There has been much discussion in the postsecondary education community about the importance of experiential learning as an innovative pedagogy and key path to smoothing the transition to the job market for graduates. Research indicates that when students can connect their experiences in the classroom to outside the classroom, engagement increases and the transition to […]
Category: Guest Bloggers
In April, I will have the privilege of facilitating a panel at HEQCO’s conference, Rethinking Access: when non-traditional is the new normal. The conference topic excites me because it speaks to the priorities that students have been highlighting for some time. For the past four years I’ve worked with student governments at Ontario universities. From […]
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Toni Morgan – Wow, Harvard! But How?
“Harvard is such a big goal. How did you do it?” Can I be honest here? I used to hate that question. Not that it’s a bad question. It’s just that open-ended questions about my life often result in a response that starts as an enlightened monologue about determination and chutzpah and quickly devolves into […]
Most of us can remember a conversation in which someone openly professes a dislike (or even hatred) of math, making statements such as, “I’m not a math person” or “I just don’t get math.” Our cultural dislike of math has become so mainstream that it has even infiltrated the toys that we give our children […]
Canadian higher education is entering a new age of “work-integrated” learning. More and more students are seeking a co-op placements, internships or other hands-on work experience as part of their postsecondary program. Long present at community colleges, universities are now also moving into this space, and policy makers are urging them to do more. The […]
Like a lot of parents, my mother worried that I would never find work with my undergraduate English degree. One line I especially hated to hear from her was “The jobs are all going away!” Now that I have spent a couple decades hiring people with humanities degrees, I think differently about what she said […]
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Alex Rappaport – Please don’t stop the music
Until a child turns 5 or 6, much of his or her learning happens through nursery rhymes and songs. One reason is that the human brain is effectively a sponge for music, meter and rhyme. Some studies even suggest that music was the foundation for language itself. Why then does music all but disappear from […]
There is a door in my house – maybe you have one of these too – that cannot be painted. In recent renovations, I had to explain to the workmen that the data on the door is too valuable and must be preserved. You may have guessed that the door in question is where we’ve […]
To say that the modern world moves at a rapid pace is reductive, if not a bit clichéd. Technology evolves almost by the day, leaving even the savviest techno connoisseur wondering if they really need another version of the same telephone. We race to keep up and then wait breathlessly for the next goal line […]