OISE Courses
This course is designed to help graduate students learn the fundamental concepts of quantitative research design. Students will evaluate research presented in the popular press and in scholarly journals. In addition to becoming a savvy consumer of research, students will learn the elements of a quantitative research study including: framing a research question, reviewing relevant literature, insuring internal and external validity, data analysis, presentation of results, and the ethical standards of conducting research.
This course uses the concept of total survey error and total survey quality as frameworks to discuss the survey elements relative to representation, measurement and usefulness. These include appropriate sampling frames, various sample design strategies, data collection, the role of the interviewer, non-response and bias, the effect of question structure, wording and context, respondent behavior, post-survey processing, estimation in surveys, and stakeholder use. This course requires students to have completed a quantitative research or a statistics course prior to enrolling.
Individual Reading and Research courses are taken as specialized study, under the direction of a staff member, focusing on topics of particular interest to the student that are not included in available courses. While credit is not given for a thesis investigation proper, the study may be closely related to a thesis topic.
This course is designed to introduce students to the field of student affairs and services within the context of Canadian postsecondary education institutions. We will use a multidisciplinary approach to examine the historical, philosophical, legal, and cultural foundations of student affairs and services work. From these multiple perspectives, we will discuss the guiding principles from which student affairs and services practitioners educate and deliver services and programs to students.
This course examines the origins, present status, challenges and future directions of student development within the context of higher education in western society. Sessions will review the evidence from research and practice that identify key factors influencing student development in postsecondary education. Discussions will focus on the changing nature of students in higher education, the role of institutional policy, structure and function in facilitating student development and pathways to student success and retention. In addition, the social, psychological and cultural foundations of the student personnel movement as well as the role and functions of student services staff in colleges and universities will be examined.
This course will provide students in the Student Development and Student Services in Postsecondary Education field in the Higher Education M.Ed. to review and apply the lessons from courses taken in their Master's degree program and in the their required core courses in their designated field. The course will be presented as a seminar with extensive readings and discussions, faculty and guest presentations, student projects and a culminating project that demonstrates student ability to apply their cumulated knowledge of the field to an existing organizational challenge.
This course builds upon the knowledge gained in LHA1854, Student Development Theories in Higher Education. The course will more deeply examine psychosocial, cognitive structural, and typological theories. With a focus on intersectionality we will examine how race, culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and spirituality can influence development. Students will learn to use theories to improve our work with students. We will not do so without a critical examination of the theories.
Student affairs and services professionals engage in their work as educators within diverse and unique postsecondary institutions. Students will examine concepts and theories within the organizational behaviour literature and assess case studies in order to develop important competencies to create educational experiences and services for students within complex organizational functions. The course focuses on creating conditions to facilitate student success through topics that include supervision and coaching within a unionized environment, budget management, proposal and report writing, organizational learning and change, leadership principles, standards and ethics, equity and inclusion, developing and assessing learning outcomes, and micropolitics.
This course will provide students the opportunity to review, integrate and synthesize what they have learned in their learning experience, and apply these in a Capstone project. The Capstone Project that is the goal of this course will be a culminating, comprehensive and scholarly project completed near or at the end of the M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership option.
The Capstone project will address one or more complex empirical issue(s) relevant to the leadership challenges in the students’ professional work context. The project will ask the students to demonstrate their ability to identify and define the issue/problem, conduct an insightful analysis and critique of the scholarly literature that informs the issue. This includes philosophical foundations, theoretical frameworks, conceptual models and the research methodologies employed (consistent with the COU, Quality Assurance Framework, Updated 2019, GDLEs, pp.34-35). They are expected to gather relevant secondary or primary data and propose feasible strategies/approaches to resolve the issue(s). Implications for implementation of the proposed resolution will be clearly identified and supported. Students may have an opportunity to participate in the organization and delivery of a Leadership Forum for the dissemination of knowledge gained.
This course is designed to assist doctoral students in the development of effective research proposals. Course readings, assignments, and activities will provide students with a structured approach to problem definition, succinctly reviewing the relevant literature, articulating conceptual frameworks, identifying suitable methodological approaches for the questions to be examined, understanding the purposes of informed consent in research design, and anticipating the timelines associated with data collection, data analysis, and writing up final reports. Students will practice writing both short proposals for graduate research funding as well as longer dissertation proposals.
