The Teacher Hotline
The Teacher Hotline
Ep 68. What is it Like to Teach at the College Level? Ft. Mikayla Lechance
Ready to unlock the secrets of teaching at the college level? Join us for a fun conversation with Mikayla Lachance, a communications professor from Northern College, who shares her journey to becoming an accomplished college educator. Discover what it takes to thrive in this rewarding profession as she discusses the qualifications needed for various programs and sheds light on the differences between teaching at the college, university, and high school levels.
Ever wondered what the daily life of a full-time college professor looks like? Mikayla gives us an insider’s view, from managing class schedules and lesson preparation to the personalized attention given to students at a smaller college. You’ll learn how to structure engaging lessons, handle classroom management challenges, and create a supportive educational environment. She also recounts her transition from part-time to full-time teaching, providing a comprehensive look at the responsibilities and rewards of the role.
Finally, navigate the future of education with our discussion on integrating AI in the classroom. Mikayla shares her experiences with tools like ChatGPT, exploring their benefits and the importance of ethical use. We also touch on the perks and challenges of the profession, including the joy of supporting a diverse student body and the potential for career transitions. Whether you’re an educator or an aspiring college professor, this episode offers invaluable insights into the multifaceted world of teaching at the college level.
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This week's episode is sponsored by VisualPing. Visualping is the free web detection monitoring tool that watches and alerts you to changes on the sites that matter most to you. Forget clicking on that refresh button over and over again, because VisualPing instantly informs you about item restocks, price drops or promotions, and new opportunities at your dream workplace. Over 2.3 million users stay in the know with Visual Ping. Create a free account today at visualpingio. Is this the Teacher Hotline? My name is Ronald Hay, where we try to answer some of the most pressing questions for teachers in and outside of the classroom. Today we have Casey from the TDSB, the Toronto District School Board. Casey, what can we do for you today?
Speaker 2:Hey, ron, I listened to your first episode of Season 3 of your podcast and you brought in someone to talk about teaching at the university level. I've taught high school business for 20 years and this always sounded like a great career transition for me. Your episode mentioned you needed a PhD for most university-level teaching jobs. I was wondering if you know what qualifications you need to teach at the college level and what are the main differences between teaching at the college level versus university.
Speaker 1:Thanks. Thank you so much for your call, Casey. Very interesting enough, I actually also looked into teaching at the college level for many years myself after my positive experience at Western, Actually. In fact, I remember seeing ads for business faculty jobs at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario and highly considered applying for the job, but decided to end up going down the high school route instead. So to be honest with you, I'm kind of very curious about learning about the whole process myself, about what it's like to teach at a college and what those big differences are. So today we have Michaela Lachance, a communications professor from Northern College at the Timmins campus. Michaela has been teaching there for five years and she got her BA in geography from Nipissing University and currently completing her master's in education, specializing in adult education, at Yorkville University. Michaela, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Thanks, ron, I'm so excited to be joining on the podcast today. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Thanks, ron, I'm so excited to be joining on the podcast today. Yeah, I'm very interested myself about teaching at the college level. It's something I've personally thought about myself. I thought, man, I had such a great time teaching at Western that maybe this could be a next chapter in my life, perhaps so when I retire the last five, 10 years of my life teaching at a college. Like I said in the intro, I looked into a bunch of ads on LinkedIn and thought this would be a cool opportunity. But really, besides just looking at the job application, I haven't really dove too deep into the process. So I'd love to pick your brain today just about what it takes to be qualified, what they're looking for, what the differences are, because I'm sure there's a huge difference between teaching at a college, university, high school, maybe even elementary level. So maybe we'll start with the first question Did you always know you want to be a teacher, and why the college level? Why not high school? Why not elementary? Why not the university level? Why specifically college?
Speaker 3:Yeah, great question. So I always want to be a a teacher. I was that classic four-year-old girl playing teacher in the basement in my playroom, always had these imaginary students creating worksheets, so I knew I had a love for being a teacher and working with kids. However, when I was doing my undergrad with nipissing university, I did a placement in a grade one two classroom and I very quickly realized that young kids were not my jam.
Speaker 1:So I'm always elementary teachers.
