Episode 6: How to Get Started as an Education Consultant

education-consultant

Ever thought about using your teaching expertise beyond all the wonderful things you do in your classroom? If you have, becoming an education consultant could be in your future! Although this job title might be vague and broad, in today’s episode, I’m sharing more insight and clarification on how to get started as an education consultant. 

As an education consultant, one of the benefits is getting to work with a variety of people with different expertise than you. In doing so, you’re able to collaborate and create meaningful content that will be used by teachers in the classroom. In order to be a part of that, during the episode, I share 3 steps you need to take if you are interested in being an education consultant. 

With each step you take, you’re able to start seeing your expertise and experience as valuable, because it is! Being a consultant on products or services, you get to create a positive change in education beyond the classroom setting.

 

Topics Discussed:

  • I share my story on how I first got started as an education consultant

  • 3 steps to take when getting started being an education consultant

  • How using specific terminology is key when searching for consultant jobs online

  • Helpful tips on how to authentically pitch your services to companies

Resources mentioned:

Related episodes and blog posts:

 
 
get-started-as-an-education-consultant
 
 

Read the transcript for this episode:

Hey there, I'm so excited you're joining me today. Today's episode is all about how to get started as an education consultant.

And the first question you might have is what is an education consultant? Good question. Education consultant can be a really broad term. But it basically means using your education expertise to collaborate with people who don't have that expertise.

When I first left the classroom in 2012, I started working as an education consultant for Teaching Channel. At that time Teaching Channel was a nonprofit focused on making videos of teachers across the country. They would get grants covering certain topics, for example maybe early childhood math. And then we would find teachers all over the country who could show best practices in that topic.

So for example, maybe there would be a teacher in Tennessee, showing some great early childhood practices around counting numbers or representing numbers. And then maybe there'll be a teacher in California, who will be doing some geometry work with little learners. And we would find those teachers and really think about how their lessons could fit together to tell a story around the topic. So for example, tell the story about early childhood math.

After we found those teachers and got a sense of what they could show us what their best practices that we could highlight were, then I would really work with the teachers to plan their lessons. And I would think about how they could show us whatever it is we want to capture. If we want to capture this certain numbers on strategy, we want to make sure that teacher has a lesson all about that strategy.

I would also plan interview questions that the folks who are on set could ask the teachers to provide context for the lesson and also give teachers a chance to really explain what they were doing. On the day of filming, we would have a whole video team go into the school, I usually didn't go on these trips, but the video team would go in and they would record the teachers lessons. And they would interview the teachers.

And then an amazing team of folks who have expertise that I don't have that would then produce the videos, they would edit down the footage, they would do all of the color correcting and all the things that I don't fully understand. But they would make these three to five minute videos out of the footage that was captured in the classroom.

I would often look before they did the editing at the big long videos of the lessons that we filmed. And I would think about what parts were really great and really helpful for teachers, and what parts we could probably cut off. I would also look at the interviews and highlight that the teacher said really important helpful things and highlight things that we probably didn't want to include in the videos. So even though I didn't have the editing expertise, I couldn't technically make these videos, I could use my education expertise to guide the content of the videos.

So I want you to start seeing your expertise as valuable. And when you work as an education consultant, you can really consult with folks who have different expertise to create something really cool. So I was able to consult with people who had videographer expertise or videography expertise, and people who had editing expertise and people who had marketing expertise, and I had education expertise. And when we all came together with our particular expertise, then we could create something really valuable and meaningful.

Just like the term education consultant can be used very broadly, there are so many ways you can work as an education consultant. You can work for existing companies, with school districts or directly with individuals.

And let's dive into three steps you can take if you're interested in getting started with education consulting. So step one is assessing your skills. The biggest thing with this one is owning your expertise. As a teacher, you are an education expert. I will say this again, because it's so important as a teacher to really understand this, internalize this and own this. You are an education expert.

Many people tell us that we are not experts; systems are designed for us not being able to really come into our expertise. But you are an education expert, you know way more about education than most people. You have classroom expertise and experience that you can lend to different situations.

I often give the example of think about somebody in your life who does not know much about education. Maybe it's your uncle who works in car sales. He probably doesn't have the same education expertise that you do, maybe he has this expertise in selling or in cars, or whatever it is. But you have unique, valuable expertise that you've developed over time as well.

So within that expertise, you don't have to know everything. But think about particular subjects or topics or areas that you might want to focus on. So for example, I taught kindergarten and first grade. Most of my expertise is around elementary education, I wouldn't go out there and become an education consultant around high school science, I do not have that subject matter expertise, I do not have that experience.

But I can be an education consultant around elementary education about how things are developmentally appropriate or not appropriate for little learners. So think about your particular expertise, and maybe make a list of certain skills that you have or interests that you have, or certain topics or subjects that you might want to focus on when consulting.

After starting to explore and identify your unique expertise, the second step is really thinking about potential organizations you could work with. For this, I would think about organizations that you love or have used before. For example, maybe you have a certain ed tech product that you really like using in the classroom. And maybe there's something about it that you wish was different, maybe you're like, this is almost perfect, but my students always struggle with this, you could consult with this company, to share your feedback, and help to guide the creation of their products and services.

