Teaching is not the only task that teachers need to do, they are also required to communicate with students and their parents; understand students’ problems and help them in solving them. For this, they need to maintain healthy relationships with them, while maintaining a professional attitude. Showing professionalism was easy in person. But as online education is on the rise and all the communication between teacher, students and parents occur online through messengers and on school management software’s dashboard maintaining a professional appearance becomes quite difficult for the teachers.
Because any word or remark stated online needs to be used carefully so that it doesn’t get misunderstood. That is why it becomes crucial for teachers to maintain a professional presence in online classes too.for instance, health education platforms,
In this article, you will be informed about various ways through which teachers can create a professional presence in online classes.
Keep Online Accounts Separate: Today everyone has social media accounts or messenger accounts, to communicate with people. As teaching professionals, it is advised that you maintain separate online accounts. You should create a professional account specifically for professional use, i.e; sharing notes, and notices and communicating with students. This is crucial to maintain professionalism on the work front and it gives you the freedom to express your personal opinions separately.
Emphasis on Online Collaborations: If you want to get known at your workplace, you need to augment your network; and nothing is better than doing collaborations for this. Doing online collaborations with other teachers from your school or different schools shows your dedication to growing your skills and knowledge. Not only this, but it also helps students too, as they get to gain new knowledge from various teachers, making their professional personality shine.
Manage Your Online Presence: Creating online accounts is not just enough; you need to manage your accounts to create a positive professional presence. Now, creating an online presence doesn’t mean posting 10 times a day or uploading motivational quotes for students every day. To create an online presence you share relevant and necessary information with students and you can do so once or twice a day, that it. Now, if you’re thinking about what to post, then you can share information related to career options, reference material, and ed-tech tools to help in studying. All these things will genuinely help the students and will grow your professional reach online.
Seek Professional Improvement: You must have told your students that, “there is no age for learning”. Follow this rule to yourself and grow professionally, in this digital world as the way of teaching has changed, so did the way of working. And if you want to grow in your teaching career, then you need to evolve constantly. For this, you can seek help from the online teacher’s modules, educator blogs, career coaches and digital mentors. All these things will help you get educated about changing scenarios and how you can present yourself more professionally in your online classes.
Showcase Your Work Positively: There is a reason why you are working for your current organization, and maybe you are planning to change your organization, but it doesn’t mean you show your current work in a negative light. No organization would hire a professional who doesn’t respect their current work and workplace. So whenever you are posting something online, try to showcase the positive aspects of your current position and organization. This will create a positive impact on your career as you will be attracting more future opportunities.
Share Valuable Resources: Sharing educational resources is good and necessary, but you can create a positive professional image among fellow teachers too. If you want to create a professional online presence, then try to help other teachers. You can do so by sharing valuable teaching resources or topics related to your field on the school information management system or social media. Your shared information might help other teachers and create opportunities to collaborate.
Participate in Online Events: You can create a better online professional presence by participating in asynchronous professional events. Such events help you gain more professional knowledge and engage with new people from your profession.
