Teacher 101: How to prepare for a teacher interview

As we are approaching the end of the school year, many of my friends who are in Teachers’ College are now preparing their interviews to embark on their teaching journey. In this blog, I will share a little bit about what excites me about middle school and high school. I will take you through my interview experience; share tips, answer questions, and take you through a general idea of my teaching portfolio.

KNOW YOUR WHY

There are numerous activities during Teachers’ College where professors asked you about your teaching philosophy. This is the most important piece - because if you are passionate about why you pursue teaching as a career, that passion translates to the  interviewer which increases your chance of getting hired.. You need to be able to articulate your teaching philosophy and pedagogy in 1-2 minutes without sounding long winded and rambly. A good starting point is, what are your top three beliefs:

Here are mine:

• Every single student has the ability to succeed

• My role as a science teacher is to instill a sense of curiosity in my students in addition to providing opportunities to practice numeracy and literacy skills

• Leveraging tools that my students are familiar with (i.e. digital tools) in their learning helps make learning more meaningful, fun and relevant

During the interview, I make sure to provide classroom examples of how I demonstrate that belief.

TEACHING PORTFOLIO

During Teachers’ College, I created a teaching portfolio. While I’ve never been asked to bring in a portfolio during the interview, I’ve always had a hard copy handy. My teaching portfolio included:

• Lesson plans that included student handouts, worksheets and answer keys

• Formative feedback that I have provided to the students

• Examples of summative and formative tasks (i.e. what does a test look like?)

• Additional projects that I have taken on

  • This could look different for everybody. If you have coached a team somewhere, include that. If you have been a camp counsellor for a couple of years, include that. For me, I’m passionate about incorporating digital tools in science, so I provided a few examples of how I integrated edtech into my classroom.

• Reference letters from practicum experiences

Do you remember from when you were in Teachers’ College and you had to Google yourself to see what search results came up? It’s important to complete a search engine optimization on yourself in addition to a teaching portfolio. In order to do this, you must have a professional presence online. Having an updated LinkedIn profile and Twitter helps employers to see who you are before and after they interview you. I also think having a professional website where you can upload resources that you have created or an online version of your portfolio is a good idea. I created my website to show my learning journey through educational technology and to connect my work to Ontario's Standards of Practice for the Teaching Profession.

KNOW YOUR SCHOOL

This goes without saying, but you need to know your school or school board’s mission statements. Knowing your school shows your interviewers that you have done your own research, and that shows preparation. 

Questions such as:

• Why do you want to work in this school/school board?

• What type of extracurricular activities does the school offer? 

• What enrichment program does the school offer? 

• What does the student population look like?

are important for you to know at the back of your head during the interview. 

SPELL IT OUT

As mentioned before, it is important for you to show real classroom examples in your answers. This provides concrete examples that you can fall back on and for interviewers to visualize what it’s like to be in your classroom. There’s always going to be questions on classroom management, differentiation and lesson planning, so always make sure that you have examples to support that.

Here are some interview questions that I’ve had in the past:

• Describe your teaching style.

• How do you teach to address Ministry expectations?

• What does a good lesson look like?

• How do you support students with different learning needs?

• What would you do if a student was struggling?

• How did you address a disruption in class?

• What are your strengths?

• How do you communicate with parents?

• What do others say about you? (make sure you provide both colleagues’ and students’ feedback as a response for this question)

DRESS TO IMPRESS

Imagine how you would look if you were to teach in a classroom and go above and beyond that. This comes with all interviews, it’s always better to overdress than underdress.Make sure that you are comfortable in your clothes. The more at home you are with yourself in your outfit, the more confident you will come across.

PREPARE QUESTIONS

At the end of the interview, there will always  be a time to ask the interviewer questions. Always come prepared with a few questions to ask,  because it makes the interview feel like a collaborative conversation rather than a one-sided conversation and it also shows that you are interested in the job.

I always ask:

• What is your virtual learning environment?

  • Google, Blackboard, Moodle… every single has a different virtual learning environment

• What is the teacher to student ratio in a classroom?

• When does school start?

• How many candidates are you interviewing?

• When will a decision be made?

I hope this has been helpful to you and if you have any questions about anything teaching related, I’m always happy to answer! You can always reach me on Twitter or on Instagram.

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