Speaker 3:I deserve all the praise because I'm like I went in there for I think it was 10 days and I says, oh my goodness, this is not for me at all. However, I did continue working at Nipissing University throughout my undergrad with adults and our international services department and I realized I liked working with adult learners. And then, after I completed my undergrad, I continued my journey up north to Northern College in Timmins and there I joined the international department and I started teaching part time in the evenings, teaching in the business programs and some communications courses. So I realized that I like teaching with adults, continued teaching adult learners. So, to answer the question, elementary I knew it wasn't for me. High school didn't really interest me as much. But then being able to teach students who already had some previous knowledge, that was my jam. I very quickly realized adult learners was the classroom that I belong in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's jump straight into the caller's question. This is kind of my question too. You know, what qualifications do you need to teach at the college level? Is it very dependent on the school and the program? Like you mentioned, that you were able to sounds like you went from straight out of school to be able to teach some of those early business courses right away, part time. How did that first job kind of come to you there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the first job was actually very interesting. There's a part time professor that was lined up to teach the class. About a week into the semester something came up with their personal life and I received an email from the dean at the time saying Mikaela, I have this class, Are you interested in jumping in to cover it? So I said sure, I'll try it out, see how it goes. Usually to teach at the college level it'll depend on the program. So some programs, like our nursing programs, you will need a specialized degree in nursing. It really just depends on the program or the school. But something like communications or business, where there's more entry-level courses, it's usually just an undergrad degree wow, okay, so very similar to at least the westerns kind of style of setting up there for the program.
Speaker 1:They're undergraduate students, right? You could kind of teach those first and second year courses. And what course did you teach? You said communications, but what year was that?
Speaker 3:so communications. So all students at northern college take a communications course, so it's usually communications once. That's the very first course that is offered in our first semester of programs.
Speaker 1:Now this is where I'm very curious. So when you were teaching the first year course that's, I taught a first year course at Western as well Did the students know you were fairly young? I'm assuming you were 22, 23?
Speaker 3:at the time. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Did they know you were really young, or did you kind of try to hide the fact that you were just a recent grad?
Speaker 3:I never disclosed my age for students. Still, I'm a fairly young professor too, and you can see some students will be saying, oh, I'm 30. Are you closer to my age? I'm like, oh, I don't know. I don't disclose that information. You have students that are curious. I know I didn't tell them I was a recent grad. I did tell them that I had graduated from Nipissing University and I was new to teaching. I like to be transparent with students as well. We're all on a learning journey. Even as a professor, I'll try things. I have a great lesson. I think it's the best lesson that's going to work. And then I realized very quickly I have students that are blinking, just trying to stay awake. So let's pivot and try a different strategy as well. So no, I never disclosed that I was a recent grad. However, I did disclose that I was new to teaching. So to show me grace as I also offered them grace as they started their college experience.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, same here At Western they specifically. Well, they knew that we were young and they actually asked us to kind of dress up in suits and ties and you know we were in a business program, so they asked us to kind of look the part and I think because of just the way we dressed we looked a lot older than we actually did. Does Northern Campus ask for similar dress attire as well, like you got to be dressed a certain way, or what's the kind of dress code like for teachers there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they definitely ask you to dress professional. So usually throwing on a blazer and dress pants on days that you're teaching, days that you're not teaching, there's not as much of that. Same expectations, however, definitely when you're in front of the students, making sure you're modeling to them that you're here to be professional and modeling to them that you're here to be professional, here to do a job, here to conduct them like to conduct yourself. With that expectation when they go into the workplace they're going to have to conduct themselves to a similar professional standard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, even at the high school level. I know it's not common, but at my school, appleby, sometimes people are very shocked that we have to dress up in a suit and tie as well, and you know your average high school teacher at most schools. You know you can kind of go in and you know whatever you want. But I kind of like the whole professional wear, especially for me as a business teacher, going in with a suit and tie. It just kind of commands a more certain type of level of respect from the kids, and so I'm all for that. So cool to see that Northern College also does the same thing. So what are your responsibilities as a college professor at Northern? Maybe we could kind of go down the list. We could talk about teaching hours, office hours, summer hours. Maybe let's just kind of get a generic landscape of what your job looks like. So how many classes do you teach and what's your schedule looking like? So how many classes do you teach and what's your schedule looking like?
Speaker 3:So I was a part time professor. So that's my journey. I started as a part time professor and then just joined the full time faculty in August. So as part time professor I taught usually one to two classes a semester, but now, as a full time professor, I teach four classes a semester or four classes a semester, and then we have three semesters a year. So I use about 35 students per class oh, nice and small yes, nice and small for communications.
Speaker 3:I've taught some other classes introduction to organizational behavior, where those classes were mostly 50, 55, 60 students. But for communications. We have nice and small classes, 35 students. I teach four courses a semester and then I also have faculty meetings, program reviews, curriculum development, lesson prep, grading everything else has trickled into the day.
Speaker 1:Hey, sounds like kind of what we do, pretty much what every teacher would do actually at the high school level, elementary level, just a different, you know audience, uh that you have right here older uh adults here, yeah, um, so you said, uh, you teach four classes, and so is it all communication classes, or yeah, it's all communications classes we teach.
