Section 1: Teacher Profile
When starting with a new class, families and students might enjoy seeing a profile of their new teacher.
This contains relevant personal information meant to be seen by families or students before they see you in person. The information included should reflect your strengths and experiences related to teaching, so it won’t be the same for everyone. Some things won’t feel necessary or relevant to share for some but may be useful for others.
Some examples of information to provide on a teacher profile include:
- First and last name, age, date of birth
- Education background (all schools from grades preK – 12, University’s attended, degrees)
- Teaching background (schools worked at, age ranges taught, subjects taught and for how long)
- Family background (parents, siblings, pets, ethnic/cultural background, national background)
- Hobbies, favourite things (food, TV, game, music), zodiac info,
- Countries visited, countries you want to visit, language experience
- Photos, art, poetry, personal touches
- Teaching philosophies, learning models, yearly plan overview
Online learning plans will likely see many grades continuing to attend schools in BC at limited capacity, meaning that not all students or families will have a chance to meet their teacher on the same terms. By creating media to provide online, such as a teacher profile, families and students have an opportunity to read some facts about their teachers at their own leisure.
A teacher profile can lead to follow up conversations about what you put on it, and it can be adjusted and used as a lesson, especially early in the school year. Students could be asked to create their own profiles.
Some will consider less text than others. Below is an example of my teacher profile that I used for two different classes during my practicum experience.
Additionally, as classes will be online to some extent moving into September, teachers may produce material to supplement any parent/teacher meetings early on. Below is a hypothetical example that uses real student work for a presentation that could be provided to parents as a way to share things about yourself and your plans for the year. This example was created for a Bachelor of Education triple jump examination that was originally meant to be done in person with an examiner, but had its format adjusted due to campus closures during BC’s response to COVID-19. It admittedly has more text than is recommended but serves as something to compare to when creating material like this.
Declaration of Intent
Another common document for teacher to prepare with each new class. It reflects the personal beliefs and intentions of the teacher, and often includes big concepts on learning frameworks, essential questions for the learning period, and the teacher’s values and guiding principles.
In the next section, we will discuss how to provide online tools for non-tech based activities.