As sites of work-force development, community colleges must be responsive to the demands of the rapidly changing job market. Now, many community-college systems are turning to job-market data that are more up to date and more precise than ever before.
While it requires a significant amount of time and persistence, completing a PhD is not now – nor has it ever been – a guaranteed path to a lucrative end, and its general value has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. This paper is written for aspiring doctoral students, current doctoral students or candidates, recent doctoral graduates, as well as their families and friends. It provides detailed information about the evolution of the PhD and of the broader labour market and educational environment in which it is embedded. The analyses provided in this paper also lead to recommendations to government and institutions about PhD programs. The paper:
1. provides a detailed explanation of the PhD as an academic credential; 2. outlines the expectations that accompany admission to a doctoral program; 3. chronicles the recent rise in doctoral enrolments in Ontario universities; 4. explores the various labour market pathways available to doctoral graduates; 5. offers recommendations to doctoral candidates, graduate programs and governments.
major new development in education like the community college baccalaureate warrants serious examination and reflection. In this connection, I wish to applaud Dr. Kenneth Walker for his vision and initiative in founding the Community College Baccalaureate Association and in taking the lead to organize this First Annual Conference of the Association. I feel honoured to be speaking at what I believe will turn out to have been such an historic event.
There are many interesting and important lines of inquiry which can be pursued in studying the community college baccalaureate movement, such as identifying factors which have led to this development; articulating the arguments for and against it; implementation issues; and case studies of early initiatives, to name just a few. I note that all of these lines of inquiry and others are represented in the program for this conference. What I would like to do in my remarks is to step back from the immediate issues in the implementation of the community college baccalaureate and reflect on the implications of the community college baccalaureate with respect to (1) the organization of ostsec community college and; (3) the Bachelor's
Degree
It happened seemingly overnight, but suddenly the education community is all a-Twitter. Or is it? That’s what Faculty Focus set out to learn when it launched in July 2009 a survey on the role of Twitter in higher education. The survey asked college and university faculty about their familiarity and use of the micro-blogging service, if any, as well as whether they expect their Twitter use to increase or decrease in the future.
This report describes a study exploring the impact of academic community-based learning (CBL), course community-service learning (CSL) and other in-course learning activities (ICLA) on student learning. Informed by Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle, the study used a survey instrument, adapted from several existing survey instruments, examining students’ self-reporting in a number of areas such as:
Student engagement
Depth of learning
Perceptions of course environment including teaching quality and course workload
Educational outcomes
This study seeks to identify common factors that leaders in online instruction consider most critical to successful teaching and learning at a distance. A quantitative and qualitative analysis of the teaching philosophy narratives of the nominees for the University System of Georgia Regents’ Teaching Excellence Award for Online Teaching was conducted. The total number of times a concept was mentioned and the percentage of nominees who cited each concept were computed. The results indicate the relative importance of each concept to these leading practitioners in the field. Rapport, design, engagement, feedback, research, and course improvement emerged as some of the most commonly cited themes, and these correspond with the literature review of best practices for online instruction. However, these instructors also emphasized course content as a significant element, even though this concept is less prevalent in the literature. The emphasis on content by these nominees underscores the importance of this theme and suggests that content is a factor that should be carefully considered in online instruction.
ABSTRACT
During the past two decades community colleges and technical institutes in several jurisdictions, including parts of Canada, the
United States and Australia, have been given the authority to award bachelor degrees. One of the motivations for this addition
to the mandate of these institutions is to improve opportunities for bachelor degree attainment among groups that historically
have been underserved by universities. This article addresses the equity implications of extending the authority to award
baccalaureate degrees to an additional class of institutions in Canada’s largest province, Ontario. The article identifies the
conditions that need to be met for reforms of this type to impact positively on social mobility and inequality, and it describes the
kinds of data that are necessary to determine the extent to which those conditions are met. Based on interviews with students,
faculty, and college leaders, it was found that regulatory restrictions on intra-college transfer from sub-baccalaureate to
baccalaureate programs and lack of public awareness of a new type of bachelor degree may be limiting the social impact of this
reform.
Can Test of Workplace Essential Skills (TOWES) assessments and Essential Skills (ES) training interventions be used to help internationally educated professionals to be more effective at work? Through three worker groups, Bow Valley College (BVC) sought to test, train and re-test IEPs to determine if Essential Skills training could increase workplace success. The worker groups included: WorleyParsons with Targeted training for a specific workplace; Corporate Readiness Training Program (CRTP) which was, in-class training followed by a work experience; Success in the Workplace (SWP) /City of Calgary blended delivery Continuing Education training. In all three worker groups, 142 learners were tested. Of that group 48 tested in at Level 2 in Document Use and completed the training and both TOWES assessments. Results indicated that all workers moved positively within Level 2 and some workers moved from Level 2 to Level 3 and Level 4.