Speaker 3:I teach a communications one class in the first semester and then a communications two class in the second semester communication to being like second year students yes, yeah, second year or second semester students seconds.
Speaker 1:Okay, second semester, yeah, um, and what are your hours like is, are these like monday, wednesday, fridays, is it? Uh, like, how long are these classes?
Speaker 3:yes, I usually teach a tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, so four days a week. I usually I prefer my class to be held in the morning I'm more of a morning person and then staying there later. Uh, so I'm usually more of a morning person. My classes are three hours in length.
Speaker 1:They're usually looking oh, each class or three hours yeah each class is three hours, so one three hour period.
Speaker 3:They're not separated into one one half hour. Some classes are, but in terms of communications they they usually one three hour period. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Is that specifically for you, or is that? Just all classes or three hour classes? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Three hour classes are common and to be delivered all at once. Some people will teach a four hour class, just depending on the program, and then those ones are often separated into a two hour block and a two hour block.
Speaker 1:Okay, um, yeah, for three hours it's all, it's all delivered at once yeah, I know, at western we had a bunch of three-hour classes. I never taught any of them, but um, I know, I don't want to say they're common, but um, yeah, that would be. That's a marathon right there yeah, especially with adult learners.
Speaker 3:I think people think that young kids have shorter attention spans, but also with adult learners as well. So it can be difficult, and that's what comes into the lesson prep making sure that you have your lecture, part of it, and then you also have an activity that reinforces the learning, whether it's a TED talk or a video or another in-class activity, because no students want to listen for three hours straight.
Speaker 2:I can't Something else I can't.
Speaker 1:I can't even sit through a 10 minute meeting in my department, so I can't even sit through a 10-minute meeting in my department. Yeah, yeah, forget three hours. Yeah, what about office hours? Do you guys have mandated office hours in your department?
Speaker 3:Yes, there's an expectation for faculty. I have office hours. Usually I do my Mondays. I tell my students I don't have class on Mondays. I'll be in my office 8 to 4. Feel free to stop by. So yeah, often for an extension.
Speaker 1:All right, of course classic, so that doesn't change it.
Speaker 3:No, that doesn't change. That's the stop by and that chit chat at the beginning. Oh, I have another question. Can I have an extension on this assignment?
Speaker 1:Classic move. It doesn't matter if you're a kid or an adult, that's a classic move, right there yeah that doesn't change, but there's an expectation of office hours especially.
Speaker 3:It's nice teaching small classes. I get to know all of my students. Yeah, when we have faculty meetings and I'm able to see johnny is struggling in this class, is he struggling in any other classes as well? So yeah, the faculty is great because you will discuss student concerns and get to know. Okay, if johnny's just struggling in my class, I should reach out to see if he needs tutoring or other assistance wow, I didn't know that of having small classes, and same with part-time faculty.
Speaker 3:They able to email a program coordinator, a dean, saying so, and so hasn't shown up. What should we do? Should we reach out? What does that look like?
Speaker 1:wow, that actually sounds very high school like. Yeah, honestly, like I just assume that once you get to the college level or university level, it's like you're on your own, no one's really checking in, because I know at western that doesn't happen. Like if someone's flunking out in one class, like we would have no idea that they're flunking out in the other class, or they're struggling like we could care less. To be honest with you, yeah, it's uh, because, yeah, we had so many students come through our classes but uh, wow, that's kind of really nice that you kind of have that one-on-one attention and that kind of checking on the kids like that.
Speaker 3:That's really, really interesting. I think the benefit of having like a small Northern Ontario school that you don't have the huge class sizes of 80, 90 students, and I think that's where you see a differentiation between the college and university. I remember going through my undergrad and there'd be me and 150 other students, so if I wasn't there for a few weeks no one would notice. Right, when you have a small class of 35, which is common for our college classes, you're not there a couple weeks and that professor is going to notice.
Speaker 1:What about summer hours? I'm sure all the high school and elementary teachers would want to know about that. When do you finish school? Do you have to do anything in the summer? What's that all like?
Speaker 3:I am off middle of june to middle of august so I teach a condensed. I still teach in the summer, but I'll teach from beginning of may to middle of june. So I'll teach a condensed course, but then I'll have lots of time within there to work on building curriculum, reviewing lessons all that fun stuff there and then I have the summer off, come back middle of August and we'll have a couple weeks of prep before our semester starts.
Speaker 1:Now I remember when I was at Western, part of my summer duties was I didn't have to come into the office but we had to publish these case studies for our classrooms and for exam purposes, and I know your other professors. They're focused on research. Is there anything like that that at the college level you're, I guess, quote, unquote contracted to do, whether you're a first year professor or a 10th year professor? Is there anything that you have to do over the summer?
