Top 12 Elementary School Teacher Skills to Put on Your Resume

Building a standout resume as an elementary school teacher means showing the full range of ways you teach, nurture, and guide young learners. Not just what you know, but how you spark curiosity, shape routines, and keep a classroom humming. Below, you’ll find a dozen skills employers scan for right away—practical, human, tech-savvy—each one proof that you can create a joyful, effective space for learning.

Elementary School Teacher Skills

1. Classroom Management
2. Lesson Planning
3. Differentiated Instruction
4. Google Classroom
5. SmartBoard Proficiency
6. Zoom Facilitation
7. Seesaw Integration
8. Student Engagement
9. Parent Communication
10. Formative Assessment
11. Canvas LMS
12. Conflict Resolution

1. Classroom Management

Classroom management is the art and habit of building a structured, warm, and predictable environment where young students know what to do, feel safe doing it, and stay engaged long enough to grow.

Why It's Important

Without calm routines and clear expectations, learning time evaporates. Strong management protects instructional minutes, supports social growth, and keeps the room focused, fair, and welcoming.

How to Improve Classroom Management Skills

Make expectations visible, relationships strong, and transitions smooth.

1. Establish a few clear rules: Co-create with students so they own them. Keep language simple. Revisit often.

2. Lead with positives: Narrate what’s going well, celebrate small wins, and reinforce specific behaviors you want repeated.

3. Engage actively: Vary pace and modality—mini-lessons, hands-on tasks, movement, quick checks—to head off off-task behavior.

4. Lock in routines: Entry, materials, partner talk, cleanup—teach, model, practice, and reteach. Predictability lowers friction.

5. Address issues early and privately: Calm tone, quick redirection, dignity intact. Then restore and move on.

6. Keep learning: Seek professional development, observe colleagues, and refine systems with data from your own room.

Small, consistent moves compound into a community that runs itself.

How to Display Classroom Management Skills on Your Resume

2. Lesson Planning

Lesson planning means mapping objectives, materials, methods, and assessments so each lesson hits standards and meets students where they are—clear targets, clear paths.

Why It's Important

Thoughtful plans sharpen instruction, differentiate support, and make time count. Students stay engaged, outcomes improve, stress drops.

How to Improve Lesson Planning Skills

Plan with purpose, then iterate.

1. Define measurable goals: Write student-friendly objectives that are specific and doable within the lesson.

2. Know your learners: Use data and observation to tailor content, pacing, and scaffolds.

3. Mix methods: Blend direct teaching, inquiry, cooperative work, and practice to reach different learners.

4. Embed checks for understanding: Quick exit tickets, whiteboards, turn-and-talks—adjust in the moment.

5. Plan for differentiation: Tier tasks, provide choice, and scaffold language and content.

6. Use tech intentionally: Add tools that clarify concepts or increase participation, not noise.

7. Reflect and refine: Afterward, note what clicked and what dragged. Tweak tomorrow’s plan accordingly.

Clarity up front saves time later.

How to Display Lesson Planning Skills on Your Resume

3. Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated instruction tailors content, process, and product so each student can access the learning and show understanding—same destination, varied routes.

Why It's Important

Elementary classrooms are diverse by design. Differentiation keeps rigor high while making learning fair and reachable for every child.

How to Improve Differentiated Instruction Skills

Start small, build steady.

1. Profile your learners: Readiness, interests, strengths—gather quick data and revise often.

2. Set crisp objectives: Keep the target constant while flexing the path.

3. Use flexible grouping: Rotate by need and purpose—sometimes mixed, sometimes targeted.

4. Leverage adaptive tools: Choose apps and resources that adjust difficulty and provide supports.

5. Offer choice: Menus for reading, products, or roles spark ownership and motivation.

6. Feedback that moves learning: Specific, timely, and actionable; use rubrics students understand.

7. Keep learning: Explore professional development, share practices with colleagues, and pilot one strategy at a time.

Different paths, shared success.

How to Display Differentiated Instruction Skills on Your Resume

4. Google Classroom

Google Classroom streamlines assignment workflows, class communication, and grading. It ties neatly into Docs, Drive, Slides, Forms—one hub, many tools.

