EDU 693 - Teacher interview questions

Briefly share a little about your background experiences that have led you to choose a career

in education?

 My path to becoming a teacher was neither straight nor entirely planned.

 Despite wanting to be a pediatrician when I was a child, I ended up pursuing an

undergrad degree in Business with a Marketing major. It wasn`t until my first job out of

university, when I detoured accidentally into a public/media/investor relations role, that I

discovered something I really loved – communications.

 It led me back to school, where I pursued a diploma in Corporate Communications

followed by a Master of Professional Communications.

 From there I began my 12-year career in Corporate Communications, where I was

responsible for planning and executing training events and creating presentations for

senior executives. This became my passion - It allowed for out-of-the-box thinking and

creative problem-solving, and required excellent people, project and time management

skills.

 I found it rewarding to work with subject matter experts to create engaging and effective

training sessions. I would attend the sessions to see how people responded to them as

well as surveyed attendees after the event to determine what worked and what didn’t, to

make improvements for next time.

 This experience, the planning and developing of educational content for several different

audiences and then figuring out how to make it better for the next time, is what made me

realize how much I wanted to be the person in front of the room – delivering the

presentation.
  More importantly, I began to feel like I wanted MORE from my job. I worked hard and

was very good at what I did, but I began feeling unfulfilled. I wanted to make more of an

impact on the world, not just the bottom line of a company. It was from this desire that I

began volunteering at my son’s school

 Twice a week, I worked with two Grade 1 students who were struggling readers, and I

facilitating guided reading groups with a Kindergarten class. It was from these

experiences that I knew I had found my calling. I wanted to help shape the minds of our

future!

 I found the MSEd program at Medaille, said goodbye to my career in communications,

and ventured into the world of teaching!

What have you learned in your teacher training program that will make you an excellent
classroom teacher and colleague?
 There are so many valuable things I learned throughout my teacher training at Medaille

College that will make me an exceptional teacher and colleague.

 First and foremost, I learned the importance of successful planning, instruction and

assessment.

o These skills are interdependent and can make or break your whole learning

segment. As such, it is imperative teachers put in the time and effort to plan an

effective lesson, so that the subsequent tasks will run smoother. Planning an

effective lesson requires an educator to know the needs, strengths and weaknesses

of all their students, and then designing a lesson that addresses these differences, is

engaging, and is culturally responsive. You must also align your lesson to the

required standards to ensure students are learning what they need to know. When
 doing this, it is important to incorporate Bloom’s taxonomy so that you are helping

students build core skills and develop critical thinking.

o Engaging instruction is necessary to maintain students’ attention and foster

learning. To do this, I believe we need to move away from strictly textbook learning

and move toward providing students with hands-on, social learning opportunities.

This encompasses Piaget and Dewey`s constructivist approach, which supports

children taking an active role in their learning by performing experiments and

making observations. I believe Vygotsky’s theory of social interaction is also

paramount to engaging instruction, as it focuses on students interacting and learning

collaboratively. The most important factor to consider when instructing is if you

have tailored your lesson to every student in the room. If not, then you need to

revise your plan.

o When it comes to assessment, the biggest lessons I am taking away from this

program is (1) how important it is to assess your students by the most important

things they have to know, not by what they don`t know. Which leads to (2) The

concept of assessments driving instruction, which refers to taking what your

students didn`t learn and reteaching it – in as many different ways as possible –

until they understand it. Lastly, I learned how effective explicit instruction is to

really drive home a concept. That is the ”I do, we do, you do model”. It allows for

the gradual release of responsibility from the teacher to the student as they learn

what is being taught.

 Another important lesson I learned in becoming an effective teacher is the art of Reflection.
 o In order to be the best teacher I can be, I must be humble and realize that sometimes

no matter how much planning I have done, things are not always going to go the

way I want them to.

o By being prepared for this reality, I am able to keep an open mind about the

potential setbacks I might face in the classroom. But, as long as I reflect upon what

I did wrong or what I can do to make things better the next time, and then do it, I

will know that I am doing the best job I can for my students.

 With respect to being an excellent colleague, I know that collaboration is key. I plan to use

my communication skills and open-mindedness to build relationships with my colleagues

so that we can support each other and share ideas to ensure our students are getting the best

educational experience possible.

