In 2005, the federal government introduced the Canada Learning Bond (CLB) to help lower-income families get a head start on saving money for their child’s postsecondary education. The CLB includes an initial payment of $500, followed by up to 15 annual payments of $100 (maximum payment of $2,000). Eligible families must open a Registered Education […]
Some high school math courses are very meaningful to specific career paths. Engineers need calculus, economists need analytical geometry and I am not sure who needs discrete geometry. But let’s consider the vast majority of career pathways. What math is most important to most careers? And are we ensuring that our students are achieving the […]
As a contract faculty member at an Ontario college, summers off is a luxury I can’t afford. But I’m eagerly awaiting my next spring/summer teaching contract, which trumps any vacation I might have planned (beyond the occasional weekend getaway). Why? In part because spring/summer teaching allows me to both pay my bills and hone my […]
Cue the tumble weeds, cowboys and whiskey-slinging saloons, and imagine a land that is both wild and full of potential. It’s the wild west of learning outcomes and like gold they are a hot commodity in an increasingly data-driven postsecondary sector. But there is still a great deal of unexplored territory – particularly in assessment. […]
From essays to learning portfolios, there’s a growing number of ways to assess learning outcomes. In the third HEQCO webinar on learning outcomes assessment in higher education, Lori Goff (manager of program enhancement at McMaster University) asked the audience, “Which types of assessments do you primarily use in your course?” and listed a variety of […]
Money talks. Ontario universities are dependent on revenue sources to deliver on their teaching and research missions. Government is a major revenue source, and has an obligation to drive public policy outcomes and exercise appropriate stewardship through its investment. And so the funding formula matters, for it is the mechanism through which an alignment of […]
Ontario is working to transform its postsecondary education system through differentiation – where institutions build on their individual strengths. One component of differentiation is the graduate to undergraduate ratio. The above graph displays the institutional spread of graduate level enrolment by province. Newfoundland & Labrador and Prince Edward Island are single university jurisdictions and therefore […]
Almost every year since 2002, international student enrolment has increased in Ontario’s publicly-funded colleges and universities. Although the university sector used to recruit the large majority of international students, the rate of college enrolment growth has generally surpassed that of universities in the past decade. In 2001, one in five international students attended college, but […]
When I finished my PhD in 2012, I had little idea of what I might do next. The immediate plan was to continue freelancing – I had a few clients for whom I did research and “virtual assistant”-like tasks. I didn’t feel particularly inclined to look for an academic job and in any case, the […]