Why It's Important

It keeps materials organized, feedback fast, and participation visible, which is especially helpful with young learners and their families.

How to Improve Google Classroom Skills

Smoother navigation, clearer communication.

1. Organize by topics: Sort by week or subject so students can find things fast.

2. Use rich media: Add short videos, audio prompts, and interactive tasks. Flip (formerly Flipgrid) works well for quick reflections.

3. Give precise instructions: Bulleted steps, examples, and due dates; clarify how to turn in work.

4. Promote collaboration: Shared Docs or Slides for group tasks with roles assigned.

5. Speedy feedback: Rubrics, comment banks, and private comments to guide revision.

6. Invite guardians: Enable summaries so adults see missing and upcoming work.

7. Check understanding: Use Forms for quick quizzes and to steer reteaching.

8. Make it fun: Sprinkle in gamified reviews with tools like Kahoot! when appropriate.

Clarity plus consistency equals confidence—for students and teachers.

How to Display Google Classroom Skills on Your Resume

5. SmartBoard Proficiency

SmartBoard proficiency (often stylized as SMART Board) is the capacity to create interactive lessons, blend multimedia, and spark whole-class collaboration on an interactive display.

Why It's Important

Interactive tools pull students into the learning—touch, move, draw, explain—making abstract ideas concrete and boosting participation.

How to Improve SmartBoard Proficiency Skills

Experiment, then elevate.

1. Learn core features: Explore annotation, screen capture, embedded media, and lesson templates.

2. Practice regularly: Rehearse transitions, layer activities, and save reusable pages.

3. Build interactive moments: Drag-and-drop sorts, reveal activities, and quick checks keep attention high.

4. Tap educator communities: Find lesson banks and swap ideas with colleagues and online groups.

5. Attend trainings or webinars: Short sessions can unlock time-saving tricks you’ll use daily.

Keep it simple at first; polish comes with use.

How to Display SmartBoard Proficiency Skills on Your Resume

6. Zoom Facilitation

Zoom facilitation is the skill of running lively, safe, and purposeful online sessions—clear norms, active tools, steady pacing.

Why It's Important

Virtual time must work hard. Good facilitation sustains attention, includes shy voices, and keeps learning moving even when students are remote.

How to Improve Zoom Facilitation Skills

Plan for interaction, not just presentation.

1. Test features ahead of time: Breakout rooms, polls, whiteboards, captions—know what you’ll use.

2. Chunk the lesson: Short bursts of input followed by doing—discussion, draw-and-share, quick polls.

3. Give crystal-clear directions: Visual steps on a slide help younger learners follow along.

4. Schedule brain breaks: Movement, stretches, and brief off-screen moments reset attention.

5. Invite participation: Hand signals, chat prompts, and turn-and-talks in breakout rooms.

6. Collect feedback: Short surveys or forms to learn what to adjust next time.

7. Prioritize safety and privacy: Waiting rooms, mute controls, and screen share settings firmly in place.

Less talking at, more learning with.

How to Display Zoom Facilitation Skills on Your Resume

7. Seesaw Integration

Seesaw lets students capture learning with photos, voice, drawings, and videos while keeping families in the loop. A living portfolio meets classroom workflow.

Why It's Important

It amplifies student voice, simplifies feedback, and opens a window for families to see progress in real time.

How to Improve Seesaw Integration Skills

Make it part of the routine, not an add-on.

1. Explore Seesaw training: Short sessions reveal powerful features you’ll use weekly.
2. Start with templates: Use and adapt activity templates to match your curriculum.
3. Onboard families: Share simple guides and set expectations about posts and comments.
4. Collaborate with peers: Join educator communities to swap activities and tips.
5. Close the loop: Collect student and parent feedback to refine prompts and frequency.

Consistency builds a rich, authentic record of learning.

How to Display Seesaw Integration Skills on Your Resume

8. Student Engagement

Student engagement is the spark—attention, curiosity, effort, joy. In the elementary years, it looks like active hands, bright eyes, buzzing talk, and steady persistence.

Why It's Important

Engaged students remember more, think deeper, and build habits of learning that last. It’s the engine behind growth.

