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Category: Teaching & Learning

Re-Imagining an Arts Curriculum

Basically, Canadian higher education programs can be divided into two types.  First, are programs that must be accredited, and where graduates’ ability to work in their field is tied to accreditation (e.g. Law, Medicine, Engineering).  These programs start with desired outcomes, and work backwards to make sure that graduates have the skills required to meet professional certification.  Second, there are the Arts and Sciences, which more closely resemble a free-for-all, in which curriculum is driven at least as much by

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May 20, 2014 4 Comments

The MOOC Conversation We Should Have (But Won’t)

In all the hype and backlash about MOOCs, it seems that we forgot to have a really important conversation about what MOOCs actually tell us about traditional higher education. The thing that freaked absolutely everybody out (some positively, some negatively) about MOOCs was the idea that a single instructor could teach tens of thousands of students around the world, simultaneously.  “Oh my God”, people panicked/enthused, “what will happen to the university once content is available freely everywhere”.  Well, not much,

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May 5, 2014 4 Comments

Teaching Loads, Fairness, and Productivity

It’s been a long time since I’ve been as disappointed by an article on higher education as I was by the Star’s coverage of the release of the new HEQCO paper on teaching and research productivity.  A really long time. If you haven’t read the HEQCO paper yet, do so.  It’s great.  Using departmental websites, the authors (Linda Joncker and Martin Hicks) got a list of people teaching in Economics, Chemistry, and Philosophy at ten Ontario universities.  From course calendars, Google

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March 13, 2014 16 Comments

Could We Eliminate Sessionals if We Wanted To?

Last week, when I was writing about sessionals, I made the following statement: “Had pay levels stayed constant in real terms over the last 15 years, and the surplus gone into hiring, the need for sessionals in Arts & Science would be practically nil”. A number of you wrote to me, basically calling BS on my statement.  So I thought it would be worthwhile to show the math on this. In 2001-02, there were 28,643 profs without administrative duties in

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March 10, 2014 6 Comments

Sessionals

The plight of sessional lecturers (or, as they call them in the US, “adjuncts”) is possibly the only issue in higher education that generates even more overblown rhetoric than tuition fees.  Any time people start evoking slavery as a metaphor, you know perspective has flown the coop. Though data on sessional numbers in Canada are non-existent, no one disputes that their numbers are rising, and that they are becoming an increasingly central part of major universities’ staffing plans.  In large

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March 6, 2014 15 Comments

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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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