Are you a beginning teacher trying to write a first-year teacher CV or resume? Your educational internships will be your ticket to secure a new teaching position for the first time. Many new teachers don’t know how to write a CV or resume with no classroom experience.
Don’t worry; we will discuss it here.
This post will be relevant whether you are writing a teacher resume to make teaching a second career or becoming a teacher in your first career.
Do not underestimate the value of education internships in your new teacher’s CV or resume.
The time you spend in the classroom and the experience and skills you gain while performing your student teaching or practicum will help set your academic career foundation.
Administrators looking to hire new teachers will focus on education internships; therefore, you must sell this experience in your instructional CV, resume, and cover letter!
These internships may be the only beginning teaching-related experience you have. You will want to highlight these critical and relevant teaching skills and knowledge areas in your first-year teacher CV, resume, and education application letter.
Read great application letter writing tips for teachers and other educators to ensure your letter complements your teacher’s CV or resume.
8 Ways to Write a New Teacher CV or Resume
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Do Not Skimp on Teaching Responsibilities You Performed
As with any teaching resume, you must devote a section of the document to your relevant work experience. This section is where you will list and discuss your education internships.
Highlight your responsibilities during this position, including lesson planning, classroom observations, student assessment, classroom management, and administrative duties. If you completed more than one teaching practicum or internship, do not copy and paste your responsibilities from one position to the next—instead, rephrase them.
Including Student Teaching and Internship Experience
For instance, did you
work with students one-on-one or in small groups during your teaching internship?
Take over the classroom for any time as the lead teacher?
Plan and implement a lesson plan?
Help to uphold the classroom management plan?
Accompany your lead teacher to faculty meetings or grade-level meetings?
Learn about or use any new teaching methods or strategies.
Any of these different types of responsibilities are worth mentioning in your teacher’s resume and cover letter.
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Discuss Lesson Plan Development
You were likely allowed to be in charge of some lesson planning during your stint as a student-teacher. Showcase this valuable teaching experience in your teacher resume. By doing this step, you will communicate to prospective schools that you can plan and lead lessons to a whole class of learners.
Express how you came up with lesson ideas or concepts, how you planned your lesson (Understanding By Design, Backward Design), what teaching methods you used, and what you did to differentiate instruction for all learners.
Did you incorporate hands-on learning? Visual? Tactile? Kinesthetic? Cooperative?
And how well was the lesson received? Did you test students’ learning at the end of your class?
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What Creative Activities Did You Implement?
As mentioned above, you must demonstrate how you differentiated instruction for multiple intelligences. You will also want to highlight the different creative activities you incorporated into your lessons or that you helped to lead for the cooperating teacher.
The activities and projects you integrated into the classroom should have been engaging and creative and brought the subject to life. Capitalize on this excellent opportunity to showcase your knowledge and skill in engaging students in active learning.
In your resume and cover letter, highlight the hands-on learning you incorporated into the classroom. Examples may include thematic units, technology, collaborative learning, inquiry-based activities, manipulatives, learning centers, role-playing, and educational games.
Please explain how you created these projects and what the resultant benefits were after implementing them.
Going into detail about projects you were involved in will help you incorporate teaching keywords in your resume. Education keywords in a CV or summary are critical to job search success.
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Showcase Classroom Management Skills You Developed
One of the critical skills you will have picked up during your education internships is classroom management. Many new teachers will agree this is a difficult skill to learn. So, if you don’t feel overly confident in this area, that’s ok. You can still mention what you learned and what methods you used to uphold the classroom management plan.
Under each position in your beginning teacher resume, discuss how you produced a well-behaved, focused, and learning-oriented class environment.
Were there any behaviour initiatives you designed and implemented?
Did you help boost student attendance rates or class scores?
How did you keep students focused and on task?
Did you make positive strides with any students who had behavior problems?
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Express Your Ability to Establish a Good Rapport with Students
Hiring administrators will want to see that you have the proven ability to forge strong relationships with students. As a teacher, you will be asked to work with students one-on-one and in small groups, which will allow you to develop relationships with them. As this is an imperative skill for teachers, it is worth highlighting your new teacher’s CV or resume.
Your first-year teacher’s CV or resume should highlight how you provided students with individualized support and one-on-one assistance, ensuring they could overcome academic and social obstacles. It is also essential to show how you could boost children’s self-confidence, self-esteem, and motivation.
Discuss how you ensured all the students felt safe, unique, welcome, and valued.
For instance, did you
incorporate students’ interests into activities?
Listen to students’ concerns, ideas, and feedback.
Effectively explain concepts to them to help them with comprehension.
Characterize an advocate and role model for your students.
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What Other Teaching Professional Achievements Stand Out?
Under each internship position, you will want to showcase your accomplishments. Though they may not seem as impressive as a tenured teacher, your achievements are still vital to selling yourself as a teaching candidate!
Some examples may include:
- I cultivated a special rapport with an introverted student challenged by social anxiety. Getting to know his unique interests took time and developing and incorporating activities. I gave the student praise and positive reinforcement, helping him cultivate a passion for school while learning to express himself and slowly interact with others.
- Designed and implemented a highly engaging, technology-based lesson plan. Students were excited to learn the new topic while testing the technology and developing their skills.
- Integrated read-aloud, literature circles, and creative writing to improve students’ reading comprehension and writing skills. Choose modern, age-appropriate literature to get students excited about reading and writing.
- Provided after-school tutoring to help two struggling students pass their upcoming math exams.
- Assisted with extracurricular activities, including girls’ volleyball, chess club, and a teacher yoga class.*
*This last point demonstrates your willingness to participate in extracurricular events, contribute to the school community, and go the extra mile for students and colleagues.
As you can see, writing a resume without experience teaching in your classroom is doable.
It can be difficult to choose the right words for a first-year teacher CV or Resume, but it’s doable. We do it every day with exceptional success.
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Convey the Collaborative Skills Use in Practicum Teaching and College Projects
Working with other teachers is essential to thriving as an effective, well-rounded, and respected educator. Use your CV or resume to highlight the collaborative skills you developed and how you observed and coordinated with other teachers.
These experiences may include working with your mentor teacher, collaborating with a paraprofessional, participating in staff meetings, helping with after-school sports or school events, or attending professional development opportunities such as in-services and workshops.
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Were You Involved with Parents During the Student Teaching Internship?
Parent communication is another topic school administrators seek in hiring new teachers.
So, did you
help keep families up-to-date on their child’s academic and social progress?
Draft weekly newsletters or help maintain the classroom website to keep parents informed.
Attend parent-teacher conferences?
Go the extra mile to reach out to parents, particularly those whose children struggled or needed additional support.
Worked with class parents or parent volunteers during class time or a school event.
Include your involvement with parents, as this will show you are ready and equipped to increase effective parental communications.
Hopefully, after reading through this list, you will feel more confident about writing your first-year teacher CV or resume and cover letter, including your education internships. Don’t miss these academic resume formatting tips to please the reader’s eye.
Don’t underestimate the value of these internships, student teaching, and practicum experiences as a beginning teacher. Correctly highlighting these teaching skills and experiences can make all the difference in landing an interview!
If you need help to create your resume and cover letter, please review our resume writing services.
Learn more about Candace, an academic CV or resume writer. Call toll-free at 1 877 738 8052 or send an email.
