Current discussions about literacy often focus on how economic changes are raising expectations for literacy achievement. The emergence of a so-called knowledge economy or learning economy requires more people to do more things with print. Less attention has been given, however, to how the pressure to produce more literacy affects the contexts in which literacy
learning takes place. This article looks at the literacy learning experience of an autoworker turned union representative, a blind computer programmer, two bilingual autodidacts, and a former southern sharecropper raising children in a high-tech university town. It uses the concept of the literacy sponsor to explore their access to learning and their responses to economic and
technological change. Their experiences point to some directions for incorporating economic history into thinking about cultural diversity and for using resources in school to addresseconomic turbulence and inequality beyond the school.
What are the key factors associated with attrition specifically at a Canadian community college?
Ten years ago, Lisa Lalonde, now a professor in the faculty of early childhood education at Algonquin College in Ottawa, was cautioned by a friend about her choice to pursue an education almost exclusively online.
"When I first started this journey, someone asked me about what my career objectives were in the long-term … and they warned me that some of the upper crust of academia don't look highly upon this [online education]," she recalls. "Whereas, I'm finding that is definitely not the case any more."
Maybe they didn’t think of this back in 2006 when the province scrapped
mandatory retirement.
Ten years later, baby boomers in big numbers are blowing past the old
retirement age of 65, some working into their 70s.
They can defer pensions for a while, but at 71, they’re forced to collect work
and government pensions along with their paycheques.
Who would want to work that long? You might be surprised.
Chief Student Affairs Officers (CSAOs) are senior-level student affairs per-sonnel. In 2011, 33 CSAOs responded to a national survey and provided a professional perspective on field development, student services, as well as predicted five-year trends for student affairs. In 2013, 17 CSAOs responded to the same survey and provided further information on these topics. Results indicated that attitudes towards diversity and technology remained stable be-tween 2011 and 2013. We established that CSAOs have less positive attitudes towards research, evaluation, and assessment than they do towards commu-nication and leadership. Here, we discuss at length the implications of these finding, as well as the potential for research into student affairs. In addition, we examine the continued professionalization of the CSAO field and note that research into CSAOs should be proactive instead of reactive.
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.
Colleges and institutes play a lead role in strengthening regional capacity to innovate and work with industry partners to enhance competitiveness in the sectors and communities they serve. They conduct leading-edge applied research projects with industry partners to provide market ready solutions.
Whether it’s the creation of a rapid oil containment cling pad to clean up small scale oil or fuel spills, the development of intelligent textiles to meet consumer specific needs, or building award winning cutting edge web technology, colleges and institutes help small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) innovate and grow by focusing on improvements in technologies, processes, products and services.
The Government of Canada’s Tri-Council College and Community Innovation (CCI) Program administered by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in collaboration with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is making a real difference in growing the capacity of colleges and institutes to engage in industry-driven applied research and providing SMEs with the expertise required to be more innovative and productive.
Researchers say that discrimination at colleges and universities may have negative impact on black students' mental health.
Many adolescents are experiencing a reduction in sleep as a consequence of variety of behavioral factors, even though scientific evidence suggests taht the biological need for sleep increases during maturation. Consequenlly, the ability to effectively interact with peers while learning and processing novel information may be diminished in may sleep-deprived adolescents.
The instructional leadership role of the school principalship has become all the rage. The main stumbling block for most principals is that they don’t know what it means and/or how to do it. This article names three successively rigorous criteria that the new leadership development will have to meet if the new role is to be realized. A minority of programs meet the first criterion hardly anyone meets the other two.
The three successively difficult characteristics of that future programs must meet are job embedded learning, organizationally embedded leadership, and system embedded leadership and learning.
On March 12, 2015, the government announced that Ontario would be moving forward with the transformation of its postsecondary education sector by launching consultations on modernizing the university funding model. The purpose of this consultation paper is to outline an engagement process and position the review within the context of the government’s
overall plan for postsecondary education. Funding universities in a more quality-driven, sustainable and transparent way is part of the government’s economic plan for Ontario.
