Northern College is thinking outside the box to help its students succeed.
The Timmins campus is now home to an Early Childhood Education Lab. In the new year, through partnerships with local schools boards and daycare providers, children will visit the campus to interact with the students.
The college classroom space offers children's activities and interactive areas. It's a space where the students can apply their learning on topics such as classroom design, curriculum, involvement and engagement, said Erin Holmes, Northern College early childhood education program co-ordinator.
“We also have quite an interesting setup in our classroom where it’s all videoed. Because you can’t get all students in here at once, we also have a video system into our classroom, which is right next door, where those students can observe, take notes, give feedback so that there’s going to be constantly that interaction and involvement within the classes,” she explained.
Agencies will start bringing their children to the college in January for the winter semester.
Northern College used to have its own daycare where students could go in and engage with the children. The daycare is no longer open.
“What we’re noticing is that a lot of students when they go out onto placement, it’s their first time interacting with children,” she said.
“This is now going to give them right from the time they start in their first year, first semester, those opportunities in all of their courses."
The college's early childhood education program is for two years.
There are currently about 60 first-year and 30 second-year students.
The popularity of it lately, said Holmes, is mainly because there's a demand in the field.
"The employment opportunities are opening up, the government has put a lot of money into hiring more ECEs and opening more childcare spaces in different communities so the demand is there,” she said.
