Purpose of Research: In this analysis and synthesis of our recent qualitative and ethnographic studies, we specifically describe the dimensions of local understanding that foster citizenship in the literate community for individuals commonly acted upon as hopelessly aliterate, subliterate, or illiterate due to assumptions surrounding their degree of disability. We contrast these descriptions of local understanding with U.S. education policy that mandates what we believe to be a singular, narrow, and rigid approach to early or initial written language instruction.
To develop and conduct feasibility testing of an evidence-based and theory-informed model for facilitating performance feedback for physicians so as to enhance their acceptance and use of the feedback.
In Canada, 1,172,785 persons identify as Aboriginal, and 698,025 identify as First Nations.
• Aboriginal youth are the fastest growing demographic. The First Nations population grew 3.5 times faster than the on-Aboriginal population in 2006.
• Approximately 30% of the First Nations adult population is less than 30 years of age while 13% are 60 years of age and older.
Canadians are making sacrifices to prepare themselves for a changing workforce. Federal and provincial government
decisions are forcing students to take on more education related debt than any previous generation, while middle class
earnings have largely stagnated in the past twenty years.
Skyrocketing tuition fees and the prevalence of loan-based financial assistance have pushed student debt to historic
levels. This past year, almost 425,000 students were forced to borrow in order to finance their education. The aggregate of
loans disbursed by the Canada Student Loans Program, less the aggregate of loan repayments received is resulting in student
debt increasing by $1 million per day.
This report presents the latest results from the Future to Discover project. It is the first in a new series that will be produced for New Brunswick, evaluating new ways to tackle a key challenge provinces face in meeting their future needs for skilled workers: engaging enough young people in post-secondary education. Promotion of high school students’ access to post-secondary education is a major goal of Canadian governments, in part because of its increasingly important role in helping individuals attain social and economic success. Yet uncertainty remains as to the best policy interventions to encourage students to make the transition.
All beginning college students face enormous challenges, ranging from the academic to the social, and the first year of college marks the period of greatest vulnerability for student attrition.i For many students, the initial college year is the first time they are on their own, without close parental guidance. It is unsurprising that they are often ill-equipped to navigate the
challenges endemic to the college experience.
For example, the intellectual requirements of college often differ significantly from those that they were expected to meet in high school. At the same time, the social freedom of college, while ultimately the source of exploration and growth, may lead first-year students down unproductive paths. From being responsible for managing their own finances, to organizing and
structuring their time, to moderating their alcohol and drug consumption, life on campus presents college students with situations for which they may have little preparation and over which they must quickly achieve mastery.
New research at the University of Warwick demonstrates two shortcomings with the current benchmarking of internationalisation: they are based purely on structural measures and they use a simple bi-polar distinction between home and international students. There are several dangers in relying on these measures: Structural internationalisation ≠ Student satisfaction: Latest research shows that in the UK, the lower the proportion of UK students, the less satisfied students of all backgrounds are. This does not mean that structural internationalisation should be avoided; on the contrary, students appreciate the value of an 'internationalisation' experience, so what we need is an agenda for integration.
This report examines some of the key issues surrounding the education of First Nations, Métis and Inuit students and proposes a governance framework that school boards can use to improve student results.
Failure in one way or another, is likely unavoidable. The experience can take on different meanings for each of us, but the feat behind is something we all share, Moments of failure are typically viewed as poor performances. A teacher attaches a grad to an assignment or test, and the course often continues, in spite of the fact that a number of students have not mastered a significant portion of the material.
University leaders are actively addressing the issue of mental health on campuses across Canada. No longer seen as simply a question of crisis management, mental health issues are being approached in more proactive and systematic ways, as universities increasingly appreciate the advantages of prevention over reaction. “We are exploring what we need as a sector to deal with mental health issues in the post-secondary setting,” says Dr. Su-Ting Teo, Director of Student Health and Wellness
at Ryerson University. Dr. Teo is co-chair of a working group on mental health for the Canadian Association of College and
University Student Services (CACUSS), one of several inter-institutional organizations focusing on the issue. The key
is to identify best practices and then put into action strategies and plans that work best for an individual institution
and its specific circumstances.
In this retrospective account of their scholarly work over the past 45 years, Alexander and Helen Astin show how the struggle to achieve greater equity in American higher education is intimately connected to issues of character development, leadership, civic responsibility, and spirituality. While shedding some light on a variety of questions having to do with fairness and equity, this research has not succeeded in removing the structural barriers to progress among underrepresented groups. Accordingly, the authors advocate that colleges and universities focus greater attention on developing student values and other personal qualities that will produce a new generation of citizens who are committed to creating a more just and equitable
society.