So make a list of potential places you might want to work as a consultant. This could be thinking also about a professional learning experience you've had, maybe you had some amazing professional development around social and emotional learning. And you really are interested and have experience with social emotional learning. Maybe you also could be an education consultant for this professional learning organization focused on social emotional learning.

So think about places you might already have connections or experience with, think about products or services that you've used. And they don't always have to be ones that you want 100% love. Again, they could be products or services that you have some key feedback about, and that you really wish you could make them better, because you can make them better through consulting and through using your experience to improve products and services.

In addition to creating a list of places where you could pitch your consulting services, you can also look for job postings. And sometimes folks who will be looking for education consultants that might be in job postings not listed as education consultant. Sometimes it is, sometimes even the phrase education consultant in job postings means more like tutors, or sometimes like college guidance counselors and things like that. So just be wary that the term is very broad and is used in many different ways. But you might want to search more of the specific topic or subjects that you're interested in, plus the word consultant, or consulting opportunities or something like that.

So you could think about, maybe you really want to be a consultant around the science of reading. So then you could search job sites, or even just search Google science of reading consultant and see what's out there, or science of reading consultant jobs and see what's out there. And a lot of this is playing around with different search terms that will get you to the jobs that you're wanting. But I would search around the words consultant around the specific topics, grade levels or subjects that you're interested in.

When you look at job postings, you might come across a wide range of jobs out there for consultants too. So there might be consulting jobs with bigger organizations or edtech companies. There are often consulting jobs with school districts around certain initiatives or topics or subjects that the district is hoping to have some help with. And then there's often consulting jobs was just individuals who have an idea related to education, but might not have that expertise.

So for example, if somebody wants to start an eighth grade math app, and they have all this programming expertise and tech expertise, but they don't have that education expertise, they need a consultant. They need somebody who has taught eighth grade math, who can guide the creation of the app and give them key feedback. They need somebody who can say hey, this is how we teach this topic in eighth grade math. This is what we don't do. And this is best practice or this is what students struggle with. And really bring all of your real world experience with this subject, topic grade level, into the creation of this product.

So you can also look for folks who might just be starting out, and who need that guidance from the beginning. And sometimes folks who are starting these products or services don't really realize how much help they need from the education side, which brings us to step three of getting started as an education consultant, which is pitching your services. This involves step one of really owning your expertise and knowing that you can provide valuable feedback to products and services.

So when thinking about pitching yourself, you might either be applying for job postings, or you might be doing some cold pitching to educational organizations or companies that you might want to work with. In both cases, you want to be really clear on what your expertise is, and how it can help the organization or the individual with their product. So really thinking through how would I authentically help to guide the creation or the development or the improvement of this product and service. And either put it in your cover letter and application, if you're applying for a job posting, or put it in email, if you're reaching out and cold pitching somebody about how you could consult.

One way to help your pitches be more successful is to really focus on putting yourself out there and getting more visible with your expertise. Because we know you have amazing expertise. But now we need to share it. And I know that can sound scary sometimes. So you can take some baby steps, you can think about establishing your expertise through LinkedIn. So maybe you want to be known as a science consultant, a science education consultant. And you have done all this amazing work around science education, maybe in your LinkedIn profile, you call yourself a science consultant, because you likely have all the experience you need to get started there.

And you can think about making connections to folks who might be interested in your consulting services. So you could follow organizations and companies that you might be interested in working with, you can connect with folks who work at these organizations and companies. And you can start putting out content that establishes your expertise. That content you put out can really be articles that other people wrote, where you're saying great new research about science, education, and have a little commentary, you know, write a sentence about why you think it's valuable, or if you agree with it, or you don't agree with it.

But start posting content, whether it's things that other people have written or new research, or things that you've written. You can create blogs, or articles and post those all with the goal of being known as an expert in your space.

So after you get clear on your expertise, I want you to get really clear on how you're going to get visible with that expertise, and really put yourself out there. Think about posting regularly thinking about connecting with people regularly, and really starting to take some risks, saying hey, I know what I'm talking about. And I can provide value. When people hire you for consulting, they want to trust you. And they want to know that you have this expertise, which you definitely already have. But we need to show them.

So think about what somebody who is a science consultant, or social emotional learning consultant, or a trauma informed practices consultant might be sharing, and then share that on LinkedIn on other social media. Maybe you start an email list, and really start establishing yourself in this area so that you can then pitch your services with more success.

There are many places that need your expertise. We know that there are so many products and services out there that are created in education, but not by educators. And you can tell right, I mean, we really need a teacher's voice in so many of these products and services. It is a big service that you will be doing to consult and show what you've learned and share what you've learned with these organizations creating these products and services.

By getting clear on the value that you can bring, you'll make it easier to pitch yourself and land consulting jobs. And when you consult on these products and services that are used in the classroom, you can truly put your background to good use and create positive change in education.

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