The question of how to hold Ontario’s universities accountable to the needs of students is a relatively complex one. One must be careful to balance the need for academic freedom with the public’s (and especially students’) right to be assured that its considerable investments into postsecondary institutions are being used effectively and appropriately. OUSA’s Accountability paper offers recommendations to improve quality assurance and strategic goal-setting in Ontario’s universities. In essence, it
describes students’ vision of to whom, for what, and how universities should be held accountable.
Many schools are emphasizing typing and programming skills to prepare their students for the workplace of the future, but it isn’t just about being able to code.
Tour any IT department and you will find a web of servers and routers that store and disseminate information while firewalls and security systems keep the information safe. To most of us, this tech world is something we know we need and rely on, but have little knowledge of in terms of how it operates.
Should this disconnect of layman understanding of the tech world continue on a wide scale we could see a debacle in the workforce with a lack of qualified technicians. Luckily, there are schools and companies confronting this for new generations of students.
So much of what determines the overall success or failure of a course takes place well in advance of the first day of class. It’s the thoughtful contemplation of your vision for the course— from what you want your students to learn, to selecting the instructional activities, assign-ments, and materials that will fuel that learning, to determining how you will measure learning outcomes.
As academics, we grapple with failure all the time and in a myriad of ways.
One of the best parts of academia is that we are always learning. In our quest to develop a deeper understanding of the world around us, we occupy various positions as expert and novice learners. But, this is also one of the hardest parts of our jobs: in order to learn, we must open ourselves up to the risk of failure, mistakes and missteps.
As academics, we grapple with failure all the time and in a myriad of ways. We are rejected on the job market, we are dejected after an unsuccessful grant application, and we are crestfallen when Reviewer 2 destroys our central argument. Our ideas are challenged during a conference session or during a departmental meeting; we are criticized in the Twittersphere or in book reviews. A class can spectacularly self-implode despite careful preparation or a student might fail to thrive despite our best efforts.
The purpose of this research study was to map Ontario universities’ strategies, programs and services for international students (IS). In mapping these programs, we aimed to understand the opportunities, challenges and gaps that exist in supporting IS. We focused on services at various levels, including from the first year of study all the way through to graduation, the job search process, entry into the labour market, and students’ transition to permanent resident status.
Education spending on public schools
in Canada increased by $19.1 billion (45.9 percent) between 2003/04 and 2012/13, from $41.6 billion to $60.7 billion.
The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) recognizes the importance of attracting more international students to study in Ontario, as articulated by the Ontario government in its Open Ontario Plan. In a competitive global environment, international students enable the province to train and retain highly skilled individuals, provide access to a greater pool of talent, diversity and ideas, and contribute to the economy. This paper provides an overview of six areas of significant importance to undergraduate domestic and international students alike
are in need of sgreater attention by institutions and the provincial government.
In Canada there are growing discussions concerning the role of publicly funded universities and the impact of academic research. The integration of neoliberal practices and market rationalities place pressure on universities to “go public” in order to demonstrate relevance and accountability. Researchers are encouraged or even required to engage the public through knowledge mobilization activities. Our study provides an empirical analysis of knowledge mobilization in order to understand its perceived impact on public criminology, and more broadly the production and dissemination of criminological research. We argue that the institutional shift toward knowledge mobilization is perceived as a tool of institutional governance to demonstrate organizational accountability that shapes the production and dissemination of criminological knowledge.
A well-known expenment used in organizational behavior courses involves showing the class an ambiguous picture-one that can be interpreted in two different ways. One such picture represents either an attractive young girl or an ugly old woman, depending on the way you look at it. Some of my colleagues and I use the experiment, which demonstrates how different people in the same situation may perceive quite different things. We start by asking half of the class to close their eyes while we show the other half a slightly altered version of the picture-one in which only the young girl can be seen-for only five seconds. Then we ask those who just saw the young girl's picture to close their eyes while we give the other half of the class a five-second look at a version in which only the old woman can be seen. After this preparation we show the ambiguous picture to everyone at the same time.