This course will assist students in learning how to find, understand, share and act on research in their doctoral studies and their professional work. The course will include consideration of the nature of research literacy; the concepts and practices of finding, understanding, sharing and acting on research; developments in education research philosophies, paradigms, stances and methods; strategies for critiquing and citing research; design and use of literature reviews, syntheses and meta-analyses; and communicating and presenting research reviews.
The purpose of this course is to provide students in the Educational Leadership and Policy Program's EdD cohort with exposure to and practice in a range of research design and data collection methods for applied research: educational change case studies and comparative case studies; qualitative, ethnographic tools for educational inquiry; systematic analysis of policy documents; survey research; quantitative analysis of school, system, or other organization administrative data.
This course is one of the core courses in the Educational Leadership and Policy Program EdD program and provides students with the opportunity to learn and practice the data analysis approaches most appropriate for studying problems of practice. In this course students will work on coding and organization of qualitative and case study data and policy documents; presentation of findings from survey research and quantitative examination of administrative data. This course also requires students to examine a wide range of knowledge mobilization strategies and to link those strategies to their projects.
This course will provide students with the skills and knowledge needed to synthesize academic literature. In particular, it will provide students with the opportunity to become familiar with the philosophy, assumptions, characteristics and methods of reviewing literature in education and the social sciences. It will expose students to theories about how literature should be reviewed and provide them with the opportunity to develop their own reviewing skills.
This professional seminar course aims to advance the use and application of research, writing, and methodologies for the dissertation in practice while students engage as part of an academic community. The course is intended to support professional interactions and learning among the International Educational Leadership and Policy EdD cohort with the goal of improving and advancing opportunities to discuss aspects of the research process. It includes practical modules in the context of effective leadership and policymaking in international education settings, while also scaffolding stages of thesis development.
The course is open to EdD students in the International ELP cohort.
This course is intended to place the norms, values, and practices of school life within an administrative context. The focus is on factors that promote or inhibit the development of community and the achievement of educational purposes. Students are invited to explore and apply a variety of interpretive frameworks to their understanding of institutional culture.
This course permits the study of specific topics or areas in educational administration not already covered in the courses listed for the current year. The topics will be announced each spring in the Winter Session and Summer Session timetables.
Understanding education law is essential to the effective management and operation of schools. Schools function in a complex legal environment. It is essential for educators to be as current as possible of their legal rights and responsibilities. Focus on current issues, legislative and common law precedents.
A review of major perspectives on the individual and the organization includes discussion of questions pertaining to the nature of society and the nature of people. Of immediate concern is the manner in which decisions and organizational outcomes are produced, as well as the bearing that these sets of arrangements have upon productivity and the well-being of those whose lives are touched by organized education. Of express concern is the manner in which power is exercised in everyday situations that may involve elected officials, appointed administrators, teachers, students, and the public at large.
This seminar examines significant policy issues in education, both historical and current, both Canadian and international. Emphasis is on acquiring an understanding of the content and significance of the policies, with a secondary interest in policy analysis and development. Various faculty in the Educational Leadership and Policy Program will be responsible for particular sessions.
The course explores naturalistic and ethnographic methods of research applied to field research and case studies in educational administration. The researcher as participant in as well as an observer of social reality; the relationship of fact and value in social research, the limits of science in truth-making; the relationship of such science-established truth to evaluation and administrative action; and the problems of ethical inquiry into organizational and administrative realities.
An advanced administrative experience, primarily for EdD students, under the joint guidance of faculty members and senior administrators in the internship/practicum location. Placement and responsibilities relating to the internship/practicum are determined on an individual basis depending on the needs, interests, and aspirations of students and on the availability of appropriate locations.
The course explores a variety of initiatives being taken to improve, reform, and/or restructure schools. The basic intents of these initiatives are examined in an effort to understand implications for productive change processes at the classroom, school, and school system levels. Emphasis is given to the role of leadership in fostering educational change. Students will be involved in a research project designed to illustrate the practical meaning of course concepts and to refine their research capacities.