Welcome

The purpose of this blog is to help facilitate the development of Mohawk College's Academic Plan. Below you will find eleven proposed themes that are the result of an extensive consultation process that ran throughout 2011. 

We are looking for your comments on each theme relative to the following questions:

• At the Themes/Strategies level, did we miss anything that should be considered really, really important?
• Similarly, is there anything there that really isn’t all that important and could come out?
• How might we build on and strengthen the strategies for each theme?
• How might we word them in such a way that they are easy to understand while remaining “bold”? Can a non-college person understand our plan?
• What might be the actions that we need to support each of the strategies?
• What are the measures we need to motivate us towards achieving the actions that are both simple and highly effective?

All feedback (including face-to-face and online) will be consolidated and used to create a final draft of the Academic Plan in February 2012. We will then validate the plan with internal and external stakeholders before approving the final version this spring.

Thanks for your participation in the process!

Themes - Other Comments

For the themes listed below, did we miss anything that should be considered really, really important?

Is there anything there that really isn't all that important and could come out?

Recruitment

Strategies:

• Mohawk College will continue to improve access to education, particularly for students that face barriers to post-secondary education.
• Mohawk College will provide academic programming to attract a diverse student body, including direct-entry, mature students, job re-training or upgrading and general interest courses.

Actions:

• Support to improve student career clarity
• Identify, build and innovate within the health and technology “reputation builders” then scale.

Measures:

Dan's Commentary:

• The career (un)clarity piece was mentioned in  several of the sessions. Think we need to be more specific in terms of what supports to help this.

Global Citizenship

Strategies:

• Mohawk College embrace and enhance the diversity of our staff and student communities. 
• Mohawk will enable our students to develop global citizenship skills through International education opportunities.

Actions:

• Need something around International?

Measures:

Dan's Commentary:

• There was a suggestion that we rename this “Social Inclusion” – thoughts?
• This is very important – needs a lot of work under Actions.

Resource Mobilization

Strategies:

• Mohawk College will stress flexibility, interactivity and outcomes. Mohawk College will mobilize resources to enable networked learning and promote innovation in the classroom.

Actions:

• Mohawk will provide the technology, facility and human resources and structures that will enable collaboration and networked learning.
• Academic Program scorecard to measure outcomes

Measures:

Dan's Commentary:

• Not sure that we need this? If we do, how do we make this section more “useful”.

Lifelong Learning

Strategies:

• Mohawk College will embrace and value lifelong learning

Actions:

• Mohawk will integrate Post-Secondary and Continuing Education courses and programs, with the goal of maximizing flexibility for students.
• Resource and Support CE

Measures:

Dan's Commentary:

• Lots of work needed here
• How do we enable and motivate lifelong learning?
• This was another big theme heard in the consultation sessions.

Industry Partnerships

Strategies:

• Stay current and connected by working closely with Industry partners.

Actions:

• Mohawk will require instructors to collaborate with industry to stay current and will support them in doing that. i.e. Faculty-Industry Work Exchanges 
• Formalize faculty return-to-industry to stay current
• Mohawk will involve industry in assessment practices.

Measures:

Dan's Commentary:

• This is very important but right now is “weak” – need to strengthen the strategies.
• Consultation sessions really focused on the need for this.

21st Century Skills

Strategies:

• Mohawk students will develop strong information fluencies, i.e. learning how to judge the reliability of information, finding reliable information sources and developing process thinking skills vs. content memorization.
• Differentiating on innovation skills (per Conference Bd of Canada)? 

Actions:

• 21st Century skills in all students and staff?
• #1 in Ontario for grads with innovation skills??

Measures:

Dan's Commentary:

• Need a lot of work on this one.  
• Consultation sessions really focused on the need for improved soft skills – what are the strategies to do this?
• Decision support team had a discussion around differentiating based on Innovation skills – thoughts?

