All for One and All On-line: the Virtual Community for New Teachers
Do you recall taking your first steps as a college teacher? Courses to prepare in a hurry, the first contact with students, strategies to find and organise to help them progress…. everything done with lots of enthusiasm and undoubtedly with a good dose of stress!
When we begin our teaching career, we can definitely feel the pressing need for help and information. The virtual community New Teachers, launched this summer by the AQPC (Association québécoise de pédagogie collégiale), aims precisely at reducing this stress and supporting new teachers in the college network as they take their first steps.
Indeed, the virtual community New Teachers is a place of pedagogical discussion where everyone can take advantage of the experience of others. It is also a place that is accessible at any time, at your fingertips.
The New Teachers Community in a Nutshell
The New Teachers community was created especially for teachers who have 2 years or less of experience in the college network.
It allows them to ask all of their questions (anonymously or not, it is your choice) and to receive answers quickly from the AQPC as well as from experienced colleagues (teachers, professionals, and managers) or from those just starting their career.
This community also offers succinct pedagogical resources, useful right away in class; including class management, evaluations and planning.
Participants can also make official or unofficial appointments in order to meet and discuss pedagogical matters that are troubling them.
Participants can also subscribe to a notification service of what’s new: once a week and receive an email that indicates new questions, available answers and resources, and personalised themes. (Participants can unsubscribe to this service at any time.)
Who Can Participate in this Community? Only New Teachers?
Teachers who have 2 years or less of experience in the college network and who are working in an associate member establishment of AQPC can have a free membership to this community. There are 2 ways to do this: either they make their interest known to the AQPC – College Liaison in their school, or they communicate directly with the Association (info@aqpc.qc.ca or 514 328-3805) by giving their name and that of their college and the contact information.
All individual members of the AQPC automatically have access to the New Teachers community, to support new colleagues in their professional integration.
After becoming an individual member of the AQPC or equipped with a free membership to the community, you first need to log in to the website of the AQPC (upper-right corner) to access the New Teachers community. (If you do not log in to the site, you will not see the questions, the answers and the resources, nor their real-time updates. Furthermore, you will not be able to consult the site in its entirety, nor add your 2 cents worth.)
And, then what?
To have a detailed description of the New Teachers community, participants can read the introduction page for the AQPC Communities.
But, because you are so curious, here is some information taken from a screenshot.
Screenshot from the New Teachers on the website of the AQPC.
- Use the tabs “Discussion”, “Resources”, and “Events” to access the content of each. (The numbers in parenthesis indicate the number of entries for each. For example, we can see that there are 16 resources in this community.)
- Under each tab, you can see a list of themes dealt with in the content. You can also choose one of interest, and then click on “Apply” to filter the content and see only the content that is linked to this theme.
- The icons show you what type of content you will find: questions, answers, events or documents (video, PDF, etc.).
- You can modify your profile at any time, such as adding a photo so that the other members of the community can see your smiling face!
Two Invitations
I hope that many of you will use this new virtual community, whether it is to look for answers to your questions and to enrich your teaching, or to lend a hand to your new colleagues!
If you wish to become more involved and to contribute to the animation of this community, don’t hesitate to communicate with me.
I look forward to seeing you on-line!
