A great deal of research has been conducted and published on the topic of hybrid or “blended” learning in university settings, but relatively little has been conducted within the college environment. The purpose of this multi-method study was to identify the impact of hybrid course delivery methods on student success and course withdrawal rates, and to evaluate faculty and student experience of hybrid instruction from within the Canadian college environment.
Quantitative findings suggest that students achieved slightly lower final marks in hybrid courses as compared to the face-to-face control courses offered in the previous year, though the magnitude of this effect was very small, in the order of -1%. Further analysis revealed that students with high academic standing were successful regardless of course mode, while students with low GPAs performed slightly worse in hybrid classes. Course mode did not have an effect on withdrawal from the course, suggesting that the format does not impact course completion.
Overall both students and faculty responded positively to the hybrid format. Students enjoyed learning and engaging online, but did express concerns about reduced access to instructors and/or a sense that lectures were rushed. Open-ended survey responses and focus group feedback made clear that it is essential to provide well-defined direction and orientation to web-based tools for a hybrid course to be successful. Suggestions for improvement include providing additional technical support for students and faculty, mandatory tutorials introducing students to online tools, and hybrid course development training for faculty.
The traditional pathway into postsecondary education (PSE) is to enter college or university directly after graduating from high school. Not all students follow the traditional pathway into PSE. The Ontario government recently set a goal “to raise the postsecondary [attainment] rate to 70 per cent” (Speech from the Throne, 2010). In 2011, 64 per cent of Ontario residents aged between 25 and 64 held a PSE credential.1 One way to help reach the target educational attainment rate of 70 per cent is for Ontario colleges and universities to attract and retain learners who follow non-traditional pathways. Therefore, one of the priorities of the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) is to evaluate the adequacy and efficiency of non-traditional pathways in obtaining a PSE credential. This study mainly examined one non-traditional pathway, delayed entry into PSE. Graduates who have taken more years than expected to graduate are also included in the discussion. The purpose of this paper is to address the following research questions:
• What is the demographic profile of these non-traditional graduates?
• Are their program choices and pathways through PSE different from those of direct entrants?
• Do their labour market outcomes differ from those of direct entrants?
Results are based on telephone interviews with –1,025– national adults, aged 18+, conducted October 5-6, 2013. For results based on the total sample of National Adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of error is ±4 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample of national adults includes a minimum quota of 50% cell phone respondents and 50% landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas by region. Landline and cell phones numbers are selected using random digit dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.
Survey fielded between August 16-28, 2013 among a nationally representative sample of American adults (N = 1,000) conducted via landline and cell phone. The margin of error for a sample of 1,000 is ±3.1%.
The national poll was supplemented by a survey of business hiring decision-makers (N = 263) fielded online during July 10-15, 2013. The business elite sample included hiring decision-makers and hiring executives from a cross-section of companies, ranging from small companies to larger businesses with a global presence.
Though once considered a marginal aspect of education studies, the unique pathways of adult learners have become a research topic of interest in recent years. Existing studies have focused primarily on either adult learning at the postsecondary level or adult education programs for low-skilled immigrants. For the most part, continuing education has been overlooked as a strategy employed by native-born and immigrant adults for updating credentials towards accessing postsecondary education (PSE). Our research addresses this gap in the literature by investigating postsecondary outcomes for Canadian-born and immigrant adults who seek to upgrade their credentials through continuing education at the secondary level or at adult day schools through the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). Due to a dearth of research, it is difficult to assess how many individuals pursue this pathway as a route towards PSE, the factors affecting the PSE plans formulated by adult learners at the secondary level, and whether and how these pathways and outcomes differ for immigrants and non-immigrants. An extensive literature review led the researchers to conclude that adult learners in continuing education likely face multiple barriers in upgrading their skills and credentials when engaged in an effort to attain a postsecondary education. In addition to experiencing difficulties common to adult learners, such as financial and time constraints, immigrant adult students often contend with a secondary set of challenges that include grappling with a new academic culture, single parenthood, and serious language challenges that pose a risk to successful integration into Canadian society and the labour force.
Science and technology are increasingly important to Canada’s economic well-being and quality of life. A critical element for
our long-term success—as individuals and as a country—is learning in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
In the 2012 Spotlight on Science Learning1, developed by Let’s Talk Science in partnership with Amgen Canada, key
benchmarks and recommendations were identified to further STEM learning in Canada.
One key benchmark the 2012 report recommended was monitoring participation in high school STEM courses.
The current report goes deeper and recommends that better connections be built between job forecasts and STEM learning
demands so youth and parents are more aware of future employment opportunities. It investigates the financial, opportunity and social costs related to the current drop-off in secondary school participation in science, technology and math courses.
