In this special white paper based upon the Speak Up 2011 national !ndings, Project Tomorrow has partnered with DreamBox Learning to explore a new concept in the use of technology to personalize learning—intelligent adaptive learning™. With intelligent adaptive learning, every action that a student makes while working in a specially designed instructional technology software program is captured, including right and wrong answers, length of time in making decisions and the student’s individual decision-making strategies. The program typically analyzes about 48,000 pieces of information on a single student in a single hour to continuously adjust the student’s learning path. By synthesizing such fine=grained data, the program is able to continuously place students appropriately in lessons with the “just right” amount of difficulty, scaffolding, sequencing and hints, tailored especially to that student’s unique needs. The result is literally millions of individualized learning paths that ensure a high degree of personalized instruction for students as well as a wealth of assessment data that teachers can use to better tailor classroom instruction to their students.
While personalized learning as an important educational concept is not new, the ability to harness technological advancements as demonstrated with intelligent adaptive learning is a significant breakthrough concept for the classroom.
Much has been written about the challenges of teaching an online course. While not discounting
the unique (and sometimes frustrating) aspects of the online learning environment, it could be said that, despite the numerous differences, many of the same course management strategies that are essential to success in a traditional classroom also apply in the online classroom. These strategies include the importance of a strong syllabus, clear directions, well-organized materials, and timely feedback.
Of course, the big challenge for online instructors is that the very nature of online education amplifies the importance of properly addressing these management issues, while throwing a few more additional obstacles into the mix. Choosing the right communication tools and protocols, addressing technology problems, managing student expectations, and building community are just some of issues that can stretch online instructors to the breaking point.
11 Strategies for Managing Your Online Courses was created to help online instructors tackle many of the course management issues that can erode the efficiency and effectiveness of an online course. It features 11 articles pulled from the pages of Online Classroom, including:
• Syllabus Template Development for Online Course Success
• The Online Instructor’s Challenge: Helping ‘Newbies’
• Virtual Sections: A Creative Strategy for Managing Large Online Classes
• Internal or External Email for Online Courses?
• Trial by Fire: Online Teaching Tips That Work
• The Challenge of Teaching Across Generations
It’s important to keep in mind that you’re not the only one who may be a little anxious about going online. Students often have anxiety when taking their first online course. It’s up to you to help them feel more confident and secure, all the while keeping your workload at a manageable level. The course management tips in this report will help.
In the emerging knowledge-based economy, employers are requiring new levels of skill from labour market entrants. As employers’ expectations of postsecondary graduates increase, Ontario’s publicly funded colleges and universities are working to provide students with much of the knowledge, skills, and training needed for success in the community and in the changing workplace. As a result, there has been a movement within the postsecondary education (PSE) sector to provide a closer integration of learning and work as a strategy for workforce skills development (Fisher, Rubenson, Jones, & Shanahan, 2009).
In particular, work-integrated learning (WIL) programs such as co-operative education, internship, and apprenticeship are frequently endorsed as educational modes of delivery to support such integration.
Offering work-integrated learning experiences for students requires a significant investment of human and financial resources to be effective. Faculty in particular play an important role in designing, supporting, and implementing WIL opportunities for students. Despite a growing recognition of the essential role played by faculty, very little is known about their perceptions of and experiences with WIL. To shed light on this issue, this report provides the results of the WIL Faculty Survey conducted by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) in partnership with 13 Ontario postsecondary institutions.
The report is part of a broader multi-phase project being undertaken by HEQCO on WIL in Ontario’s PSE
sector.
The WIL Faculty Survey was designed to better understand faculty experiences with and perceptions of WIL as an element of postsecondary curriculum. Guided by a Working Group comprised of representatives from the 13 participating postsecondary institutions, the study sought to address four primary research questions:
1) How do faculty perceive the value and benefits of WIL to students, faculty members, and
postsecondary institutions?
2) Do faculty views about WIL differ by employment status, program, gender, years of teaching, previous employment experience, or their own past WIL experience?
3) How do faculty integrate students’ work experiences into the classroom?
