have led to greater integration into mainstream classrooms. Learning in integrated settings is assumed to enhance opportunities for school engagement that complement and contribute to key student beliefs and behaviours – specifically, their sense of personal competence, dependability, and capacity for self-regulation.
Nova Scotia’s university system has long been an essential contributor to the social, economic, and cultural development of the province. This report describes and assesses the current state of that system in the context of emerging financial and demographic challenges in the province, and in relation to wider trends in post-secondary education (PSE) regionally, nationally, and internationally. The evidence clearly confirms that the environment in which Nova Scotia’s eleven universities now operate is changing significantly. The report calls for expanded collaboration among the universities, and between them and the government, to develop and implement new policy approaches to address emerging challenges.
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.
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.
To assist with the evaluation of the SMAs, the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU)
“…instructed the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) to establish a peer review panel to evaluate…mandate submissions … for their ability to achieve significant improvements in productivity, quality and affordability through both innovation and differentiation.” The members of the Expert Panel are listed in Appendix 1.
The 2015 Graduating Student Survey marks the 21st cooperative study undertaken by the Canadian University Survey Consortium/Consortium canadien de recherche sur les étudiants universitaires (CUSC-CCREU). The 2015 survey involved 36 universities and over 18,000 graduating university students from across Canada.
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
The Ontario government recognizes the importance of ensuring equality of access to postsecondary education (PSE). One group that has been and continues to be underrepresented in PSE is students with disabilities. As a response, the Ontario government has made improvements to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005, with the end goal of making Ontario a more accessible province for people with disabilities by 2025. In addition to making changes to legislation, there has been increased funding for students with disabilities, with more than $47 million allocated in 2010-2011 to help these students achieve
success in PSE. The Ontario government now also provides targeted funding for students with learning disabilities (Tsagris and Muirhead, 2012).
The 2005 Postsecondary Review, “Ontario: a Leader in Learning,” authored by Bob Rae, addressed issues facing students with disabilities. Key recommendations1 included:
Require institutions to reach out to students with disabilities at their schools and in their communities to ease the transition to postsecondary education. Provide funding for enhanced academic and career counselling on campus. Allow for the evolution of centres of research and service excellence and distribute funding to institutions for supports and services on the basis of the size of a given institution’s population of students with disabilities (Rae, 2005: 32).
Ensuring students with special needs are receiving the best education is one of the greatest challenges facing school districts around the country. It is a challenge to organize, staff and operate successfully. It is a challenge to determine how best to provide the required curriculum and content but ensure that it is individualized to meet the instructional needs of the student with special needs. It is a challenge to determine how best to evaluate and assess progress. And it is a challenge for the bottom line — special education programs are expensive. Teachers must have better tools if they are to cost effectively engage and teach students who have special learning needs. The toolkit needs to be well stocked with a variety of capabilities to meet the needs of students across the disability spectrum. The breadth and depth of the toolkit allows for teachers to effectively differentiate instruction for students.
Recent advances in technology, and the accompanying curricula that utilize these advances, are rapidly filling that
toolkit with programs that can provide benefits to students with special needs.
Social networking use among internet users ages 50 and older has nearly doubled—from 22% to 42% over the past year.
While social media use has grown dramatically across all age groups, older users have been especially enthusiastic over the past year about embracing new networking tools. Although email continues to be the primary way that older users maintain contact with friends, families and colleagues, many users now rely on social network platforms to help manage their daily communications—sharing links, photos, videos, news and status updates with a growing network of contacts.
Half (47%) of internet users ages 50-64 and one in four (26%) users age 65 and older now use social networking sites.
Half of online adults ages 50-64 and one in four wired seniors now count themselves among the Facebooking and LinkedIn masses. That’s up from just 25% of online adults ages 50-64 and 13% of those ages 65 and older who reported social networking use one year ago in a survey conducted in April 2009.
Young adult internet users ages 18-29 continue to be the heaviest users of social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, with 86% saying they use the sites. However, over the past year, their growth paled in comparison with the gains made by older users. Between April 2009 and May 2010, internet users ages 50-64 who said they use a social networking site like MySpace, Facebook or LinkedIn grew 88% and those ages 65 and older grew 100% in their adoption of the sites, compared with a growth rate of 13% for those ages 18-29.