What the whole world wants is a good job. When asked about the most important problem they face, people worldwide consistently mention the availability of jobs. But just any job is not enough. Leaders need to make quality jobs available to help their people thrive and to ensure their country prospers. Good jobs can lift individuals out of poverty and put entire countries on the path to progress. Global leaders today are rightfully making job creation a top priority. But until now, they did not have the measures they needed to determine whether they are creating good jobs. When thinking about jobs, leaders and nearly everyone else generally thinks about unemployment. But there are several problems with focusing solely on this measure.
In an effort to improve writing skills, the Writing Centre at Wilfrid Laurier University developed a series of free online resources and tools for students. However, a recent study by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) found that even when integrated into the classroom experience, only a small number of students actually used the tool as they felt it was not relevant to them, and those who did saw no impact on their grades. The authors feel further research is needed into how to best
integrate the service into the classroom, including potentially assigning grades for its use.
Project Description
Wilfrid Laurier University’s online assignment planner (AP) gives students access to timelines, resources and advice for information gathering, citations and effective writing. Writing Instruction Using an Online Assignment Planner examined students in four large first-year classes and one fourth-year seminar class. Students from the large first-year programs were randomly assigned to either a group with explicit integration of the AP into classroom activities, or a control group with no integration. The study tracked the number of times students accessed the AP, writing marks, conducted in-class surveys and professor interviews.
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.
Some provincial governments are taking notice of and responding to growing public concern over student debt loads, economic and employment uncertainty, and the long-term ramifications being felt by students and their families.
These responses have not resulted in across-the-board fee reductions; provincial governments have largely preferred to go the route of directed assistance measures, either before (two-tiered fee structures or nearly-universal targeted grants or bursaries) or after-the-fact (tax credits, debt caps and loans forgiveness) directed at in-province students as part of a retention strategy, and to mitigate the poor optics of kids being priced out of their local universities. While this does impact in-province affordability, it undermines any commitment to universality because it creates a situation where the only students
who leave the province to pursue a degree are the ones who can afford to.
The increasing number of exceptions and qualifiers makes the system of university finance far more difficult to navigate, and makes it harder to compare provincial policies. Additionally, the system becomes much more unpredictable.
Financial assistance applied in this manner is anything but certain; programs can change or be eliminated at any time, while the only thing students can be relatively certain of is that fees will likely continue to increase.
INTRODUCTION
Policy-makers have invested in a range of strategies over the last several decades to reduce disparities in college entry and completion by family income. Historically, many of these interventions have focused on improving students’ academic readiness and increasing college affordability for low-income students and their families. i More recently, however, policy-makers and researchers have devoted increasing attention to how the accessibility and presentation of college information impacts whether students apply to college or for financial aid, and the college choices students make. A number of studies have documented, for instance, that students and families from disadvantaged backgrounds either do not know or tend to
substantially overestimate the actual cost of college tuition. Other research has documented how complexities in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) may deter many students who would qualify for substantial grant and loan assistance from even applying for financial aid A separate line of research suggests that a surprisingly large share of students who have sufficient high school achievement to attend academically-rigorous institutions often only apply to and enroll at essentially open-enrollment colleges and universities.
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.
Canada’s long-term prosperity depends on providing Canadians with the education and skills needed to participate fully in our economy, and on enhancing the ability of companies, particularly small-and- medium-sized enterprises, to become more productive and innovative.
The recommendations of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) focus on investments in education and skills training, infrastructure improvements and innovation and commercialization.
The weakening of the global recovery in 2012 and 2013 has further aggravated the youth jobs crisis and the queues for available jobs have become longer and longer for some unfortunate young jobseekers. So long, in fact, that many youth are giving up on
the job search. The prolonged jobs crisis also forces the current generation of youth to be less selective about the type of job they are prepared to accept, a tendency that was already evident before the crisis. Increasing numbers of youth are now turning to available part‐time jobs or find themselves stuck in temporary employment. Secure jobs, which were once the norm for previous generations – at least in the advanced economies – have become less easily accessible for today’s youth.
The global youth unemployment rate, estimated at 12.6 per cent in 2013, is close to its crisis peak. 73 million young people are estimated to be unemployed in 2013.1 At the same time, informal employment among young people remains pervasive and
transitions to decent work are slow and difficult. The economic and social costs of unemployment, long‐term unemployment,
discouragement and widespread low‐quality jobs for young people continue to rise and undermine economies’ growth potential.
This report was requested and partially funded by the University of Waterloo’s Centre for the Advancement of Co-operative Education (WATCACE), along with funding from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. It presents a customized analysis of findings from three surveys, undertaken in spring 2011 and spring 2012, to gather perspectives from graduating college and university students, postsecondary faculty, and Ontario employers on work-integrated learning (WIL) within a postsecondary program of study. The three surveys were funded by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) and conducted by Academica Group Inc., in partnership with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities (MTCU), the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation (MEDI), as well as 14 Ontario postsecondary institutions and a variety of student associations and other stakeholders. The surveys were designed to gain a better understanding of student, faculty, and employer experiences with WIL, including motivations and barriers to participation, and perceptions of challenges and benefits. The results presented in this report provide insights into the attitudes and opinions of students and faculty from the University of Waterloo and the Ontario employers most likely to hire University of Waterloo graduates.