4) What concerns do faculty have about introducing or expanding WIL opportunities in postsecondary institutions?
The survey instrument was developed in consultation with the Working Group and was pre-tested with 25 faculty members. The survey was administered online from March to May, 2011, with e-mail invitations to participate sent to 18,232 faculty from the 13 partner institutions (6,257 college faculty and 11,975 university faculty). In total, 1,707 college faculty and 1,917 university faculty completed the survey to an acceptable cut-off point, for an overall response rate of 19.9%.
Close to two-thirds of college faculty and roughly half of university faculty respondents reported having experience teaching in a program in which students participate in a co-op or apprenticeship. Fewer faculty had experience personally teaching a course with a WIL component, with 47.5% of college faculty and 28.9% of university faculty currently or previously having taught a course involving WIL. Among those who had taught a course with a WIL component, field placements were the most common type of WIL among college faculty, followed by mandatory professional practice (student placements required for licensure or professional designation). For university respondents, mandatory professional practice was the most common type of WIL taught, followed by applied research projects.
It’s 4 a.m. in Alaska — not a time when you expect many people, much less teenagers, to be awake. Yet, about 100 eager sophomore world history students are gathered in three high schools spread across the Kenai Peninsula on Alaska’s southern edge, excitedly looking at video screens mounted on their classroom walls. The teens are here to connect with students from the Arab Minority school in Nazareth, Israel. They are joined by students in schools in Louisiana and South Dakota.
For an hour, a moderator in Manhattan bounces the conversation back and forth, pinging questions from school to school as the students get to know a little more about each other and the different — and similar — worlds in which they live.
”It was so cool,” says Emily Evans, a 16-year-old in Greg Zorbas’ world history class at Kenai Central High School. The students from Israel ”thought so highly of us because we were from America.”
Now, says Evans, when the Middle East is a topic in school, ”it’s a lot more interesting. Before it was just, we’re reading a book on it and it’s not very real to us. But it’s real and you can see them and talk to them and see firsthand how it is. Now I pay more attention in history class.”
The videoconferencing session Evans and the other students experienced is the type of video communication that is becoming more common in education at all levels around the world, as the walls between classrooms disappear. This Center for Digital Education white paper shows how video collaboration is an essential part of the K-20 education environment that enables cost savings, engages students and creates a more productive learning experience. It prepares students with the skills to thrive in a future workforce that will depend on video collaboration technologies. Indeed, today’s video collaboration is rapidly moving from a ”nice to have” classroom enhancement to a ”must have” necessity.
Writing assignments, particularly for first- and second-year college students, are probably one of those items in the syllabus that some professors dread almost as much as their students do. Yet despite the fact that essays, research papers, and other types of writing assignments are time consuming and, at times, frustrating to grade, they also are vital to furthering student learning.
Of course part of the frustration comes when professors believe that students should arrive on campus knowing how to write research papers. Many do not. With as much content as professors have to cover, many feel they simply can’t take time to teach the research skills required to write a quality, college-level term paper. But as teaching professors who support the writing across the curriculum movement would tell you, improving students’ writing skills is everyone’s business, and carries with it many short- and long-term benefits for teachers and students alike. Further, many instructors are finding ways to add relevance to writing assignments by aligning them with the type of writing required in a specific profession as an alternative to the traditional, semester-long research paper.
This special report was created to provide instructors with fresh perspectives and proven strategies for designing more effective writing assignments. It features 11 articles from The Teaching Professor, including:
• Revising the Freshman Research Assignment
• Writing an Analytical Paper in Chunks
• Designing Assignments to Minimize Cyber-Cheating
• Chapter Essays as a Teaching Tool
• Writing (Even a Little Bit) Facilitates Learning
• How to Conduct a ‘Paper Slam’
While not every approach discussed in this special report will work for every course, every time, I invite you to identify a few that look appropriate for your courses, and implement them next semester. You just might be surprised by the results.
