A Teaching Profile focuses on the core values, signature pedagogies, personal style and beliefs in our teaching. Various ways to formulate a readable profile include the use of metaphors, illustration or drawing, lists of guiding values, attitudes or  ethics, signature pedagogies, past influential experiences and details of student expectations and achievements.

What is my Teaching Philosophy and Approach?
As an early career academic, I aspire to be an inspirational and research-informed, responsive teacher. I always think of teaching and learning design as a smart balancing act. Very much like a trapeze artist, you need to be brave and bold to take risks, and accept that one fall will potentially inflict long-term damage but recovery is possible. The whole experience is important to perfect the act, if perfection is at all possible. My teaching philosophy and aspirations are best represented by a famous Richard Bach (n.d.) quote: You teach best what you most need to learn. With the rapidly changing technologies and transforming classrooms, teaching in the area of elearning is always a personal learning experience. There is a considerable amount of balancing required based on the context, skills and experiences of target audiences, access and availability of media and technologies and above all the learning approach. I prefer to take an eclectic approach to “use what works” (Mergel, 1998) and do frequently draw on a combination of learning theories as and when appropriate.

The role of technology
When it comes to technology integrated teaching or teaching about it: “It is entirely feasible to surround a teacher with a team of audio-visual technicians, graphic artists and computing specialists to vary the style of the delivery of the educational message without producing a significant increase in pedagogical efficacy” (Taylor, 1996, p.3). As a reflective teacher-learning designer, I like to see every teaching opportunity as a learning opportunity, hence strive to keep up to date with current literature on emerging pedagogies e.g. Pedagogy 2.0 (Lee & McLoughlin, 2010) to undertake evidence based approach to teaching and learning design. My current thinking is to focus on capacity development through provision of opportunities to develop digital literacies and encourage personal knowledge management skills to make effective use of technologies in teaching and learning (see Figure 1). My student life has a strong influence on my teaching and learning design practice. An incredibly positive, engaging and interactive postgraduate online learning experience was miles apart from my undergraduate experience where I was one of the hundreds of students in the room. I am empathetic towards student’s needs, requirements and expectations of university education and always try to ensure that my work aligns with the graduate profile. My work is influenced largely by four facets in education: authenticity (Herrington & Oliver, 2000), motivation (Keller, 1983), scaffolding (March, 2010) and skills development (Cigognini, Pettenati & Edirisingha, 2010).

References 
Cigognini, M. E., Pettenati, M. C., & Edirisingha, P. Personal knowledge management skills in web 2.0-based learning in Lee, M. J. W. & McLoughlin, C. ed. Web 2.0-based e-learning: Applying social informatics for tertiary teaching. USA: IGI Global, p109-127, 2010.
Datt, A. K. & Aspden, T. J. (2011). Leveraging technology for engaging learning design. In G.Williams, P. Statham, N. Brown, B. Cleland (Eds.), Changing Demands, Changing Directions. Proceedings ascilite Hobart 2011. (pp.331-341). http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/hobart11/procs/Datt-full.pdf
Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments. Educational Technology Research and Development, 48(3), 23-48, 2000.
Keller, J. M. Motivational design of instruction. In C. M. Reigeluth (Ed.), Instructional-design theories and models: An overview of their current status. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1983.
McLoughlin, C. & Lee, M. J. W. Pedagogy 2.0: critical challenges and responses to Web 2.0 and social software in tertiary teaching in Lee, M. J. W. & McLoughlin, C. ed. Web 2.0-based e-learning: Applying social informatics for tertiary teaching. USA: IGI Global, p43-69, 2010.
Mergel, B. (1998). Instructional Design and Learning Theory. [Online] Retrieved July 8, 2005, from http://www.usask.ca/education/coursework/802papers/mergel/brenda.htm.
Richard Bach. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. [Online] Retrieved July 7, 2011, from http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/richardbac149566.html
Taylor, J.C. 1996, Technology, Pedagogy and Globalisation, Keynote address presented at the UNESCO funded Asia-Pacific Workshop on Vocational Education and Distance Education, Korea Open National University, Seoul, October.