Mock Interview

In our Social Studies Methods class, Dr. Smirnova planned for us to conduct mock interviews at a job fair. Dr. Smirnova took the role of a journalist, documenting the fair. I volunteered, along with 3 of my peers, to be an administrator looking to hire a new teacher. Dr. Smirnova told me I would be looking to hire someone well suited for a job involving the use of differentiated instruction and technology. I was asked to create a professional profile of myself. 

Here is my profile:

Profile:

Hello everyone, nice to meet you all. My name is Dr. Jennifer Masini. I received my doctorate in childhood special education and administration in 2010. I taught grades 1-5 post-graduation and I have been the principal of South Elementary School for 3 years now. I am looking to hire a special education teacher that is able to provide differentiated instruction and use technology to meet the needs of all of students in a third-grade classroom with 20 students. 5 of these students have IEPs and are below grade level. I look forward to getting to know you all!

I created several warm up questions that I would ask to each group of interviewees to see who would take initiative in answering. These were my warm up questions:

Warm up questions:

• What is the first word that comes to mind when I say “differentiated instruction” and why?
• How do you plan to make a positive difference in students’ lives?

• What is something that makes you unique?

I created six questions specific to the topic of differentiated instruction and technology to see how much each interviewee knew about these subject areas. These were my specific questions:

Differentiated Instruction/Technology Questions:

1. What does differentiated instruction mean to you and why is it important to use differentiated instruction in a classroom?
2. How would you plan to incorporate technology into a Social Studies lesson about the United States Government in a third grade classroom?
3. How could you provide differentiated instruction using technology in the classroom I described earlier?
4. Why do you think it is difficult /challenging to provide differentiated instruction, such as accommodations and modifications, every day in the classroom?
5. Imagine you are teaching a direct instruction lesson. The independent practice part of the lesson requires students to complete a fill in the blank activity with new terms from the lesson. You notice one student is struggling to recall any information from the lesson. The student becomes frustrated, starts to cry, and disrupts the whole class. The student tells you that they cannot remember anything they just learned. How would you react in this situation?
6. How are you going to keep track of the diverse students in your classroom?

This experience was so helpful and meaningful to me. I got to learn about the different things that administrators pay attention to during an interview. This was definitely an experience I learned a lot from and I will keep it in mind when I prepare for job interviews in the future.