Check the backpack of any higher education student and you’re likely to find a smartphone. The handy handheld tool has long been a favorite of on-the-go college kids to remain on task through the use of calendaring; up-to-date with e-mail and Internet access; and ‘in the know’ by way of social media, IM and text messaging.
Mobile computing is mainstream. But despite its ubiquity in the personal lives of students — and the efficiencies it brings — mobile computing has not been utilized by the higher education community to enhance student learning and deliver content and resources with greater efficiency. Until now.
Identified as the No. 1 technology to watch for out of more than 110 technologies considered, the Horizon Report predicts that mobile computing will enter mainstream use for teaching and learning within the next 12 months. The set of teaching and learning activities that are well-suited to mobile devices continues to evolve rapidly as mobile devices and networks improve, educators and instructional designers develop innovative uses for those devices and networks as applied to education, and courses and curriculum are redesigned to take advantage of mobile computing as a delivery medium for blended and online programs.
Business programs in particular are poised to take advantage of the benefits mobile computing has to offer, with the following uses becoming commonplace in undergraduate business concentrations and MBA programs:
• Course registration and scheduling
Students can register for courses via mobile devices and view class schedules and calendars once enrolled. In addition, mobile devices provide the perfect platform for communicating last-minute changes to meeting times or places, as well as accessing other timely alerts.
• Access to assignments and course materials Students can access course content via learning management
systems, cloud computing solutions and shared portals.
Information and data can be uploaded, downloaded and revised.
• Collaboration on group projects
Group work is a substantial and critical component of business
school curriculum, and mobile computing enables teams of students to communicate and collaborate on projects across space and time.
• In-class polling
Some mobile device platforms are capable of running applications to support in-class polling, effectively eliminating the
need for standalone clicker systems in lecture halls.
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.
Higher education institutions are hubs of research and intellectual activity, employing experienced scholars and
schooling the future workforce. As such, they are also often the instigators of positive changes or shifts in the outside world around them. As climate change and pollution have become a reality and a threat to our nation’s future prosperity, higher education institutions have been proponents of green initiatives, often leading the way in environmental construction, practice and purchases.
In addition to protecting the environment, green practices can go a long way in helping schools operate more efficiently and cost-effectively — measures that are desperately needed during tight fiscal times. This paper will look at some of the green trends happening in higher education today as well as the practices — including strategically purchasing technology
— that colleges and universities can employ to lower costs, become more sustainable and help the environment.
Being Green in Hard Times
The recession and its attendant effects on the budgets of higher education institutions has understandably deterred
initiatives and projects proposed during flush economic times. However, green initiatives continue to be important in higher education — spurred on by backing from the federal government. President Obama has made clear his priorities of addressing climate change — in part by reducing greenhouse gases — and lowering energy consumption.
Colleges and universities are stepping up to the plate. The higher education sector is now the largest purchaser of wind energy in the U.S. and 500 schools have institution-wide sustainability or environmental committees. In addition, 300 campuses have conducted campus sustainability assessments, with hundreds more working to implement assessments.
Higher education leaders are demonstrating their dedication to environmentally sound practices and serving as an example to the private sector and the general public. The American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) is a network of over 650 college leaders who are working to eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions from specified campus operations and to promote research and education efforts of higher education to equip society to re-stabilize the Earth’s climate.
Community colleges are also working to be more sustainable despite difficult financial times. Results from the Center
for Digital Education’s 2010 Digital Community Colleges Survey showed that higher education institutions are continuing myriad efforts to put sustainable practices in place.
According to the survey:
• 54 percent of responding colleges have instruments to
measure energy efficiencies;
• 60 percent use e-waste recycling efforts and Earth-friendly
disposal; and
• 27 percent of responding community colleges are pursuing transparency about their carbon footprint — a 16 percent increase since last year.
ABSTRACT
As Canadian universities seek to attract more international students, there is a need to recognize and respond to the diversity within this group and to question the binary categories of domestic students and international students.