On November 2 and 3 2009, the Public Policy Forum hosted a symposium on the issue of green jobs. In this time of economic recovery and concern over the environment, many Canadians see the green economy as a way to create new, environmentally friendly jobs and encourage a sustainable economic recovery. However, many questions remain about the creation of green jobs and the broader role of the green economy in Canada. This symposium was meant to provide some clarity.
Bridging programs are designed for internationally educated immigrant professionals who have completed formal training in another country but who may not have the educational, professional or language requirements necessary to become licensed to practice in Canada. As Ontario’s population ages, the successful integration of internationally educated health professionals (IEHPs) into the health care workforce has been identified as a strategy to address the challenges created by the shrinking labour pool and growing demands on the health care system (Finley & Hancock, 2010; Stuckey & Munro, 2013). To better understand the role of Ontario’s postsecondary system in facilitating the entry of IEHPs into the health care workforce, this study analyzed seven Canadian bridging programs and obtained input from 15 key informants. The goal of the evaluation was to identify the characteristics and practices of effective IEHP bridging programs. The specific research questions addressed by the evaluation were:
1. What are the expected outcomes of effective bridging programs and how should they be measured?
2. What are the key features that contribute to bridging program effectiveness?
3. What challenges do bridging programs face in achieving their goals?
4. What is the appropriate role of regulatory colleges, government, employers and professional associations in ensuring bridging program effectiveness?
Based on princiiples 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.
Like many developed countries around the world, Canada and Australia will face growing labour market pressures as a result of unprecedented demographic trends and increasing competition for skilled workers. As part of their response to current and emerging skill shortages, both countries are committed to improving qualification recognition processes to better facilitate internal mobility and skilled migration. With Canada and Australia functioning as federal systems, qualification recognition tends to involve a number of jurisdictions and a range of practices, creating an often confusing and lengthy process for many foreign trained professionals. While Canada is driving improvements in foreign qualification recognition through
intergovernmental and stakeholder collaboration, Australia is restructuring internal systems to centralize and standardize qualification assessment and professional registration. Since both countries face a number of common issues and share similar policy objectives, there is an opportunity to not only share key lessons and emerging best practices, but also work together to advance further collaboration across a range of professions.
Altnough competency-based education may seem relative new to postsecondary education, the concept has been widely discussed throughout American education since 1990s.
This Signature Report focuses on the six-year outcomes for students who began postsecondary education in fall 2009. These students were part of the surge of increased enrollments that accompanied the Great Recession, arriving on campus at a time when institutions were already dealing with reduced public budget support (Barr & Turner, 2013; Mangan, 2009). One result was that institutions were forced to increase tuition just as students and their families found themselves with diminished financial resources, leading to questions about growing levels of student debt and whether this might affect rates of degree completion (Long, 2013).
The 2015-16 academic year was one of numerous student protests demanding increases in the admission of
minority students and the hiring of minority faculty members -- not to mention numerous other measures to promote
inclusivity on campus.
But what exactly do students want? While some would say that the various lists of demands of campus protests
provide much of the information, two Dartmouth College professors disagree. On Tuesday they proposed on the
political science blog The Monkey Cage a new way of measuring student interest in different forms of diversity. And they tested their system on students at Dartmouth, an admittedly nontypical student body given that the college is highly competitive in admissions.
The past millennium has witnessed a myriad of technological changes, and there has been exponential growth in the same over the past century. Yet the design of the classroom has changed relatively little over the same time period. The classroom of Aristotle was organized more or less in the same fashion as that of Thomas Aquinas or Einstein. This design emphasizes the so-called “sage on the stage” model where a lecturer addresses an auditorium of students who are expected to listen, absorb, and retain this knowledge. The model continues to be the staple of pedagogical practice in the 21st century. Although the sage-on-the-stage model still dominates, there is a great deal of research suggesting more efficient and effective ways of imparting knowledge.
This report on international undergraduate students is part of a series commissioned by the UK Higher Education International Unit to systematically examine the UK’s market position with respect to international student recruitment and the international student experience. It complements two companion reports that look at the UK’s competitive advantage concerning international taught postgraduate students and international postgraduate research students.
Developing leaders is an especially daunting task for higher education institutions. Like individuals working in professional service firms, academicsx are often ambivalent about assuming leadership roles. Their professional idenity and sense of satisfaction from work are derived pricipally from their professional expertise and accomplishments. They are not recruited for their leadership potential, but rather are selected andrewarded for their research, course development, and/or teaching.
Between 1991 and 2011, the share of young people with a university degree increased significantly, as did the share of young workers employed in professional occupations. Nevertheless, many young university degree holders could still be considered ‘overqualified’—working in occupations requiring lower levels of education. In this article, changes in the overqualification among young graduates are examined over the period from 1991 to 2011.
Friendships can blossom naturally between scholars and students, but are they always problematic? Nina Kelly
navigates the boundaries.