Though fictional, focusing on a single student character like this can ultimately help you improve the experience for all your actual students. Use avatars to guide and ground your plans when preparing a lesson, coming up with examples, or creating assessments. How would Betty react to X, what kinds of examples would Betty relate to, and so on.
To create an avatar, consider factors you already know your students face or confer with colleagues and student affairs staff. Are they first generation college students? Do they work? Do they commute? Do they have pressing family commitments? Do they have concrete career goals? Ask them questions such as “What do you want to get out of this class?” and “What do you wish professors knew about how you work?” An avatar is a composite of such factors resulting in a student profile that is more tangible and relevant than an abstract hypothetical average student.