Speaker 3:There's nothing that we have to do Once you hit that. Middle of June to the middle of August, that is our official vacation period. So I think I'm still glued to email, so I'll probably still be checking in here and there to see what's going on. But no other professors will sign off for the full two months and we'll travel, go to the cottages camps.
Speaker 1:Okay, so very similar to high school teachers. Yes, yeah, is there any research that gets done at the college level? No, there's no research.
Speaker 3:It's not like a tenured professor where there is a research component as part of it. There's no research. There's expectations for curriculum development and different things are changing, making sure that we're continuing to stay up to speed. So a lot of ongoing professional learning and development opportunities that are provided, but no official research.
Speaker 1:Okay, I wasn't sure about that. I knew, obviously, university professors, their big thing was research and publication, so I wasn't sure if that's the thing at the college level. What about, like your contract? Like how does that work? Because at Western they made it very clear to me that it was a two year contract and I was okay with that. And then obviously, even when you become a professor, from what I hear a lot of times, their contract works and like what's your job security like at your place? Is it like, hey, you're there for two years, or is it like you can have this job for as long as you want? How does that all work?
Speaker 3:It's a good question. So in the position I'm in, I'm a full-time professor, so I could have the job for however I want. So I'm a full-time professor. So if I want to teach for five years or in 20 years, I decided to do're doing when I started teaching part-time, I'm doing it my foot in the door to see do I like teaching adults as much as I think I would? Then that was just semester by semester, so it'd be often a course for a semester and then I'd be offered a new course for the next semester.
Speaker 1:Right, right, interesting. Yeah, you were saying earlier about that you got 35, earlier about that you got 35, maybe up to 60 students per class. Do you guys also have TAs as well at the college level? How do you mark all those assignments?
Speaker 3:There are no TAs. I wish we had TAs.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 3:TAs? Really no, there's no TAs. I spend many hours grading, especially with communications. It's a lot of letters and paragraphs, presentations.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 3:So the amount of hours I spend reading and grading. But yeah, there's no TAs, so each professor is responsible for grading their own assessments. It'll change from course to course. You have those courses where it's mostly multiple choice and mostly or mostly tests sure, I think those ones are a little bit easier to grade. But in terms of communications it's all written work. There's not too many multiple oh, that's so painful.
Speaker 1:I got like 20 papers I gotta read right now and it's like holy smokes. Uh, I know this is probably gonna come out in the summer. We were recording this right now in march. But, um, oh my god, like I got 20 papers to to read right now and, uh, it's killing me. It's yeah, like I'm like, oh my god, I gotta read 20. I know the high other high school teachers probably thinking, ron, you're a loser, like that's nothing. Uh, but man, like 30, 40, 50, 60 papers like holy smokes, uh, no, tas, well, my communications too.
Speaker 3:We do our resumes and cover letters looking to prepare students for postgrad and entering the workforce. So when I had this past winter I had 90 to 100 resumes and cover letters and we're expected to grade it within 10 days, like that's a grading policy so I think at the end of it if I saw one more cover letter, I'm not looking at it Like I maxed out for a couple months of looking at cover letters and resumes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, by the end I'll be like, all right, you're fired, you're fired, you're fired. We're not looking at it.
Speaker 3:I'm like this looks great Like it's hard to get that fresh eyes to then go through and provide the same quality feedback. Oh Weston, did you have TAs?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got TAs. Yeah, like we got TAs. In fact, people because we were so young, people thought we were the TAs. Every time I told people like, oh, yeah, I teach at Western. They go, yeah, so you're a TA. I'm like, no, no, I'm not a TA. Yeah, we hired TAs and, yeah, they did the mark. There was probably two assignments that we had to mark ourselves. There was the final exam and then there was like one organizational behavior report. We marked ourselves, but everything else was through the TA. So, wow, I just assumed you guys had TAs to help you, because that's a lot of assignments to mark.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and there's no like it's not just TAs for my class, I guess across the board. You go into our faculty wing on a Friday afternoon you see everyone just grading and trying to get all the grades in for the weekend. So they don't see any at home. But yeah, there's no TA's across the board.
Speaker 1:So, besides the marking, what's it like to prep a lesson at the college level? Like, how many hours are you putting in? Like what are you trying to do? Like these are long classes three hours. I taught maybe one three hour class once to cover another teacher back at Western and it's long. It is a long grind. Right now my classes are 75 minutes at Applebee. How do you prep a three-hour lesson? What does a typical class look like for you?
