Your teacher profile introduces you to parents and learners. It should use a professional tone. It will show up on your classes, and serves as your personal teacher page. Having a great profile will give parents more confidence to sign up for your classes. Your teacher profile video is a tool that you can use to market yourself to parents, showcasing your professionalism and personality.
General Requirements
Name: The display name that will be seen by families and our staff. Your display name on Outschool does not need to be your full name, but you are required to include at least some variant of your legal name. You are welcome to include details about your services or qualifications, such as the topic you teach, or standard suffixes like 'PhD', 'MA', or similar, in order to help build your business on Outschool. Branded content, university names, or other trademarked terms are not permitted to be used in your display name. Please note that this field has a 50 character restriction and should be free of special characters and emojis.
Headline: A short phrase that appears alongside your display name. Use your headline to show your teaching strengths to families, e.g. ”'Former High School Chemistry Teacher”
Country (Not Required): An optional, location banner below your display name. Sharing your country of residence on your teacher profile can help families find classes in the right time zone.
Photo: A clear, straight-facing photo of your face. Read more tips for choosing your Outschool profile photo.
About Me: A paragraph (100-200 words) describing your background, teaching experience, and interests. Families use your “About Me” section to aid in their class searching process, so this should be free of spelling or grammatical errors. This section should not include links to social media accounts or other websites (remember to keep communication with families on Outschool).
Profile URL: Your profile URL is a unique link that leads to your profile, e.g. outschool.com/teachers/catbot. All teachers have an automatic “Profile Url,” but you are welcome to request a custom link at outschool.com/help. Note that like with your display name, the custom link must contain your full name, or a variant of your legal name.
Profile Video Requirements
You will also be required to submit a short, profile video of between 10 seconds - 5 minutes in length (we find that 30-90 seconds is the sweet spot, though). You can easily create a professional, high-quality video using your computer or smartphone: record your video either by using Outschool’s recording feature, or upload a separately recorded file. Outschool’s technology supports video uploads of up to 100MB; if your file is larger than this, you will need to compress it before uploading. Note that the purpose of the profile video is to introduce yourself as a teacher and is not intended as a demo lesson.
What to Include
Create a short script and read it aloud before recording. This will help you sound more natural on camera.
Introduce yourself by name.
Briefly describe your professional background. Mention any experience or education that will help build your credibility as a teacher. Feel free to include information about your teaching style and/or philosophy.
Mention the topics that you will be teaching – and what makes you qualified to teach them. Be personable and connect with families. Tell a fun fact about yourself or what you’re interested in.
Profile videos should be void of educator contact information including personal websites and social media handles.
You don’t have to get it right on the first take. Give yourself a few chances to feel comfortable. Watch your video to check how it looks and sounds before you submit it.
Audio and Visual Tips
Audio: Make sure you can be heard clearly with no background noise. Typically, headphones or an external microphone will produce better quality sound than your computer’s built-in microphone.
Video: We recommend using either QuickTime (Mac) or Camera (PC) to record your video. If you want to edit your video to add photos, music, or anything else, you are welcome to do so, however, it is not required. The recording feature on Outschool does not support editing, but you can upload a video that was recorded and edited with your own software.You can use iMovie (Mac) or Video Editor for Windows (PC) to put together multiple clips.
Framing: Place your camera or device at eye-level on a stable surface to capture your full face and head. If you don’t have a tripod, use a stack of books or a box to achieve the desired height. Don’t hold your phone or camera in your hand as it will produce a shaky video. Make sure to shoot your video horizontally if you’re filming on your phone so that the resulting video is not too narrow.
Lighting: Your face should be well-lit either by natural light or by lamps. If you can move your lamp, place the light directly in front of you, a few feet away. Avoid sitting in front of a window or other bright light to prevent back-lighting.
Setting: Showcase your “home classroom” where you will teach classes - this will set expectations for the class experience. Make sure that you don’t have clutter or anything else unprofessional behind or around you. It is OK to feature multiple settings if you choose to edit your video.