In a traditional face-to-face class, students have many opportunities to interact with their instructor and fellow students. Whether it’s an informal chat before or after class, or participating in the classroom discussion, interaction can be an important factor in student success. Creating similar opportunities for participation and collaboration in an online course is one of the biggest challenges of teaching online. Yet, opportunities for meaningful interaction online are plentiful, provided you design and facilitate your course in the correct manner and with the proper tools.
Asynchronous and synchronous learning tools, such as threaded discussions, instant messaging, and blogs play an important role in humanizing online courses by replicating the classroom experience of information exchange and community building, not just between students and teacher but among the students as well. This Faculty Focus special report features 15 articles from Online Classroom newsletter, and will provide you with specific strategies on how to use synchronous and asynchronous
learning tools to engage your online students.
Here are just some of the articles you will find in this report:
• A Plan for Effective Discussion Boards
• Using Video Clips to Stimulate Discussion
• Using Individual and Group Instant Messaging to Engage Students
• Nine Strategies for Using IM in Your Online Course
• Four Ways to Improve Discussion Forums
Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning Tools: 15 Strategies for Engaging Online Students Using Real-time Chat, Threaded Discussions and Blogs is loaded with practical advice from educators who’ve found effective ways to promote learning and build community in their online courses.
With experts projection that five million K-12 students will enroll in online course by 2016, thee is no doubt that blended learning asking the key question: "Does blended learning give better outcomes than traditional classes?"
ABSTRACT
From 2006 to 2009, Indigenous Elders and scholars shared their insights in the Comprehending and Nourishing the Learning Spirit Animation Theme Bundle of the Aboriginal Learning Knowledge Centre (ABLKC). The ABLKC was an applied research, knowledge exchange, and monitoring program with a mandate to advance Aboriginal education in Canada. One of the six bundles, Nourishing the Learning Spirit, was led by Mi’kmaw education scholar and Academic Director of the Aboriginal Education Research Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, Dr. Marie Battiste. In this paper, the authors discuss how they applied knowledge gained in the Nourishing the Learning Spirit Animation Theme Bundle to their post-secondary classroom practice.
The authors argue that teachers are better able to nourish the learning spirit of students when they understand themselves as lifelong learners, validate and learn from their students, and use holistic teaching pedagogies.
RÉSUMÉ
De 2006 à 2009, les aînés autochtones et les pédagogues ont partagé leur compréhension de l’esprit de l’apprentissage dans un ensemble de trousses d’animation (Comprehending and Nourishing the Learning Spirit Animation Theme Bundle). L’une des six trousses, Nourishing the Learning Spirit, a été chapeautée par la directrice de l’Aboriginal Education Research Centre
(ABLKC) à l’Université de la Saskatchewan, Dre Marie Battiste, chercheure en éducation d’origine micmaque (mi’ kmaq). L’ABLKC était un programme de recherche appliquée, d’échange d’idées et de contrôle, ayant un mandat de reportage visant l’avancement de l’éducation autochtone au Canada. Dans le présent document, les chercheurs discutent des connaissances acquises au cours de l’implantation de la trousse Nourishing the Learning Spirit dans leur salle de classe postsecondaire. Ils affirment que les professeurs peuvent nourrir l’esprit d’apprentissage de leurs élèves quand ils se voient eux-mêmes comme apprenants perpétuels, valorisent et apprennent de leurs élèves, et utilisent des pédagogies d’enseignement holistiques.
Immigrant families come to Canada with high education levels, with the Greater Toronto Area a primary destination. Despite high education levels, their economic and social integration into Canada is often difficult, due in part to lack of recognition of foreign credentials and work experience, weak official-language skills, and insufficient cultural competencies. For the children in these families, the young immigrants, successful education outcomes set the stage for success in adulthood, both in the workplace and in further education, enabling them to better integrate into Canadian society and contribute to the Canadian economy. This study examined the pathways of immigrant youth, and the role of English-language proficiency and region of origin in these pathways, using a recently created database containing a number of linked data sources from Seneca College, a large multicultural college in Toronto. This longitudinal dataset enables us to track individual students from the beginning of high school through to graduation from college, and their eventual transition into the labour market or to further education.
Residential schooling in Canada’s North deserves its own consideration for a number of reasons.
