Get To Know Your Partner Teacher
We are so excited for you to meet your partner teacher! Empatico exchanges are most successful when teachers plan and get to know each other beforehand. To do this, please schedule a video call to connect with your partner teacher, and use this opportunity to talk about your experiences as educators and coordinate for your first exchange.
Please note that your students should not attend this planning call.
Step 1: Introduce yourselves to each other
Discuss the following questions together:
- What name should I call you, and how is it pronounced?
- Why did you become a teacher?
- What challenges do you face as a teacher?
- How do your students’ culture(s) influence how they express themselves?
- What is one aspect of your country/state/culture that you are excited to share with us?
- What do your students already know about where my school is located? What assumptions do you think they have?
- Is there anything about your region’s history, or current events that is important for me to share with my students before we meet?
- How do you explain “empathy” to your students?
- Why is empathy important to you and your students?
Step 2: Prepare for your Empatico exchange
Prepare for your exchange by following the steps below:
1) Ask each other: "Why did you sign up for Empatico? What do you want your students to gain from this experience?" Then, create a few goals together and discuss how to shape the experience for your students in order to achieve these goals!
2) Look at your shared availability and pick a date and time when your classes can meet on video! The time zones are automatically converted for you.
3) Discuss which Empatico activity you and your partner class will do during your exchange, and how you want to adapt the activity to better align with your students' unique context and interests. For your first exchange, we recommend using the "Get to Know You" virtual exchange activity, containing the following steps: Prepare, Meet, and Reflect.
4) Discuss anything that might be helpful for your partner teacher to know about your students. For example, perhaps you have students learning English, with disabilities, or who don’t have a media release form, etc.
Step 3: Reflect after your meeting
Reflect on what you have learned from your partner teacher by thinking about these questions:
- Did hearing about your partner’s teaching journey and challenges help you understand them better?
- What commonalities do you share?
- Did your partner share any information that was surprising to you?
- How will this information help you and/or your students prepare for your exchange?
- After learning more about your partner, is there anything you’d like to share with your students before the exchange?