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The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the rapid transition to online quantitative education, leading to unique challenges and opportunities in assessments for both students and instructors. Focusing on undergraduate students and teaching staff at a Canadian university, this study investigates and compares their experiences and perspectives regarding assessment in online mathematics and statistics courses during the pandemic. Framed by the theory of community of inquiry, our analysis highlights how assessment affected the cognitive, social, and teaching aspects of their learning and teaching experiences. The analysis was based on interview data from the focal student and teaching staff participants. Findings indicated that students and teaching staff had complex experiences with the assessments designed and administered in the online courses during the pandemic. Such complexity was attributed to varied factors, such as technology integration, uncertainty during the pandemic, assessment structure, alignment with course content, and connection with real-life applications. Implications for transforming the assessment practices to meet the demands of students and instructors in online mathematics and statistics education were also provided.

The purpose of the 10,000 PhDs Project was to determine the current (2016) employment status of the 10,886 individuals who graduated from the University of Toronto with a PhD in all disciplines from 2000-2015. Using internet searches, we found that about half (51%) of the PhD graduates are employed in the post-secondary education sector, 26% as tenure-track professors, with an additional 3% as adjunct professors and 2% as full-time teaching-stream professors. Over the time-period 2000-2015 there has been a near doubling in PhD graduates with the biggest increase in graduation numbers for the Physical (2.6-fold) and Life Sciences (2.2-fold). Increasingly, these graduates are finding employment in the private and public sectors providing the highly qualified personnel needed to drive an innovation economy.

Translanguaging effectively affirms international students' diverse language practices and linguistic and cultural identities. Although it may appear evident that their multilingual and multicultural identities and experiences inevitably influence their translanguaging experiences, few studies have examined how their identities affect their perspectives and practices toward translanguaging in the Canadian higher education context. Because the impact of identities on the linguistic decision-making process is often manifested in the positions individuals assign to themselves and others in social interactions, this study drew on positioning theory to investigate how the positions assigned by 17 international graduate students from the faculty of education during their studies in Canada shaped their translanguaging experiences. Analysis of the interview data indicated that the participants assigned multiple, fluid, and sometimes conflicting positions to themselves and others when participating in higher education discourses. Their evaluation of linguistic and cultural affinity with interlocutors, positioning in relation to the English language, and varied considerations as (future) teachers complicated their perspectives and performances of translanguaging. This report concluded with implications for Canadian higher education to implement an effective translanguaging-oriented pedagogy that is linguistically and culturally responsive to the increasingly diversified international student population.

Canada is among the top three receiving countries for international students globally, and the leading sources of international students consist of countries in the Global South. Despite the multilingual reality of universities in Canada, most institutional language policies require only English or French to be used in instruction and assessment. The consequences of these policies include challenges in ensuring inclusive and equitable education. A translanguaging pedagogy has the potential to affirm and leverage the diverse language practices of international students, but it needs to be centered in the lived experiences, language practices, knowledge systems, and goals of a multilingual student body. This paper reports on the experiences and recommendations of international graduate students from the Global South related to pedagogical translanguaging in higher education. Data sources included interviews with 15 graduate students enrolled in the education faculty of a Canadian university. A thematic analysis of the data suggested that students' translanguaging practices are restricted to informal spaces and 'secret talk,' and influenced by their instructors' varied attitudes and language policies. Students' recommendations include affirming translanguaging as a right and pedagogical resource for international students, incorporating translanguaging in academic writing, diversifying hiring practices, and providing training for instructors and prospective teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an objective of developing plurilingual repertoire that integrates languages and cultural experience at different levels, rather than mastering languages as idealized native speakers (Rocafort, 2019), plurilingual pedagogy can better satisfy the learning needs of an increasingly diversified student population. However, the plurilingual practice employed should not be taken for granted, as it requires support for cultivating and recognizing plurilingual disposition and competence of language teachers. Therefore, in the English Language Teaching (ELT) field, researchers have been exploring and creating "a new space" that cultivates plurilingual multicompetence (Cook, 1999) and raises awareness of plurilingual identity among English language teachers. However, there is limited research theorizing this space in terms of 1) how it promotes cultivation and awareness of plurilingual identity among teachers; 2) how space activities are facilitated; and 3) what the impact it may have on teachers engaging in this space. To bridge this gap, I will propose a framework to theorize the mechanism of this new space for developing plurilingual identity based on findings of current empirical research on English language teacher identity through a plurilingual or translingual approach. I will also discuss strategies to facilitate space activities for raising awareness of plurilingual disposition and outcomes of space engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]