Over the last decade, Ontario has had great success increasing high school graduation rates (5 year rates have improved from approximately 68% to 82%1), and sending more graduates on to university, college, or apprenticeships. But some students—Aboriginal, low-income, disabled, and those from the English-speaking Caribbean and Central and South America—still do not share equally in educational success.
Improved graduation rates stem largely from the province’s Student Success Strategy, which has created more caring,
motivating environments for students in grades 7 to 12, with focused support for at-risk learners and at key transitions.
Ontario has also expanded co-operative education, developed ways to make up components of failed courses through a
system known as “credit recovery,” created focused programs called Specialist High Skills Majors, and designed programs
that let students earn dual credits that count toward both their high-school diploma and a post-secondary diploma, degree or
certification.
If you’re interested in using technology tools to enhance your teaching, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the mountain of information out there. To make matters worse, much of it is either highly technical or simply not very practical for the college classroom.
Teaching with Technology: Tools and Strategies to Improve Student Learning approaches teaching technologies from your perspective — discussing what works, what doesn’t, and how to implement the best ideas in the best ways.
These articles were written by John Orlando, PhD, program director at Norwich University, as part of the Teaching with Technology column on Faculty Focus. You’ll find the articles are loaded with practical information as well as links to valuable resources. Articles in the report include:
• Using VoiceThread to Build Student Engagement
• Wikipedia in the Classroom: Tips for Effective Use
• Blogging to Improve Student Learning: Tips and Tools for Getting Started
• Prezi: A Better Way of Doing Presentations
• Using Polling and Smartphones to Keep Students Engaged
Whether the courses you teach are face-to-face, online, blended, or all of the above, this report
explains effective ways to incorporate technology into your courses to create a rich learning
experience for students, and a rewarding teaching experience for you.
Mary Bart
Editor
Faculty Focus
Abstract
This report presents the results of a study examining the experiences of students with disabilities who graduated from five Ontario colleges between 2007 and 2010. The five colleges were representative of four geographical areas (central, eastern, western and northern) and of differing sizes, from small to large. The study used administrative data obtained from each college’s disability service office to examine two groups: graduates with disabilities (GwD) and graduates without disabilities (GwoD). These groups were compared in order to determine whether GwD required a longer time to graduate than GwoD. Program and academic factors related to the length of time taken to complete the program, such as the type of disability and the use of accommodations and services, were examined. The results show that when graduates with disabilities are compared to a similar group of students without disabilities, they require slightly but significantly more time to graduate. In addition, regression models show that within the GwD population, the credential type, program area, type of disability and GPA score all influence whether a graduate takes extra time to complete his or her program.
Faculty and students may hold center stage in society’s image of higher education institutions, but a whole variety of influential behind-the scenes personnel are also essential to running institutions successfully. Faculty and staff alike bring knowledge and skills that often go beyond their current job descriptions. However, the wealth of talent on campus has traditionally been
difficult to identify, track and integrate with the institution’s present needs and long-term strategic plans.
Although education institutions are focused on learning outcomes, they are also businesses. Typically, only about half of the staff
are instructors. The rest are administrators, business professionals, support staff and operational titles. A well-run entity must have a way to track and manage relevant personnel data and competencies across all of these job types. To meet this need, colleges and universities are implementing an integrated system for performance and talent management. “Don’t think of talent management as an isolated topic,” says Dave Jones, organizational effectiveness specialist in the Housing and Food Services Division at Purdue University in Indiana. “It has to be part of the organization’s bigger picture in order to be successful.”
Think back to your first few years of teaching. If you’re like most educators, you probably ade your share of mistakes. To be sure, we all do things differently now than we did when we were first starting out. Thank goodness for that! When Faculty Focus put out a call for articles for this special report on teaching mistakes, we really didn’t know what to expect. Would faculty be willing to share their earlier missteps for all to see? Would the articles all talk about the same common mistakes, or would the range of
mistakes discussed truly reflect the complexities of teaching today?
We were delighted at the response, not only in terms of the number of instructors willing to share their stories with our readers, but by the variety of mistakes in the reflective essays. For example, in “You Like Me, You Really Like Me. When Kindness Becomes a Weakness,” Jolene Cunningham writes of her discovery that doing everything you can for your students is not
always the best policy.
In “If I Tell Them, They Will Learn,” Nancy Doiron-Maillet writes about her realization that it’s not enough to provide information to students if they don’t have opportunities to then apply what you are trying to teach them.
Other articles in Teaching Mistakes from the College Classroom include:
• When Expectations Collide
• Things My First Unhappy Student Taught Me
• Understanding My Role as Facilitator
• Don’t Assume a Student’s Previous Knowledge
• What Works in One Culture May Not Work in Another
We thank all the authors who shared their stories and know that the lessons learned will help
prevent others from making these same mistakes.
Mary Bart
Editor
Faculty Focus