How to Improve Student Engagement Skills

Design for doing, not just listening.

1. Active learning moves: Turn-and-talks, stations, labs, sketchnotes—students doing the cognitive heavy lifting.

2. Smart tech: Use collaboration tools to give every student a voice.

3. Warm classroom culture: Norms that welcome ideas, routines that make risk-taking safe.

4. Integrate interests and choice: Offer topics, texts, or products that tap into student passions.

5. Visible goals and success criteria: Post targets and examples so students can steer themselves.

When students help drive the learning, attention follows.

How to Display Student Engagement Skills on Your Resume

9. Parent Communication

Parent communication is the steady, two-way flow of updates, questions, and celebrations that ties home and school into one team.

Why It's Important

When families know what’s happening and how to help, children learn more, behave better, and feel supported from both sides.

How to Improve Parent Communication Skills

Predictable, kind, and clear wins.

1. Pick one main platform: Keep messages, announcements, and reminders in one place families can access easily.

2. Send regular updates: Weekly or bi-weekly notes with what’s been learned, what’s next, and how to support at home.

3. Invite conversation: Offer office hours, virtual meetings, or call times for quick check-ins.

4. Clarify expectations early: Share academic and behavior norms, plus simple resources for at-home practice.

5. Spotlight the good: Share specific praise and milestones to build trust and momentum.

Partnerships thrive on clarity and goodwill.

How to Display Parent Communication Skills on Your Resume

10. Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is ongoing evidence-gathering—quick checks, feedback loops, student self-reflection—that shapes what you teach next.

Why It's Important

It turns teaching into a responsive cycle. You see where students are, adjust in real time, and keep everyone moving forward.

How to Improve Formative Assessment Skills

Lightweight and frequent beats heavy and rare.

1. Vary the methods: Exit tickets, whiteboards, conferences, peer review—triangulate understanding.

2. Give immediate, specific feedback: Short, targeted notes that tell students what to try next.

3. Be clear about goals: Write and share success criteria so students can self-assess meaningfully.

4. Teach self- and peer-assessment: Checklists and sentence stems help students analyze their own work.

5. Use edtech for instant data: Quick quizzes and polls surface misconceptions fast.

6. Foster a growth mindset: Normalize revisions, celebrate effort, and frame mistakes as stepping stones.

Assessment that informs action changes outcomes.

How to Display Formative Assessment Skills on Your Resume

11. Canvas LMS

Canvas LMS provides a central hub for lessons, assignments, communication, and grades—useful in blended, in-person, or fully online setups.

Why It's Important

It tidies the workflow, supports transparency with students and families, and keeps learning resources in one reliable place.

How to Improve Canvas LMS Skills

Trim the clutter, spotlight what matters.

1. Streamline the homepage: Show only essential modules and links so young learners don’t get lost.

2. Communicate consistently: Use Announcements and the Inbox for updates and quick questions.

3. Embed interactivity: Add tools for quizzes and collaborative boards via approved integrations to boost participation.

4. Speed up grading: Use rubrics and SpeedGrader to deliver fast, actionable feedback.

5. Include families: Encourage use of the parent app for visibility into assignments and progress.

Clear structure removes barriers to learning.

How to Display Canvas LMS Skills on Your Resume

12. Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution teaches children to name feelings, listen well, and solve problems together—calm voices, fair choices.

Why It's Important

It builds a safe classroom, prevents escalation, and equips students with social skills they’ll use for life.

How to Improve Conflict Resolution Skills

Model, practice, repeat.

1. Active listening: Paraphrase, ask clarifying questions, and ensure every voice is heard.

2. Lead with empathy: Help students perspective-take and name emotions accurately.

3. Teach clear communication: “I” statements, calm tone, concrete requests—not blame.

4. Guide problem-solving: Identify the problem, brainstorm options, agree on a plan, and follow up.

5. Set clear norms: Consistent, fair rules and predictable consequences reduce friction.

6. Grow your toolkit: Seek training, practice role-plays, and build classroom scripts students can use.

Conflicts become lessons when handled with structure and care.

How to Display Conflict Resolution Skills on Your Resume