Relying primarily on 116 qualitative interviews with international undergraduates at the University of British Columbia, we utilize American students as a case study from which to explore the complex and blurred boundaries between these two categories. Americans resemble domestic students in some respects and international students in others, yet they are often less prepared to meet adaptational challenges because they have low expectations of cultural and institutional differences. We compare the experiences of Americans and international students from other countries, as well as other groups of students who fall between the cracks of the domestic and international student classifications. We argue that, by targeting services on the basis of these broad administrative categories, categories that were created for financial purposes, the university reduces the take-up of the very services students need.
RÉSUMÉ
À une époque où les universités canadiennes cherchent à attirer de plus en plus d’étudiants internationaux, il est nécessaire de reconnaître la diversité de ce groupe et d’agir en fonction de celle-ci. Cela demande de s’interroger sur la division binaire des étudiants entre les catégories « canadien » et « international ». En nous appuyant sur 116 entrevues qualitatives avec des étudiants internationaux en études de premier cycle à l’Université de la
Colombie-Britannique, nous entreprenons une étude de cas des étudiants américains, afin d’explorer la complexité et l’imprécision des frontières entre ces deux catégories. Sur certains points, le profil des étudiants américains est semblable à celui des étudiants canadiens, mais sur d’autres, il s’apparente plutôt à celui des étudiants internationaux. Pourtant, ces étudiants américains sont souvent moins prêts à faire face à des difficultés d’adaptation, car ils ne s’attendent pas à être confrontés à des différences culturelles et institutionnelles. Nous comparons les expériences des étudiants américains avec celles d’étudiants internationaux provenant d’autres pays, ainsi qu’avec celles d’autres groupes d’étudiants dont la situation ne correspond pas aux classifications « canadien » ou « international ». Nous soutenons que, quand les services d’aide ciblent les étudiants sur la base de vastes catégories administratives conçues pour des raisons financières, l’université contribue à limiter l’utilisation des services dont les étudiants ont précisément besoin.
High Enrollment Demands, Stretched Resources Higher education institutions are increasingly caught in a bind: Trying to serve growing enrollment demand with budgets based on the lower student counts of previous years. According to the Campus Computing Project’s 2011 Community Colleges and the Economy Survey, “More than two-thirds (69 percent) of the 448 campus presidents and district chancellors participating in the 2011 survey report increased headcount enrollment in winter 2011; concurrently,
three-fifths of the presidents participating in the survey report a reduction in the overall operating budget at their institution; two-fifths (41 percent) report that the budget cut was five percent or more.” This situation can lead to issues such as:
• over enrollments, especially in core courses, which creates a less-than-optimal and frustrating learning
experience for faculty and students;
• delayed graduation for students because of enrollment delays; and
• reduced retention rates as students seek other schools that can offer smaller class sizes and faster
degree completion.
Institutions typically can’t solve this problem by adding more sections to a class. They don’t have the budget to hire new faculty or support staff, and increased tuition revenues from higher enrollments may not cover the funding gap. Larger or overflow classroom space also may not be available, especially in an urban campus. From these factors, the core challenge emerges: How do campuses educate and graduate more students — with the same staff and classroom resources — while maintaining high learning levels and teaching standards?
Using Technology to Scale Classroom Instruction An emerging solution to this challenge is the use of blended learning curriculum design and lecture capture technology. This solution delivers courses through a mix of online and in-class content and participation.
Online lectures serve as the foundation of the blended learning model. The instructor can associate the lecture
video with online content and collaboration tools in order to deliver a complete learning experience to both on-campus and distance students. Availability of a recorded lecture can enable teaching and learning in multiple ways. For example, an inverted
teaching model is possible. Students watch a video lecture before the class, then arrive ready to discuss the lecture’s topic or work on a related activity.
By reviewing statistics on content access, instructors can identify where additional explanation is needed and
improve the content of the lecture or study materials.
Technology also helps instructors better serve students with special learning needs, using tools to create closed captioning of a video lecture and for compatibility with screen readers and other accessibility tools.
For students, the blended model delivers learning that is convenient and fits within their work schedules and
personal lives. They can access the lecture video and other content from a PC, tablet or smartphone, and from anywhere they can connect to the Internet.
