Reflections from Jesse Miller’s Presentation
Jesse came and spoke to our class about the many significant roles technology plays in education. From virtual classrooms to online resources, teachers and students rely on digital tools to enhance learning. However, with this reliances comes the need for clear professional boundaries regarding digital usage. Maintaining those boundaries are essential to ensure you create a safe and respectful learning environment not only for the students but for educators too.
The Importance of Professional Boundaries
What I gained from Jesse’s chat is that maintaining professional boundaries particularly with digital communication is to help ensure the integrity of the teacher-student relationship. These boundaries prevent misunderstandings, protects privacy, and upholds those ethical standards that we all sign. Digital spaces can blur lines between personal and professional (they even happened today during our Zoom class where we are in our own homes!). Because those lines can be blurry it is crucial for educators to establish clear expectations regarding communication outside of school hours, the use of social media, and the use of online learning platforms.
How to Maintain Those Boundaries
Some of the thoughts that came from Jesse’s presentation were:
- Use School-Approved Platforms: non-verbal communication to parents or students should only occur over school approved accounts like email. This ensures transparency while keeping records of these interactions.
- Set Clear Expectations: at the beginning of the school year it is important to establish clear guidelines on how and when students can engage with you digitally. This forms a contract between your students and you and keeps you all on the same page! (obviously age dependent).
- In my current line of work we always co-create a group contract and I think doing that as a class is really important to. One of the line items could be about digital communication!
- Keep Professional Language & Tone: Since we are always texting or communicating casually on digital platforms, keeping a professional tone can be difficult sometimes. As a reminder, avoiding using slang and remembering that your email is just an extension of your workplace is important.
- Avoid Social Media Interactions: Educators should refrain from adding students on ANY personal social media accounts!
- Respect Privacy & Confidentiality: Educators must be mindful of sharing any student-related information online. Pictures of work, their faces, anything! These platforms are not secure and it is safer to not share that information. As well, you should gather photo and media consent from your students for posting on professional/school accounts.
- Model Responsible Digital Citizenship: Educators serve as role models for learning and that should continue for digital etiquette. Demonstrating responsible online behaviour, including fact-checking sources, using respectful language, and promoting cyber safety, helps to instill those values in your students.
Upon reflection, although these guidelines/ideas seem straightforward, the reality is that digital boundaries can be tricky to enforce. Students can get really excited and want to add you on social media or get your number from a school trip and text you. Regardless, I think the best plan is to always redirect the conversation to an appropriate channel but doing so with compassion. Remembering that students are not necessarily trying to cross your boundary but are excited to talk to connect with you and just need to learn how to navigate those boundaries.