Nicole General

Hey everyone, my name is Nicole General and I work for a program called Aboriginal Access to Engineering, our overall goal for our program is to increase the number of Indigenous engineers within Canada and to do this, I teach STEM in first nations run schools. I have had my OCT now for 4 years now. When I first graduated from Queen's I supply taught, ran an after school program and had my own tutoring. When summer came around, I needed a job so I applied for a job with a program called Aboriginal Access to Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science at Queen's and I have been working for them ever since.

I am Indigenous from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and I have always wanted to teach and give back to my community. Within my job, I work with other Indigenous communities within Ontario and some in Quebec. I have a returning community partnership with them. I work with grades K-11 but mostly 3-8. When I am in these schools, I teach math and robotics.

This upcoming year, my job will be changing a little bit with more focus on teacher PD with technology in the classroom-so teachers can keep using technology and robots in the classroom even when I'm not at their school that week.

Teaching with technology is important as it is the world that we live in now. Students need to learn how to become a good digital citizen, they need to learn how to be respectful and responsible for their actions on line and they also need to learn how to use technology and code as they might have jobs that don't exist yet. I believe that through modeling, this will help students.

If you have any questions for me, please feel free to ask :)

Thank you for reading a little about me!

Nicole