How Blended Learning Helps Higher Education Technologies for delivering online access to classroom instruction offers several advantages for students, faculty,and their colleges and universities.
• Students can access the courses they need at the right time, increasing the likelihood they will graduate on
schedule. A clear, certain education path also increases student satisfaction and retention.
Executive Summary
This longitudinal mixed method study collected quantitative data from 151 students with Learning Disabilities (LD) and/or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD). Of these,117 students attended a combination of focus groups and personal interviews and shared their postsecondary education (PSE) experiences as persons with disabilities. The quantitative and qualitative data collection was carried out over two and a half years at the Centre for Students with Disabilities, which provides support and accommodations to college and university students within a shared campus environment at Durham College and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT).
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the educational quality of the existing student service programs designed to ensure PSE access for students with LD and/or ADHD, who are an under-represented and at-risk population. Specifically, the study set out to measure and explore the effect of the Summer Transition Program (STP) and enhanced services on promoting students’ engagement, academic performance and, ultimately, their ongoing success throughout PSE.
The Ministry’s STP funding is earmarked for students with LD. However, the Ministry recognizes that students with LD have high comorbid rates of AD/HD. The STP is offered prior to the commencement of the fall semester to give students with LD and/or ADHD a chance to learn evidence-based learning strategies, self-determination skills and the use of assistive
technologies that promote PSE success without the added pressure and demands of a PSE course load. The STP curriculum is delivered in August, in a classroom setting in the morning and in a computer lab in the afternoon. Each day has a specific theme and content is designed to enhance knowledge and skills, such as time management. LD-specific supports were found to improve student outcomes, and the ongoing enhanced supports were believed to ensure accessibility.
This study’s most optimistic finding was the positive association between attendance at the STP and use of enhanced services. The study’s findings demonstrate that the STP improves the quality of students’ transition to PSE by first facilitating an earlier intake requirement and then helping students acquire psychoeducational assessments. STP students complete this process before the academic year begins in September.
Students who did not attend STP (NSTP students) described an overall lengthier and more complicated intake process. Findings from this study demonstrate that the STP improves students’ orientation to campus, orientation to services, disability awareness and willingness to self-advocate. STP also promotes their use of student services. On the other hand, when examining the impact of the STP alone, there were no differences between STP and NSTP students in their likelihood of earning a GPA above 2.0 for any of the first five semesters. The sample groups were self-selected or parentally selected. This sample selection could not be controlled for due to ethical reasons and the limited sample size; this may have decreased the measurable effect. A combination of the two programs was found to enhance academic performance.
One-to-one computing is getting a boost from an emerging technology model that combines cloud computing with easy-to-manage laptops called Web clients. The result: Some school districts say technology is finally shedding its disruptive impact on classrooms.
A revolution is occurring in our nation’s schools, and it’s all about the role of technology and the shift from paper and textbooks to digital content. Smartphones,laptops, tablets, e-readers, social media and interactive whiteboards are infiltrating classrooms and changing the way learning happens. Technology makes school fun for kids and inspires collaboration, creativity and selfdirected learning. Apple’s iPad textbook announcement in early 2012 will undoubtedly encourage a new level of innovation, with follow-on offerings from other high-tech companies and publishers.
In many school districts, this revolution is more of an evolution — but digital teaching is where our future is headed; how you plan to get there could make all the difference in the results for your faculty and students. The right strategy incorporates not only adopting the optimal content providers and hardware platforms for your student population, but devising an A to Z approach for the underlying technology infrastructure.
This paper will discuss how this digital shift at K-12 schools and community colleges will impact IT decisions, particularly as it relates to wireless networks. Wireless technology is quickly evolving to better meet the needs of schools from a cost, functionality and management perspective.
Importantly, the right wireless strategy helps schools successfully deliver on the promise of digital education.
Higher education leaders have many opportunities today to make changes that can profoundly alter the learning
environments they provide students. The digital revolution and rise in the use of both wireless networks and mobile
computing devices promise a new paradigm in education, one in which students and faculty need anywhere, anytime access to the network; where learning can be more personalized and customized; where students are more engaged; where remote learning opportunities are optimized; and where collaboration between all stakeholders becomes much easier to achieve.