Provide us with an example of a lesson you taught. How did you integrate it with other
curriculum areas, address the CCLS, technology, student engagement and motivation? What
were the results of the lesson?
 I haven’t started my student teaching placement yet, however, we wrote several lesson

plans during the program, and did mock presentations within our class for some of them.

 One of my artifacts was my Literacy lesson plan that taught students how to ask and answer

the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How questions to comprehend key details in a

text. The book I used was Little Red Riding Hood.

 To address the common core learning standards, I produced worksheets that were

completed as a class and individually. This allowed me to assess what students already

knew and then model what was expected of them, while engaging them in the lesson by

asking them to provide answers.

  The worksheet to be completed individually gave students a chance to practice what they

know and discover maybe what they didn’t know yet. Next I assigned a fun and engaging

group activity where students got to act like detectives as they uncovered the Who, What,

When, Where, Why and How of the story. They were highly motivated during this activity

because they enjoyed using the fake magnifying glass to pretend they were real detectives.

 I incorporated technology into this lesson by starting it with an informative and catchy

video that rapped the definitions of the 5Ws and 1H. Some students sang along!

 I also utilized the SMART board for the “I Do”, “We do” worksheets so that I could easily

demonstrate how to match up the vocabulary.

 The lesson was successful with the class and because I had created modified worksheets

for the fake ENL student, everyone was able to complete the activities… which I believe

would be the case in a real classroom setting.

How will your knowledge of the current trends in education inform you as an educator in our
district/board/school?
 I will continue to research the education trends within your Board; however, the ones I am

familiar with are technology in the classroom, Growth Mindset, and Social-Emotional

Learning (SEL).

o Technological integration in the classroom is so important in a digital world. After

taking Medaille’s technology class, I feel fully prepared to incorporate technology

into my lessons to engage students and encourage participation. Here is a look at

my Author Study that I created on SMART Notebook. It contains several

interactive activities and games that students can play while learning core

curriculum in ELA, Math and Science.

o With the added technology within and outside the classroom, it is important to keep

students (and parents!) informed about Cyber Safety. This is something I created

for my website to bring awareness to and educate both students and parents on

potential online threats.

o My savvy computer skills will prove useful inside the classroom and outside the

classroom for things such as assemblies, concerts, and staff meetings.

o Growth Mindset is helping students understand, and believe, that their abilities are

not fixed. It’s about realizing that just because they can’t solve a problem, or

achieve a specific goal, right now doesn’t mean they won’t be able to after working

on it. It is about focusing on students’ potential rather than their limitations.

o I believe this is so important in today’s society. Children are dealing with so many

different pressures, they don’t always believe they can do better than what they’ve

been doing. By staying educated on this topic – and even incorporating it into my

own life – I believe I can help students meet their potential but embrace their

mistakes and use them as examples of how to do better next time.

o Another trend is Social-emotional learning (SEL). SEL skills include building

self-esteem, modeling teamwork, developing empathy, and learning conflict

resolution strategies, among many others. This aims to develop the emotional

strength necessary to deal with the postsecondary challenges students will

inevitably face.

o I am a strong believer in teaching kids to be self-aware, responsible and respectful,

so that they have a foundation of confidence from which they will find strength to

overcome any challenges they face once they are in the real world. To do this, I will
 ensure my students feel safe and supported by creating a positive classroom

environment and by being available to them as a trusted adult.

Why should we hire you instead of the other applicants we have interviewed?
 I believe my well-rounded and diverse skill-set coupled with my strong work ethic, make

me the best candidate for the job.

 My desire is to prepare students for tomorrow’s challenges by teaching them how to

problem solve and ask the right questions. I am ready to help develop our younger

generation and create future leaders.

 I have extensive experience with cross-functional collaboration, I am capable of being

flexible while maintaining my integrity, and I can effectively manage people and my time.

 When it comes to teaching qualifications, I have demonstrated my ability to plan, instruct

and assess successfully; my in-depth knowledge of the elementary curriculum; and my

superior literacy and technology skills.

 I believe all these skills will serve me well when I have a class of 25+ students with

different cultural, emotional, educational and physical backgrounds, in addition to their

parents, my colleagues, and the school administration.