Remembering when I was interviewing for my first teaching job, I tried to anticipate questions and how I would answer them. I’ve listed a few questions below so teacher candidates can sharpen their interview skills. Hope you find this helpful, especially if you practice answering and discussing these situations with others.
Wish you the best as you start your educational career!
1. Planning and Pedagogy: Be prepared to talk about a recent lesson that went well. Discuss how will you apply what you learned while teaching that lesson to future lessons? Why would you make these changes?
2. Student Discipline: Be prepared to talk about challenging student discipline problems (without using names). Describe how you handled them. How will you apply what you learned to future student behavior problems?
3. Instructional Strategies: Engaging children in learning is a major key to student learning. Be prepared to discuss a wide range of engagement strategies, from using student interests to whole class skills. Think about how you will keep your students engaged.
4. Assessment: Assessment is basic to a teacher’s ability to know where students are, design instruction, develop key lesson components, teach, and return to the assessment cycle. Be prepared to describe methods or techniques you will use to assess student learning and they will impact your teaching. How are you going to use what you’ve learned while student teaching and apply it to your style of teaching?
5. Communication Skills: Communicating with parents is also key to children’s learning and how they perform in the classroom. Be prepared to describe how you will keep those channels open and what methods you will use. Think of all types of cultures and how that will affect your communication with the home. How will communication help you with future issues?
Verneita R. Hunt
Associate Director, Human Resources
Granite School District (91 Schools, K-12)
Salt Lake City, Utah