Institutions of higher learning, including public and private universities, community colleges and technical schools, are increasingly turning to digital learning approaches. Higher education students expect a more socially engaging and collaborative learning experience and new technology is enabling these opportunities that were once difficult to imagine. The Center for Digital Education’s 2011 Digital Community Colleges Survey found that 92 percent of respondents have expanded distance learning offerings for online, hybrid and Web-assisted courses over the past year. A survey of adult students also found that 33 percent cited blended courses (courses that are part online and part in the classroom) as their preferred learning format. However, layered on top of these digital opportunities are significant budget pressures and rising enrollment rates. Traditional funding sources — like grants and donations — are under tremendous strain, forcing administrators to consider tuition hikes and reduced course offerings, along with other undesirable cost-cutting measures. Along with these budget pressures, colleges and universities are experiencing an increased demand on IT resources,
including registrations systems, financial aid delivery, help desk support, mobility management, and online/selfservice applications.
The challenge that the higher education community faces is how to reduce complexity and costs within their infrastructure and maximize existing resources at a time when funding is in short supply. Colleges and universities need to reduce costs while ensuring they are providing staff and students with technology that enhances learning and leads to improved student success.
Some campuses are solving this problem by streamlining and simplifying their existing IT infrastructure. Improving what’s already in place not only saves money, but also makes it easier to enhance student learning and achievement using today’s technological tools. Here’s a look at how this is possible.
In the emerging knowledge-based economy, employers are requiring new levels of skill from labour market entrants. As employers’ expectations of postsecondary graduates increase, Ontario’s publicly funded colleges and universities are working to provide students with much of the knowledge, skills, and training needed for success in the community and in the changing workplace. As a result, there has been a movement within the postsecondary education (PSE) sector to provide a closer integration of learning and work as a strategy for workforce skills development (Fisher, Rubenson, Jones, & Shanahan, 2009).
In particular, work-integrated learning (WIL) programs such as co-operative education, internship, and apprenticeship are frequently endorsed as educational modes of delivery to support such integration. Offering work-integrated learning experiences for students requires a significant investment of human and financial resources to be effective. Faculty in particular play an important role in designing, supporting, and implementing WIL opportunities for students. Despite a growing recognition of the essential role played by faculty, very little is known about their perceptions of and experiences with WIL. To shed light on this issue, this report provides the results of the WIL Faculty Survey conducted by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) in partnership with 13 Ontario postsecondary institutions.
The report is part of a broader multi-phase project being undertaken by HEQCO on WIL in Ontario’s PSE sector.
The WIL Faculty Survey was designed to better understand faculty experiences with and perceptions of WIL as an element of postsecondary curriculum. Guided by a Working Group comprised of representatives from the 13 participating postsecondary institutions, the study sought to address four primary research questions:
1) How do faculty perceive the value and benefits of WIL to students, faculty members, and postsecondary institutions?
2) Do faculty views about WIL differ by employment status, program, gender, years of teaching, previous employment experience, or their own past WIL experience?
3) How do faculty integrate students’ work experiences into the classroom?
4) What concerns do faculty have about introducing or expanding WIL opportunities in postsecondary institutions?
The survey instrument was developed in consultation with the Working Group and was pre-tested with 25 faculty members. The survey was administered online from March to May, 2011, with e-mail invitations to participate sent to 18,232 faculty from the 13 partner institutions (6,257 college faculty and 11,975 university faculty). In total, 1,707 college faculty and 1,917 university faculty completed the survey to an acceptable cut-off point, for an overall response rate of 19.9%. Close to two-thirds of college faculty and roughly half of university faculty respondents reported having experience teaching in a program in which students participate in a co-op or apprenticeship. Fewer faculty had experience personally teaching a course with a WIL component, with 47.5% of college faculty and 28.9% of university faculty currently or previously having taught a course involving WIL. Among those who had taught a course with a WIL component, field placements were the most common type of WIL among college faculty, followed by mandatory professional practice (student placements required for licensure or professional designation). For university respondents, mandatory professional practice was the most common type of WIL taught, followed by applied research projects.