In the following report, Hanover Research examines programs and initiatives employed at peer institutions to improve retention rates from first year to second year, and second year to third year, as well as graduation rates. The report includes a review of national findings regarding issues and factors essential to student retention, as well as an extensive examination of 18 of the peer institutions of XYZ University.
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.
The increasing scarcity of women within higher academic ranks is troublesome, especially as associate and full-professors with tenure are generally those tapped for leadership positions. This study surveyed female administrators in distance education in an effort to thematically analyze their perceptions of distance learning in higher education. Themes that garnered more input from the women included the following: assumptions of gender disparity, the optimistic viewpoint that in the future more women will succeed as administrators in distance education, and the belief that the role of administrators was to provide value and goals in distance education but that change in this arena was too slow and obstructions to the quality of distance learning needed to be eliminated. In addition, it appears that Caucasian (non - Hispanic) women are more prone to suggest that gender disparity is a problem and women who hold a higher level of administration spoke less often about problems with gender disparity and appeared to have a more positive attitude.
literacy. This commentary asks the question: What changes can the states and federal government make to education policy that will boost adolescent reading achievement?
Recently, American College Testing (ACT) issued a report about the problems with adolescent literacy (ACT, 2006). ACT thinks
America’s teens should be able to read well enough to get into college and to complete freshman year successfully (attaining at
least Cs in their basic subjects). Their analysis of middle and high school reading achievement over the past several years suggests this isn’t the case for a growing percentage of students. In fact, ACT reported that while many eighth graders are not on track for this kind of triumph, the numbers of students who are not ready actually increases as students move through high school; progressively fewer 10th and 12th graders are on track to do well.
One of the advantages of academic-occupational integration is that it provides an opportunity to teach reading and writing skills in
the context of the workplace applications, permitting literacy skills and content knowledge to develop simultaneously. This
approach, a form of contextualized instruction (Mikulecky, 1998) is distinctly different from traditional approaches which see
literacy skills as a prerequisite to learning content (Sticht, 1995). The purpose of this segment is to provide descriptions of a variety of ways in which instructors in community colleges are contextualizing literacy instruction in occupational content. The
instructional activities are discussed in Perin (2000a).
Culturally authoritative texts such as Text Revision of the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual-IV [DSM-IVTR](
American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2004) describe literate impossibility for individuals with disability labels associated
with severe developmental disabilities. Our qualitative research challenges the assumptions of perpetual subliteracy
authoritatively embedded within the DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2004). U. S. education policy also confronts, at least rhetorically, assumed
hopelessness with reading and writing remediation in schools. Most recently, the federal government has directed national
concern toward issues of literacy acquisition and child failure through the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). One
description of NCLB provided by the U.S. Department of Education (2004) suggested universal literacy was a primary objective.
However, our research suggests that the NCLB statute appears to emphasize a restrictive standardization as the route to
universal literacy that would in fact leave out many people with severe developmental disabilities.
To provide a detailed account of the nature and scope of recommendations for promoting faculty grant proposal success in academic medical settings.
This paper reports the results of an analysis of persistence in post-secondary education (PSE) for college students in Ontario based on the extremely rich YITS-B dataset that has been used for other recent studies at the national level. We calculate hazard or transition rates (and cumulative transition rates) with respect to those who i) graduate, ii) switch programs, and
iii) leave PSE (perhaps to return later). We also look at the reasons for switching and leaving, subsequent re-entry rates among leavers, and graduation and persistence rates once switchers and re-entrants are taken into account. These patterns are then probed in more detail using hazard (regression) models where switching and leaving are related to a variety of individual
characteristics, family background, high school outcomes, and early pse experiences. Student pathways are seen to be varied. Perhaps the single most important finding is that the proportion of students who either obtain a degree or continue to be enrolled somewhere in the PSE system in the years after entering a first program remains close to the 80 percent mark for the five years following entry. Seventy-one percent of students graduate within five years of starting, while another 6 percent are still in the PSE system.
The scientific study of human learning and memory is now more than 125 years old. Psychologists have conducted thou- sands of experiments, correlational analyses, and field studies during this time, in addition to other research conducted by those from
neighboring fields. A huge knowledge base has been carefully built up over the decades.
Given this backdrop, we may ask ourselves: What great changes in education have resulted from this huge research base? How has the scientific study of learning and memory changed practices in education from those of, say, a century ago? Have we succeeded in building a translational educational science to rival medical science (in which biological knowledge is translated into medical practice) or types of engineering (in which, e.g., basic knowledge in chemistry is translated into products through chemical engineering)?