Speaker 3:Good. So, yes, an interesting question. It can change each semester as well, as I'm seeing, like the demographic of students and what are their attention spans looking at as well. But usually I try to structure where it's 20 minutes of lecture and then we have 20 minutes of a break activity and then 20 minutes of either we're looking at a video, playing some type of bingo, jeopardy, crossword puzzle, something to interact with the students, and then usually I'll give students a 10 minute break and then kind of repeat the cycle. So I'm looking usually 20 minute chunks, 20 minute teaching, 20 minute small group activity and then a of repeat the cycle. So I'm looking usually 20-minute chunks, 20-minute teaching, 20-minute small group activity and then a 20-minute larger group activity.
Speaker 1:Okay, pretty smart. Yeah, that's pretty much what well, at least I try to do in my classrooms as well. I realize kids mostly can't hold their attention for that long. Are these classes similar by the time you get to fourth year in terms of class size and class length as well? Is it also 30, 60 students or?
Speaker 3:do they get smaller? They usually get smaller because you see some students that may decide to change careers, explore different things as well. So you'll usually you'll see, like for the electrical group. I teach communications to electrical group of students. I started with that one at the beginning of the year at I was about 30 students now teaching them in the second semester we're down to about 2022.
Speaker 1:Okay. So yeah, that's about my, my class size, roughly around 20 there. What was it like teaching your first class? Like were you really nervous, like how did you feel?
Speaker 3:It was so intimidating. I don't think I slept at all the night before picking up. We talk about dressing professional and I pick out the most professional blazer, looking the part, and I feel bad for my first semester students. I think I probably talked for an hour and a half. I'm straight because I'm like this is content we need to cover. This is what has to be done. So I feel really bad for my first semester students because I probably talked so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not easy, it's not. There's so much nervous energy and I always like to ask teachers what their first class was like. Because, you're right, like it's, they don't know what's your first class. You're not going in announcing this your first class, but there's so much nervous energy and I remember saying this to Emma as well it doesn't matter if you're at the elementary, high school or university, college level, like that first day in the classroom is scary stuff.
Speaker 3:Oh for sure. And especially learning classroom management. Right, you think you know like, hey, I went to university, I did some placements, I love teaching, always want to be a teacher, I'm just going to know how to manage the classroom. But those are skills that develop over many, many years. I think, when people think teaching adults, no, you still have people talking, you're still trying to bring their attention back, you still have people's phone going off in class, you still have all those struggles. So yeah, it's definitely a learning curve, but I think I have a much better handle on things now than I did five years ago.
Speaker 1:That is a very good point. Classroom management what is that like at the college level? You mentioned, obviously, people talking and phones going off, and that happens in my classroom as well. I'm sure in all classrooms. Besides, kind of the common thing was you know, is there anything that you've ever had to deal with like a fight breaking out or anything really, really extreme?
Speaker 3:Nothing as crazy as that. It's a couple of students that you ask them to turn the phone off or asking them to draw their attention to the front, them continuing not to do that. But at this point the adults too right. So there's some responsibility over their own learning, whether they choose to be in class, whether they choose not to be, whether they just choose to show up on test day. So it's kind of that message of I'm here to teach you, I'm here to support you, and you also need to make that decision for yourself that you do want to be here.
Speaker 1:Right, there's a lot. It's so funny just talking to you about this. There's so many similarities to the high school level. You mentioned tests. How many assessments do you have per year?
Speaker 3:So per classes about six to eight assessments okay, yeah, this is per semester per semester, yeah, so usually about six to eight, so nothing as much in the first couple weeks of the semester.
Speaker 3:And as we're building on knowledge, then we start getting into more assessments and then usually there's weekly homework as well, especially for communications. Looking just to build on the oral communication skills, the written communication skills. So I think college is very similar in terms of high school. That's why why we always encourage students, if you're not sure where to go, take a one year college program, because most of our programs are either one year or two year programs. Oh yeah we have a lot of pathways.
Speaker 1:Like we have some students that decide I'm going to take civil construction engineering, I really like this, and then they can bridge off into a university program from there oh, I had no idea that a lot of these programs are only one to two years so so you're saying that I could take a one year, two year business program at college let's say uh, at your school, and then I could transfer some of those credits to a university yes, yes, and then you even have like three years instead of the four years, like those.
Speaker 3:We have a whole bunch of pathways. But people often don't know that about college, right, they think it's similar to university, these big class sizes, but no, I think it's very similar to high school, especially I went to a private high school. So, looking at my private school experience to the college experience, it is very, very similar. Smaller class sizes, professors that know you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you said you went to Holy Trinity, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Trinity College School.
Speaker 1:Trinity College, trinity.
Speaker 3:College School yeah.
Speaker 1:In Port Hope. Yes, so funny. You told me that and I went to Trinity College last year for a badminton tournament with the badminton team. Yeah, we took the 407 all the way over there, beautiful school, amazing campus in you grew up in the independent school system as well.