A New Model for Effective Teaching
How might education change if classrooms become places of active learning, not just passive listening? Higher education students are already active learners, using e-books, Web content, and social media to explore and discover in their daily lives. But what happens when these students go to the classroom, especially for high-enrollment courses? They sometimes experience the curiosity-stifling thud of having to listen to and take notes on a lecture, with its mostly one-way communication format. And with limited opportunities for Q&A during the class session and no ability to review the lecture content later to study a difficult concept, it’s no wonder students may become discouraged and disengaged.
This traditional learning model won’t cut it with students who are accustomed to active learning, either on their own or in small groups of classmates. Students increasingly expect a classroom experience that helps them develop knowledge for themselves, not just passively receive one-dimensional information. Students want to do something meaningful with content instead of just listening to a lecture. They also expect to meet with discussion groups and project teams and
do much of their assigned work during class time instead of meeting separately.
Another factor that is playing a role in student perceptions: the value gained from education in a tough economy. Instructors need to make education worth a student’s investment of time and money by ensuring the classroom experience is productive and meaningful. These expectations are leading higher education toward “flipped” classrooms and a learning model that blends online and in-class learning. Respondents to the Center for Digital Education’s 2011 Community Colleges Survey indicated the majority of their students enroll in online or blended courses and that more than two-thirds of online courses used some type of online collaboration tools to promote learning.
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.
Background: Suicide is the second leading cause of death for young Canadians (10–19 years of age) — a disturbing trend that has shown little improvement in recent years. Our objective was to examine suicide trends among Canadian children and adolescents.
Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of standardized suicide rates using Statistics Canada mortality data for the period spanning from 1980 to 2008. We analyzed the data by sex and by suicide method over time for two age groups: 10–14 year olds (children) and 15–19 year olds (adolescents). We quantified annual trends by calculating the average annual percent change (AAPC).
Results: We found an average annual decrease of 1.0% (95% confidence interval [CI] –1.5 to –0.4) in the suicide rate for children and adolescents, but stratification by age and sex showed significant variation. We saw an increase in suicide by suffocation among female children (AAPC = 8.1%, 95% CI 6.0 to 10.4) and adolescents (AAPC = 8.0%, 95% CI 6.2 to 9.8). In addition, we noted a decrease in suicides involving poisoning and firearms during the study period.
Interpretation: Our results show that suicide rates in Canada are increasing among female children and adolescents and decreasing among male children and adolescents. Limiting access to lethal means has some potential to mitigate risk. However, suffocation, which has become the predominant method for committing suicide for these age groups, is not amenable to this type of primary prevention.
This article examines the relationship between community colleges and universities in Canada and the United States based on increased involvement of community colleges in offering baccalaureate programs. The article employs a theoretical framework borrowed from the study of jurisdictional conflict between professions. After considering the types of possible and occurring jurisdiction settlement over baccalaureate preparation between universities and community colleges, the author concludes that the older, simplistic criterion—based on credentials awarded—that defined the division of labor between postsecondary sectors should be replaced with newer, more complex and multifaceted criteria that relate to program and client characteristics.
In the 1990s, in both the United States and Canada, small but increasing numbers of community colleges began to award the baccalaureate (Floyd, Skolnik, & Walker, 2005). As of October, 2010, according to Russell (2010), 54 community colleges in
18 states had received approval to offer a total of 465 four-year degree programs; up from 21 institutions in 11 states offering 128 programs just six years earlier. Community colleges in four of Canada’s five largest provinces, accounting for two thirds of the population, are now eligible to award the baccalaureate, and 32 colleges are offering 135 baccalaureate programs.1 The surge in community college baccalaureate activity allegedly occurred in response to two related pressures. One is a general increase in the demand for improved opportunities for people to attain a baccalaureate both for their own benefit and for the benefit of society (Clark, Moran, Skolnik, & Trick, 2009; Lumina Foundation for Education, 2009; National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2006). The other is the increased demand for a particular
type of baccalaureate, what has been called the applied, or workforce-focused, baccalaureate (Floyd & Walker, 2009; Skolnik, 2005; Townsend, Bragg, & Ruud, 2009; Walker & Floyd, 2005). Underlying the increase in demand for the baccalaureate and the growth of the community college baccalaureate in particular are economic pressures
associated with global competition (Levin, 2004).