Learning Technologies

Strategies:

• Mohawk College will adopt new technologies that enable connected and interactive learning. 
• Mohawk College will adopt technologies that will leverage the power of simulation and provide for flexible and scalable learning environments. 

Actions:

• Mohawk will develop a comprehensive learning platform that expands on the Learning Management System with new technologies using an agile development process?

Measures:

• Mohawk will identify 3-5 key programs in health and technology and deliver them using ipads (or similar technology) in 2013. 

Dan's Commentary:

• Consultation sessions really focused on using up-to-date, modern technology that is reflective of what’s being used in industry.
• D2L is a content mgt system. We need to go to the next step and look at a comprehensive platform where we leverage current technology and provide tools in a co-ordinated way. At the same time, we need to look at pedagogy and how we are using those tools.

Learning Pathways

Strategies:

• Continuously strengthen existing program complement while also developing new programs that  meet the demands of the economy and the needs of students.
• Health & technology stake in the ground?

Actions:

• Mohawk College will refine its program mix with a key focus on developing new entry and grad level certificates. 
• Mohawk College will strengthen its Apprenticeship programs by working closely with the MTCU to run new programs that meet local demand and through the development of pathways leading to diploma or degrees.
• Mohawk College will continue to strengthen and grow collaborative programs with our preferred partner, McMaster University .

Measures:

Dan's Commentary:

• How about refocusing “pre” programs as stepping stones to University? Focus grad certificates on university grads and upskilling students? Framing GAS as University preparation?
• Direct-entry pool of students is declining – we need to target other markets – grad certificates may help with this.

Learning Structure

Strategies:

• Highly specialized just-in-time education that is flexible, offering anytime, anywhere, anyhow education.

Actions:

• Mohawk will have stackable programs - a smaller number of base or core programs which will be complemented with a number of highly specialized options that will allow for a customized education 
• Mohawk will partner with industry  to offer private certifications, particularly in regulated health and technology industries
• Compressed / Accelerated programs?

Measures:

Dan's Commentary:

• Flexibility was noted in many of the consultation sessions. This will be one of the biggest challenges operationally to achieve. Definitely need to have good measures for this one.
• Also from the program-mix data, we are behind GTA colleges in terms of offering compressed or accelerated programming.

Learning Culture

Strategies:

• Embrace an open-source culture, sharing and collaboratively building learning processes and content.
• Enable peer-to-peer learning for both students and faculty.

Actions:

• Mohawk will enable faculty and program professional development through the sharing of best practices and peer-to-peer learning.
• Mohawk College will develop partnerships with other institutions to share curriculum and other best practices.

Measures:

Dan's Commentary:

• Flexibility was noted in many of the consultation sessions. This will be one of the biggest challenges operationally to achieve. Definitely need to have good measures for this one.
• Also from the program-mix data, we are behind GTA colleges in terms of offering compressed or accelerated programming.

Learning Pedagogy

Strategies:

• Recognizing and promoting self-learning
• Students and faculty learning in interdisciplinary and collaborative environments to solve complex problems.
• Embracing participatory, collaborative learning based on collective checking, inquisitive scepticism and group assessment.
• Learning environment that promotes networked learning, with a focus on the skills of co-operation, partnerships and mediation.

Actions:

• Mohawk will provide real world projects that excite both professionals and students
• Mohawk will offer  International placements for cross-discipline student and/or faculty teams
• Mohawk will provide authentic assessment practices that align with real-world needs. 

Measures:

Sample: The following percentage of post-secondary students will be completing a project for Academic credit by working in trans-disciplinary teams representing at least two Faculties:

• By 2014: 25% of post-secondary students
• By 2017: 50% of post-secondary students
• By 2020: 75% of post-secondary students

Resources:

• Definition of participatory learning including a good graphic to illustrate
• Definition of networked learning
• Self learning description
• The strategies here are based on the MacArthur report, but we also heard in the consultation sessions re: team work, collaboration and cross-disciplinary work.