Speaker 3:Then, yeah, yeah, I played hockey for trinity college, went to school there and then the university, and then started career young and part part time and continued to grow in that journey. But no, I find it very, very similar to a high school experience it does sound very similar.
Speaker 1:like my classes, I would say I have about eight assessments per class per year as well. So that sounds about on par and I would say most classes at my school have, roughly around that ballpark, around closer to eight. So, with that being said, my next question is that our students just as grade hungry at the college level as they are to maybe at the high school level in grade 11 and 12? Do students complain about grades? Do they grovel about grades? Do they complain? What's that like once they get to the college level?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think people think that the begging for grades, or that grade hungriness, stops at high school Once they accept a college or university offer. It stays the same throughout college. The students will still say, oh, I got a 68. My friend got a 70. Why don't I get a 70? You still have those conversations. But I always tell my students I'm an open book. You think I missed something. I'm human, I may miss something. Let's have a conversation about it. I try to provide very good feedback to students when they submit work going through to help explain to them the grade that they did earn on an assessment. But no, you still have it. It's hard too, because you have some students that will be in my section of communications but then their friends are in other sections of communication. So they said they look at how different professors grade as well. Right, so you start seeing some variation of grading from professor to professor. So, yeah, you get students that ask, ask questions, think their grades should be higher.
Speaker 1:So why do you think they're so anxious about grades at the college level, like are they using these grades to get into another program? Or is you know, are employers looking at their grades Like for me, it makes sense, they're trying to use these grades to get into another program. Or is you know our employers looking at their grades, like for me, it makes sense, they're trying to use these grades to get into the next stage of their life. Why are they so anxious at the college level?
Speaker 3:you think I think some of the pattern that was just formed from high school. Like in high school they were used to every single mark matter. They needed it. So that same pattern forms also teaching many international students to. They have to provide their official transcript for these immigration processes as well. So I think they want to show them that they are the student that they're saying they are, and a way that they can prove that is through an official transcript which shows a grade four course.
Speaker 1:Okay, that makes a lot more sense. We keep talking about similarities between high school and the, the college level. Uh, I asked emma this question. We talked about it, uh, on their first episode of season three. As, uh, parents, do you deal with parents at the college level? Is that a thing?
Speaker 3:no, I have no parents. I think you left that headache from that high school and the elementary level. But no, no, parents have had a few parents, be true, but when the teaching adults, especially adult, they need to release permission for the parents to be able to have access to their grades, even their student account for fees, all of that, and a lot of students don't want to give their parents permission to know about grading if they're getting in courses. So, no, not very much. I'm trying to think back if I have any parent experiences, but not too often, other than meeting parents in the grocery stores when I see students out in the community, and then those introductions and, of course, the parents oh, how is my son, how is my daughter? They good in your class, and I always just try to laugh it off. No official parent interactions.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, that totally makes sense. I figured that was going to be your answer, but I feel like I've been off with so many things that I thought I'd double check with the parents. And obviously, well, you know that at the high school level and elementary school level parents are all over the place. But yeah, college level, by the time you get to that age, like parents get out of here, like let your kids do their own thing, and yeah, that totally makes sense there. I want to circle back to the assessments piece. I forgot to ask you about the question about academic integrity and plagiarism. I was telling stories about how this was still a thing at the first year undergraduate level at Western and we had to deal with it. Have you dealt with academic integrity at the first year level of college? Yeah, too many times that I want to, too many times, and we have to deal with it. Have you dealt with academic integrity at the first year?
Speaker 3:level of college, or yeah, too many times that I want to Ah too many times, no, there is lots when I look at academic integrity.
Speaker 3:sometimes it is just an ignorance or not understanding. I pulled this information from a website. I think it's great, I'm gonna submit it for my assignment. And often those times are the conversations on like you're missing citations. You copy and pasted other people's information. We can't do that right. So sometimes I do find that it's a conversation it's not been to the opportunity for learning. And then there's other times where it's put something into chat. Gbt spits out an answer. It submits that for their own work. So yeah, there's.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say there's a lot. How often have you been dealing with the chat, GPT and AI stuff? I know this is still very brand new and schools are trying to figure out how to deal with this. Have you come across chat, gpt work and how have you guys handled it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot of it, especially when we look at communications and we're asked to write a paragraph with something specific or a letter, and some students that.
Speaker 3:Then we're asked to write a paragraph with something specific or a letter, and some students that I'll just use chat gbt for this. So trying to remind students of why they're in college right, they're here to learn, they're here to build the skill. So if you use chat gbt, you're only cheating yourself on the skill that you expect to have in the workplace. But when they come through, then it is an academic integrity case and then following our internal process on what that looks like, whether it's a zero on assignment or whether it's a zero on the course. So we do follow our process and we understand the integrity that's associated with them completing the work that they are submitting. But for me, I'm a believer that it has to be integrated into the classroom. Artificial intelligence isn't going anywhere, so it's looking more and more on how can we integrate it into assignments, into assessments, and use it as a tool to be able to teach students how to use?