First, its history is more recent than that of residential schooling in the rest of the country. As late as 1900 there were only two residential schools north of the sixtieth parallel. By 1950 there were only six residential schools and one hostel in the North. This slow growth reflects the fact that while the overall goals of the Canadian govern-ment’s Aboriginal policy were to assimilate, civilize, and Christianize, this policy was not applied in a uniform manner. Where there was no pressing demand for Aboriginal lands, the federal government delayed taking on the obligations that Treaties created. This was particularly true in the North. As long as there was no prospect of economic development or of the arrival of large numbers of non-Aboriginal settlers, the federal government was not prepared to negotiate with northern Aboriginal peoples. Nor was it interested in establishing reserves or residential schools—or any sort of school, for that matter. Were it not for the work of Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries, residential schooling would have no history north of the sixtieth parallel before 1950.
A second distinct feature of the situation in the North was the fact that, in the years after 1950, the Canadian government did not simply extend the existing southern res-idential school system into northern Canada. Instead the federal government created a system of day schools and hostels under the direction of Northern Affairs rather than Indian Affairs. This system was intended from the start to be integrated into, not separate from, the public school system of the day. Unlike the southern schools, the northern schools made no attempt to restrict admission to First Nations students, so Métis and Inuit, along with a number of non-Aboriginal students, also attended them. At the end of the 1960s, these schools were transferred from the federal government to the governments of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.
Student Debt and the Class of 2013 is our ninth annual report on the cumulative student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges. Our analysis of available data finds debt levels continue to rise, with considerable variation among states as well as colleges.
About seven in 10 (69%) college seniors who graduated from public and private nonprofit colleges in 2013 had student loan debt. These borrowers owed an average of $28,400, up two percent compared to $27,850 for public and nonprofit graduates in 2012. About one-fifth (19%) of the Class of 2013’s debt was comprised of private loans, which are typically more costly and provide fewer consumer protections and repayment options than safer federal loans.
You've heard it before:
We already know what our students think.
Our committee has already picked the brand strategy that will work best. We know our school and our
students. We don't need external consultation.
These statements go against three core principles of successful PSE brand positioning, which one can find in the following case studies.
The issue of the “boy gap” or “boy crisis” in education has been the subject ofincreasing attention across a number of OECD countries. The issue has also captured the attention of the Canadian media. As the Globe and Mail recently emphasized in their six-part series on ‘failing boys’:
“data suggests that boys, as a group, rank behind girls by nearly every measure of scholastic achievement. They earn lower grades overall in elementary school and high school. They trail in reading and writing, and 30 per cent of them land in the bottom quarter of standardized tests, compared with 19 per cent of girls. Boys are also more likely to be picked out for behavioural problems, more likely to repeat a grade and to drop out of school altogether”. (Globe and Mail, October 15, 2010)
Given the importance of this issue and the need to better understand the situation in boys' education, this report draws on material and data from a review of websites, research reports and relevant data sources, as well as informal consultations with some official and expert sources, to scope out four main questions:
1. What is the situation regarding education and training participation and
results for boys and men throughout the OECD, including post-secondary
education and trades?
2. Are there policies and practices in place to attenuate unfavourable trends?
3. What are Canadian jurisdictions doing?
4. What do we know about the success and failure of various models OECDwide
with a focus on Germany, the United States, Australia and the United
Kingdom?
It should be noted that there is a substantial disconnect between public policy commentary on issues in the “developed” and “non-developed” worlds. In the latter, priority attention continues to be centred on the barriers and obstacles faced by females in education and the labour market. Access to education in all its forms is still significantly more available to males in such countries. The UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) is focused on ensuring that a gender equity
and equality perspective is brought to bear within the broad context of the UN’s Education for All (EFA) initiative, and is reflected in the Global Monitoring Reports issued by the EFA.
In is also the case that attention within OECD countries continues to be paid to the traditional barriers faced by women in many areas of education and
employment. A “question scan” done by CCL for the British Columbia Ministry of
Advanced Education only a few years ago identified a number of studies and
reports on the issue of gender in PSE access; all of them focused on the
question of female participation and access, none on the “boy crisis”.
It is also the case that attention in several OECD jurisdictions has shifted in some circles in the past number of years to the phenomenon of a substantial shortfall of the percentage of males, compared to females, who complete secondary schooling, and who are enrolled in and graduate from PSE. The implications of this “boy gap” are increasingly being pondered in such countries as Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Australia. The statistical picture in terms of this gender gap, as
shown in literacy rates, school achievement in literacy, and participation and success in university studies, has been quite clear in such jurisdictions for two decades and more; the implications of this gap, however, are not at all a matter of consensus. Nor are the public policy and program responses either clear or consistent.
