Changing Gears in the Assessment Cycle

There is an ongoing need to prepare postsecondary educators to use not only 21st century assessment tools but also 21st andragogy/pedagogy that meets the needs of all 21st century learners. This chapter reviews those issues, reviews different aspects and approaches to assessment, and proposes an encompassing assessment framework for culturally responsive, authentic, reflective, ethical, formative, universal, and learner-focused (CAREFUL) assessment. The chapter contextualizes these approaches in faculty development (FDEV) to help “change gears” using data from a FDEV opportunity at a midsized, comprehensive university. The chapter provides several examples of CAREFUL assessment and a discussion of how FDEV can improve student learning and experiences.

Responding to COVID-19: Contextual, Pedagogical, and Experiential Considerations from Canadian Northern Postsecondary Educators

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the closure of face-to-face classes in a northern Canadian college in March 2020. Educators and staff went into rapid response mode to continue teaching and supporting students from a distance. Critical reflections were written by the authors to summarize their responses to teaching and learning during the early phases of the pandemic. These reflections were themed, considered individually and collectively, then analyzed and synthesized. In this paper, critical reflection is used as an educational process within the context of critical constructivism and transformative paradigms. We share how teaching during the pandemic solidified our commitment to students and cemented our critical pedagogy by thinking and acting critically to assist students with this disruption in their education. Equipped with these capabilities, educators are empowered to work with students to problem solve and transform our educative lives for a just society. An inter-professional opportunity across programs, spurred by the pandemic, meets organizational strategic directions and fosters a promising relationality. Increased territorial and local technological supports and internal professional development is needed to solidify the immense prospects for distance education as the College transitions to a polytechnic university.

Preparing a Workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution

This chapter explores the education required for the fourth Industrial Revolution to prepare the workforce for an economy increasingly disrupted by globalization and technological innovations such as artificial intelligence. It suggests that integrating career-oriented and liberal education, an education of both hard and soft skills, will best prepare students for an economy that will create jobs not yet imagined. The rapidly changing economy will require postsecondary educational institutions to provide lifelong-learning programs to assist students of varying ages to acquire new skills. The chapter looks back at history to see how the country responded to workforce disruptions from past industrial revolutions to gain insights into ways to create educational programs to respond to today’s challenges. The chapter also suggests a much closer relationship between postsecondary educators and employers to bridge the skills gap.

Reconsidering College Student Employability: A Cultural Analysis of Educator and Employer Conceptions of Workplace Skills

In this research article, Ross J. Benbow and Matthew T. Hora explore the employability narrative, a view that focuses on whether colleges and universities provide students with the skills they need to be productively employed after graduation. Using sociocultural theory to problematize this narrative and qualitative methods to fore-ground the experiences of postsecondary educators and employers, the authors investigate conceptions of essential workplace skills in biotechnology and manufacturing fields. Their results show that though work ethic, technical knowledge, and technical ability represent core competencies valued across these communities, considerable variation exists in how members of different disciplinary and occupational subgroups value and conceptualize important skills. They found that respondents' conceptions of skills were also strongly tied to geography and organizational culture, among other contextual factors. With these results in mind, the authors conclude that skills are best viewed as multifaceted and situated assemblages of knowledge, skill, and disposition—or cultural models—and urge the adoption of more nuanced views among educators, employers, and policy makers that take into account the cultural and contextual forces that shape student success in the workplace.

Expanding the Scope of Universal Design: Implications for Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation

This article encourages postsecondary educators to expand the scope of applications of universal design and universal instructional design by exploring how principles of UD and UID can be applied to other social identities, and specifically to gender identity and sexual orientation. There are many parallels that can be drawn between students who are excluded because of their disability and students who are marginalized on the basis of nonconforming gender identity or sexual orientation. It is important that faculty and staff understand intersectionality and interdependence among social identities and consider what steps they can take to apply UID principles in ways that consider multiple aspects of identity in order to provide inclusive educational experiences for all students. Scenarios for further discussion are provided.

Learning Styles: Academic Fact or Urban Myth? A Recent Review of the Literature

While advocates of learning styles have suggested postsecondary educators and learning support programs match instruction to students’ learning styles to enhance learning, past decades of research criticize educator’s co-option of and disprove researchers’ efforts to prove learning styles’ existence and worth as a valid construct. The author examines numerous research articles that have challenged the efficacy of learning styles based on empirically provable evidence. The author also cites how the learning styles paradigm continues to be used in the field of postsecondary learning assistance. The author concludes that instead of promoting learning styles, educators should instruct learners on the intentional use of learning strategies.

Educator perspectives on the postsecondary transition difficulties of students with autism

Addressing the challenges of adolescents and emerging adults with autism spectrum disorder is crucial to improving the outcomes of these students in the postsecondary setting. Although secondary and postsecondary educators and staff are critical to helping these students access services, there has been little investigation into the perspectives of this stakeholder group, with respect to the needs of postsecondary students with autism spectrum disorder. A series of focus groups was conducted with secondary and postsecondary educators to understand educator perspectives related to the challenges faced by postsecondary students with autism spectrum disorder. Competence, autonomy and independence, and the development and sustainment of interpersonal relationships emerged as primary areas of difficulty and corresponding need. Results suggest that targeted interventions addressing these areas should be implemented, prior to and during enrollment in a postsecondary setting, to facilitate transition in a comprehensive manner.

Racial Attitudes of PreK–12 and Postsecondary Educators: Descriptive Evidence From Nationally Representative Data

PreK–12 and postsecondary educators’ racial attitudes have important consequences for students’ learning and development, yet we know little about educators’ racial attitudes overall, how their attitudes might differ from those of noneducators, or how attitudes might be changing over time. I investigate these questions using the nationally representative General Social Survey. Some educators hold worrisome racial attitudes, yet compared to noneducators, educators are less opposed to governmental equalizing efforts, give more politically liberal explanations for racial inequalities, express less negative racial stereotypes, and report less social distance and collective resentments toward minoritized groups. Many educator/noneducator differences were explained by demographics, particularly education level. Time trends mostly show progress in Americans’ racial attitudes, with generally similar trends for educators and noneducators.