George Brown College building capacity in critical thinking Following on a three-year exploration of critical thinking skills , George Brown College has developed an assessment rubric and handbook to help other institutions explicitly incorporate critical thinking skills into their curriculum and improve the consistency of assessment. The authors of the study , Building Capacity to Measure […]
Tag: Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcomes
In my last blog, I argued that the quality of a postsecondary education could be measured by the degree to which it met academic requirements or needs. I also argued that one non-negotiable and essential requirement or need of a postsecondary education is that students receive an education that equips them with the knowledge and […]
When I started working at the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) I asked the obvious question, given the title of the organization: What is quality? I became even more invested in this question when I discovered that the legislation that created HEQCO required us to advise the government on the quality of Ontario’s […]
It isn’t exactly news that skills matter. A centrepiece of Ontario government policy are recommendations from its Highly Skilled Workforce panel that promote the importance of skills in the province’s future economy. The federal finance minister’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth recently recommended the creation of a national, independent agency — the FutureSkills Lab —dedicated […]
Recently, the federal finance minister’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth recommended the creation of a national organization — the FutureSkills Lab — to serve as a laboratory for the development and measurement of skills. This proposed laboratory represents a significant and progressive advance that can increase Canada’s global competitiveness and offer its citizens the economic […]
These are the words of former US President Dwight Eisenhower about how one plans for battle. One reason “I like Ike” is that his words capture HEQCO’s philosophy of planning. He understood that plans are useless when they get too specific, try to predict the future with certainty, and prompt fights over every comma in […]
This week, we released a study examining the relationship between the supply of graduates from six regulated professions – medicine, law, teaching, architecture, engineering, nursing – and the labour demand for these graduates. The historical evidence provided in that analysis is clear – we never get it right! We either oversupply or undersupply. This conclusion […]
Infographic Canadian colleges , universities use similar learning-outcomes assessment practices Despite substantial differences between the Canadian university and college sectors , their thoughts and practices surrounding learning outcomes assessments are surprisingly similar , concludes a new report from the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO). The Landscape of Learning Outcomes Assessment in Canada finds that both […]
To gain a better understanding of current learning outcomes assessment practices used across Canada, we surveyed provosts and VP academics in colleges and universities. This infographic highlights some of our key findings. Click here for the full report. University | College