Attempts by community colleges to obtain the authority to award the baccalaureate have in nearly all cases been opposed by universities and have injected a significant new competitive element into the relationship between community colleges and universities. For example, in Florida, the community college baccalaureate generated “significant concerns” about competition with universities (Russell, 2010, p. 5), and in Michigan, the attempt by community colleges to get authorization to award bachelor’s degrees has “stirred tensions between community colleges and universities” (French, 2010, p. 4A). In Ontario, there has been open conflict over territory between the universities and community colleges since the colleges obtained the authority to award baccalaureate degrees (Urquhart, 2004), and in British Columbia, the baccalaureate in nursing has become contested territory between community colleges and universities (Chapman & Kirby, 2008). To date, there have not been any in-depth studies of the impact that awarding baccalaureate degrees by community colleges has had on their relationship with universities or on the perceptions of stakeholders from both sectors about the magnitude of any resulting problems. Still, the examples just cited suggest that this might be a fruitful area for investigation. These examples suggest also that the impact on the relationship between community colleges and universities should be an
important consideration in state and provincial policy making regarding the community college baccalaureate.
Keywords
community college baccalaureate, interinstitutional relationships, professional jurisdiction,
universities
The professional development of new university instructors has received considerable investments of resources at Canadian universities, but the impact of these efforts has only rarely been evaluated or studied. Universities in Ontario have witnessed and participated in the formation of teaching and learning units responsible for professional development of academics since the mid-1980s (Landolfi, 2007). These units have been responsible for the development of programs to address the pedagogical needs of university instructors, with the goal of making them more effective (Ibid.).
In situations of decreased availability of funding, individual university support for central teaching and learning units has oscillated. This has often required that they operate with inadequate financial support and a minimal number of full-time employees. Currently, the four smallest units in Ontario universities operate with only one to three staff members.
While the formal training of postsecondary educators and the issue of enforcing mandatory training of academic teaching staff has been broadly accepted in colleges for years (see volume 2 of this report which will follow in 2012), the same issue has recently been discussed more frequently among universities as well at the level of teaching professionals and policy makers, with intense controversy on either side of the debate.
New Faculty Orientations (NFOs) – an induction program for newly hired faculty members at the beginning of their teaching careers – vary widely in the content delivered across different Ontario universities. While some simply provide a general introduction to a particular university’s settings, and/or a list of local resources for the new faculty members to choose and use as they see fit, others focus on specific teaching skills and organize a series of sessions, which explore a variety of teaching and learning issues and strategies.
Surprisingly, of the 20 institutions surveyed there are only two Ontario universities that still do not organize NFOs for new teaching staff even though they have established teaching and learning centres. In these instances, new faculty members receive a general orientation provided by the President’s Office and Faculty Recruitment departments, as well as their faculties. Other findings from this study include the following:
• The majority of Ontario universities (72 per cent) include both contract instructors and full-time faculty members in their orientation sessions.
• Only in two Ontario universities is orientation mandatory for all newly hired faculty members. In other institutions where NFO attendance is voluntary, participation varies from 40 per cent to 85 per cent.
• In terms of the cost of new faculty orientation, data differ from institution to institution, with a few
institutions spending a modest amount of $1,000 and others (the minority) spending about $35,000 on NFOs per annum.
The top five separate sessions that are typically included for NFOs at Ontario universities are, in this order:
a) greetings/conversation with VP Academic Provost,
b) academic policies and procedures,
c) classroom teaching management methods,
d) teaching with technology, and
e) a panel/discussion with experienced faculty members.