Speaker 1:yeah, I, I 100 agree with you. I I'm trying to like. I don't know, if you know, I teach accounting so I'm trying to figure out how to bring in ai into the classroom so you're right, it's not going anywhere. People are still using it right right now. It feels like we're just sneaking this tool behind everyone's back.
Speaker 1:It's like it's like when Google first came up right, like we embraced Google, like Google come on in and we figured out how to integrate. Now Google is part of our everyday vocabulary, we use it. So how can we use AI in the classroom, where it becomes our friend and rather than our foe? And I haven't figured out how yet. And I think, um, we're going to bring in some faculty and some people into our school for PD, for that.
Speaker 3:But yeah, I don't know. Have you guys used it? Yeah, I've used it. We did mock interviews. We did cover letters, resumes, mock interviews where I brought people in from the community Students did mock interviews with the different people and then one of the follow up tasks was completing a thank you letter. So I told students, you can use a thank you letter, you can put it into chat, gbt, you can use artificial intelligence for the prompt, and then you need to revise it. And I was very nervous. It was my first time where I gave them the green light Go ahead and use it. And I created a form saying tell me the prompt, tell me what AI brought out to you, what did they provide, and then show me the finished letter. So what did you revise?
Speaker 1:nice, nice, you know I like that actually. Yeah, we bring in judges in my classroom for their final grade 12 summative project and I actually asked them to write a letter to the uh, to their guests that's actually a nice little easy way to introduce ai into the classroom.
Speaker 3:That's uh, that could be helpful and it makes them make revisions too right, because I'm like AI doesn't know that John Smith interviewed you on Tuesday at 10 30 right, you're gonna have to revise your letter to provide those details. So I'm still very much new into seeing how can we integrate it while still assessing students own knowledge as well right yeah, I definitely think it can be a tool into the classroom. It'll be interesting to see what the next few years of education looks like. What is?
Speaker 1:that I like that idea and this is a lot of work that you guys do. I'm curious, if you don't mind me asking you know how, how are the, the benefits and the compensation like at the college level? Is it comparable to what you thought it was going to be? Do you think it's fair? Do you guys have pension? Like, how does that all work compared to what you, what you think the high school level pays and what you've researched out there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that. So the way that their payment works, it'll depend on your education, your experience. So if you start teaching college and you had 20 years of experience, then your pay will look different as well. But in terms of me, like fairly young starting out as a professor teaching for five years, I think it is a very good pay in terms of your vacation time as well. So, getting your summers off, a strong pension, strong benefits yeah.
Speaker 1:Nice, you get pension too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, really good pension plan, good benefits and the best part is being able to love your job.
Speaker 1:When you go to a job each day that you love, that is the best part 100%, so actually sounds very similar to the high school level it's based off of, would you say it's like seniority, like you spend. If you put 10 years teaching versus two years teaching, the compensation is going to go up depending on how many years you put in.
Speaker 3:And your education as well. Whether you have an undergrad, your master's PhD depending on your education and your experience as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, so okay, very, very similar then to the high school level Interesting. And then obviously you guys get your benefits and all that stuff, and obviously you guys get the summers off, reading week I'm assuming you guys have as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we don't have it off, though it's still. We call it a non-teach period, but there's lots of interesting PD that's available to staff during that week.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:But it's also a good time to catch up on grading. We talk about all the grading that needs to be done without TAs. So reading week, my reading to get caught up on grading. I'm like no students around, no one's floating by the halls, no one's knocking on my office door, a good time to get all caught up, right?
Speaker 1:so what is the hardest part of the job of teaching at the college level? Is it, I don't know. Is it the marking? Is it the teaching? Is it the student interactions? What do you think is the most difficult part that you know a person might not realize?
Speaker 3:I think the student interactions they're the best part and also the hardest part, right. You get students adults going through hard life things. So when they see you as someone to support them by understanding our job as professors can only go so far, right. So when they're having difficulties at home or they're needing extensions for certain things that are going on in their life, you carry the weight of their worries home with you as well. You want to help all the students, especially in small class sizes, and when you feel like you can't help every single student to the degree that they need their assistance, I think that can be the hardest part. Same with the academic integrity Dealing with those cases when you're handing out zeros on assignments that are decent work but they just didn't. They used artificial intelligence or they didn't complete it with their own knowledge. Those conversations are never fun.
