What is the profile of an outstanding teacher?

This is a report of a qualitative study that profiles 3 outstanding educators from the Province of Prince Edward Island who have been recognized provincially or nationally for their teaching excellence. A total of 3 teachers participated in this study. Each teacher was also asked to nominate 5 of their past or present students with whom they felt they had developed a positive rapport. From each list of nominations 2 students were invited to participate in this study making the total number of student participants 6. Both teachers and students were interviewed to generate the data from which the profiles were composed. Interviews for teachers lasted between 1–2 hours while student interviews varied between 15–25 minutes. The aim of this research was to describe these outstanding educators and find out how and what they do so well. Based on teacher and student findings a profile of an outstanding teacher was generated. Some characteristics and qualities of outstanding teachers discovered in this research were: caring, enthusiastic, interesting, sense of humor, deep subject matter knowledge, effective communicator, makes learning easy and real, and has a positive rapport with students.