Question 1: What is the situation for boys and men throughout the OECD,
including PSE and the trades?
The purpose of this section is to present general statistics on performance and participation in education and training for both boys/young men and girls/young women across OECD countries. The data have been selected to provide a preliminary overview that can be used to direct further research and analysis.
Given the parameters of this project, it is not possible to complete a comprehensive survey of data. For the purposes of this paper, the focus is on Australia, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, using a limited number of variables.
This first section focuses entirely on statistics and trends. It becomes obvious early in any consideration of this issue that its complexity and multifaceted nature present challenges. For clarity, the findings below are presented by educational sector.
1. Overview—general trends over time The relationship between education and skill development has been a well explored topic over the last decade, with many countries concluding that highly skilled and educated citizens are essential to meet the challenges of globalization and the knowledge economy. In an effort to help understand the complex network and inter-relationship of factors that influence individuals to participate and succeed in education and training, researchers have undertaken detailed research on educational outcomes and the influences on motivation, participation and completion of education.
Over the last couple of decades there has been increasing emphasis on maximizing the participation of under-represented groups such as immigrants, women and other minorities in education. Along the way, an interesting trend has emerged that is now clearly illustrated by the statistics—the statistics indicate that, overall, girls and women tend to do better in school environments, outperforming males. This is evident in both the secondary- and higher-education sectors. Research shows that girls/young women and boys/young men have distinctly different experiences in the various educational sectors.
2. K–12
For many years, gender-related research in the K–12 sector was focused on dropout rates in secondary schools. These rates were usually significantly higher for boys than girls, a trend which held across OECD countries.
PISA
The OECD PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), designed to explore “the educational performance and attitudes of adolescent males and females”, provides data to answer questions related to why female and male students perform differently. Ironically, one of the main rationales for PISA was to determine why females appeared disinterested in, and tended to be less successful in, mathematics and the physical sciences. However, PISA findings that demonstrated that boys had difficulty in the area of reading spurred further research into literacy among boys and, eventually, the design of specific
interventions to address related issues.
Statistical evidence about gender differences among young boys and girls is quite detailed. The OECD report, “Equally Prepared for Life?”, provides a summary of gender issues from early childhood based on results from PISA,
PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and other statistics that are gathered regularly.
Some of the main findings across OECD countries include1:
• Gender differences appear at early stages of education but they are small.
Females show better performance in reading in primary schools.
• Females showed significantly higher reading achievement than males in all (except two) countries by Grade 4. (2004 data)
• At Grade 4, the results for mathematics and science were mixed. Males had significantly higher scores for math in 12 countries while females had significantly higher scores in eight countries. In science, the scores for males and females were somewhat similar in more than half the countries
(2007).
• By Grade 8, on average, females had higher achievement than males in mathematics, although there were country variations. (2007) The same was true for science.
• Although PISA 2006 showed no significant differences between males and females in the overall performance in science, females were better identifying scientific issues while males were better at explaining phenomena scientifically.
- In the PISA 2009 reading assessment, girls outperform boys in every participating country by an average, among OECD countries, of 39 PISA score points—equivalent to more than half a proficiency level or one year
of schooling.
- On average across OECD countries, boys outperform girls in mathematics by 12 score points while gender differences in science performance tend to be small, both in absolute terms and when compared with the large 1 OECD, “Equally Prepared for Life?” 2009, pp. 3; 10–12;16–19; 2–24 and 27.
A 2015 survey of American college students examined classroom learning distractions caused by the use of digital devices for non-class pur-poses. The purpose of the study was to learn more about Millennial Generation students’ behaviors and perceptions regarding their class-room uses of digital devices for non-class pur-poses. The survey included 675 respondents in 26 states. Respondents spent an average of 20.9% of class time using a digital device for non-class purposes. The average respondent used a digital device 11.43 times for non-class purposes during a typical school day in 2015 compared to 10.93 times in 2013. A significant feature of the study was its measurement of frequency and duration of students’ classroom digital distractions as well as respondents’ motivations for engaging in the distracting behavior.