Speaker 1:When you say adults, what's the range? Like, obviously there's people that comes right out of high school at 18, 19 years old. Like are you also getting people in their 30s, 40s, people that are married with kids? Like, what do you see?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my taking my own class size this semester from 18 probably all the way up to 50.
Speaker 1:18 to 50?.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you have students that are right from high school this is the career they want to explore, and then other students that have had two or three careers, taken some time off, raised kids, had a career, got laid off, looking to come back and either explore a new interest or to upgrade their skills, and they're coming back as mature learners into the classroom.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's got to be hard, like you know. That's one thing I think most teachers take for granted. You teach one age group.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And obviously maturity level kind of varies, but it's kind of within this band. But 18 to 50, that's two very, very different life stages. How do you plan your lessons to make sure that you're appealing to, let's say, the more mature group versus kind of the ones that are coming straight out of high school? I think having something you think about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, especially having reflective assignments when we talk about AI and how do we combat AI, or or saying like you can't use this. But then also, how do we appeal assignments to all students. And I think that's part of it is having reflective assignments for saying, hey, you need to write a letter or you need to write an email, but having students be able to than the topic that interests a 50 year old as well. Right, so making sure that we can do self-reflective assignments where students are able to choose what they want to write about or what do they want to present about in order to appeal to their own interests.
Speaker 3:But you also start seeing the different motivations, like the motivation of an 18 year old versus the motivation of a 30, 40, 50, 50 year old, that motivation looks very different as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3:And where that life. But it's also interesting Cause I say like we have a lot to learn from each other when you start putting different groups of people into group work together. It is really interesting to see the perspectives that are shared among peers.
Speaker 1:Michaela, are they looking for accounting teachers right now?
Speaker 3:Do you guys teach accounting? We do teach accounting, you do teach accounting, we do teach accounting. First year, accounting First year. Hey, any job openings right?
Speaker 1:now, or I hope my principal's not listening as. I'm asking this question.
Speaker 3:But no, honestly, it is a great experience. I highly recommend it, especially for high school teachers that are looking for a change of pace. It is very similar, but then also different, right? You have students that are choosing to be here, choosing to be in the classroom. You have students from all around the world, all bunch of different ages together, all bunch of different motivation.
Speaker 1:I you know I was genuine when I said this at the beginning of the episode. I really thought teaching at the college level would be a great transition job for my career. At one point, when I'm like, hey, you know what I think I'm career. At one point when I'm like, hey, you know what I think I'm done with high school, I'm ready to kind of move on to a different experience and I love my time at Western and I thought that either university or college teaching would be a great next part of my life and just hearing you talk about it, I'm like man, this seems like a real possibility. So I really appreciate this. So maybe we'll end the episode with this final question here Michaela, what is the best part of your job? If you were to sell this job to the listeners out there who might be on the fence right now thinking about hopping careers here to the college level, what would you say to them?
Speaker 3:I'd have two things On graduation day each year seeing students walk across the stage that you have taught multiple times and knowing they've overcome life adversity but they've accomplished the goal of graduating from a college diploma and looking to move on to the next chapter of life. That is always rewarding. I always have tears in my eyes seeing students cross the stage. They've made it, they're looking to move on. And also the everyday experience in the classroom, seeing students that are struggling with the communication skills and then telling. Then hearing them say I had this job interview, I got this job, I'm using the skills I'm learning from the classroom. I find that rewarding to just hearing the small wins every day, seeing students improve, seeing their smiling faces in the hall that they truly love to be here, love what they're learning, they're making friends. They definitely graduation day. And then just seeing the students small wins every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can completely resonate with that. That's a great way to wrap up an episode, very beautiful way to wrap up an episode, michaela. Thank you so much. If people are interested in looking into applying for jobs, let's say Northern, where can they go? Is there a website or where can they reach out to?
Speaker 3:for more questions. Yeah, so our Northern College Careers webpage. It definitely has any part-time, full-time faculty positions. But, yeah, there's lots of opportunities across the province of Ontario and I highly recommend teaching adult learners at the college level. It's a great experience and love my job and love what I do.
Speaker 1:Northern College. I should have probably said this earlier. You guys have multiple campuses, right? Where are some of the other campuses?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have four campuses. We have campuses in Mussini, Kirkland Lake, Haleberry and Timmins.
Speaker 1:Nice. Everyone, go check out that website. I'll put it in the show notes. So thank you so much again, Michaela, for jumping on today's episode. I definitely learned a lot as well about teaching at the college level, and I hope our listeners as well. So thank you so much to all of our listeners today. Thank you so much. If you guys enjoy this content, please feel free to follow us on Facebook and on Instagram at the Teacher Hotline, and we will see you guys next month. Take care everybody.
