Review: Accelerated Opportunity Education Models and Practices

a review

Partners in learning?: A qualitative study of the intimate relationships of partnered mature students in post-secondary education

Mature students in post-secondary education face unique challenges negotiating both academic and familial responsibilities beyond those of their traditional-aged peers. The current study examined the bidirectional influences between intimate relationships and post-secondary study. Twenty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with heterosexual, cisgender, partnered, mature students attending various universities in southern Ontario, Canada. Through a thematic analysis, the research indicated that school had a number of negative impacts on mature students’ relationships; however, there were also some positive impacts. Intimate relationships were also described to have an impact on academic success. Mature students with supportive partners described being able to focus on school and perform better, while students with less supportive partners described difficulties allotting the amount of time to school that was required. Recommendations are made for post-secondary educational institutions to acknowledge the unique challenges faced by partnered mature learners and offer targeted support services.

Editorial - The End of an Era

The End of an Era

Review: Adult and Lifelong Education: Global, National and Local perpectives

a Review

‘It’s an adjustment’: The experiences of stay-at-home mothers in graduate teacher education programs

It is important that teacher education programs be aware of their students’ lives and experiences both inside and outside of the classroom. This is especially true in the case of students who are also stay-at-home mothers who are trying to balance the demands of their personal and professional lives and to adjust to the differing expectations for each. This study was designed to explore the experiences of 10 stay-at-home mothers who decided to return to school to become teachers. Results indicate that the students felt that motherhood helped them to be more tolerant and understanding, but that it was often difficult to balance their dual roles of mother and student. Implications for graduate teacher education programs and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Review: Prioritizing Academic Programs and Services: reallocating resources to acheive strategic balance

a review

New Immigrant Health Professional’s Individual, Societal and Economic Impact of Ryerson University’s Internationally Trained Medical Doctors (ITMDs) Bridging Program: Results from a Pilot Bridge Training Program at the Chang School of Continuing Education

Although Canada is home to a large number of internationally educated health professionals, their skills and experiences are grossly underutilized in the Canadian healthcare landscape. Barriers to medical practice are pervasive, and as a result the majority of internationally trained medical doctors (ITMDs) work in “survival” jobs significantly below their skill level. The pilot ITMD Bridging Program was developed to provide an alternative path for ITMDs by providing the skills and competencies required for non-licensed health sector employment, ultimately aiming to improve integration of ITMDs into the Canadian workforce. This secondary research evaluates the ITMD Bridging Program by assessing the impact of the program at both individual and societal levels.Qualitative and quantitative data were used to evaluate the individual and societal impact of the program. Secondary data from participants’ entry and exit surveys, as well as key informant interviews conducted with ITMDs upon program completion were used for the analysis. The economic impact of the program and its overall utility to the economy of Ontario were assessed through literature review and social rate of return analysis.ITMDs program participants reported substantial improvements in skills related each of the core courses including health research methods, health informatics and data management, fundamentals of project management, as well as healthcare professionals communication and leadership skills. ITMDs also perceived the program to be a viable option to address human potential waste, enhance the economy, develop individual capacity building, and alleviate frustrations associated with labour market exclusion. The program is also economically viable at the societal level, and represents a rate of return of 6.52%.The ITMD Bridging Program has demonstrated that providing non-licensed health sector employment is a viable option for policymakers to consider in their efforts to address the current brain waste in the Ontario healthcare sector. Bridging programs similar to the ITMD Bridging Program have the capacity to impact individual outcomes of ITMDs, the economic landscape in Ontario, and Canada at large.

An Intercultural Curriculum in a Leadership in Community Engagement Program: Linking Theory and Practice

Student diversity in Canadian universities is rapidly increasing, and faculty and curriculum developers are challenged to transform programs and pedagogies to meet the learning needs of diverse students. While universities across Canada are actively attending to the need for interculturality and diversity in undergraduate education, this same need exists in continuing education units that serve diverse populations of adult learners. This paper explores the intercultural curricular experience in the context of adult education in two ways: (i) literature that reviews key terms and concepts related to culture, interculturality, and learning, and (ii) examples of intercultural learning based on a certificate program called Leadership in Community Engagement offered by the Centre for Continuing Education at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Recommendations for those working in adult and continuing education who strive for respectful and meaningful intercultural learning are also offered.

Book Review: Resilient Universities: Confronting Changes in a Challenging World

This collection of essays, in Resilient Universities: Confronting Changes in a Challenging World, provides a concise and in-depth overview of the current pressures facing institutions of higher education in light of a perceived paradigm shift in North America as well as Europe.

Methodologies for Teaching English to Adult Students in Spanish Vocational Education Programs

This paper explores strategies used by teach- ers of English in Spain to compensate for learning limitations associated with student age. As part of a qualitative study of multiple cases, twenty teachers from different voca- tional programs volunteered to participate in semi-structured interviews. The interviews revealed the difficulties that older Spanish adult students experience in learning Eng- lish in age-diverse classrooms. The findings specifically indicate that older adult learners face numerous obstacles in oral compre- hension and language production because of the translation and grammatical method- ologies with which they were educated. A further obstacle is their younger classmates’ linguistic superiority. Special attention is paid to the methodologies used by teachers of age-diverse groups, including material speci- ficity, real-life practice, repetition and system- atization, skill-oriented tasks, and collabora- tive or cooperative learning.