Teaching interviews can be so intimidating! Especially if you’re finding your first job or you’ve been in the same position for a while. If you haven’t landed the interview yet, be sure to take a look at this post where I dig deep into the process of resume crafting. SchoolSpring also offers a teacher job board to help you connect with positions all over the US! If you have scored an interview, this guide to 10 teacher interview questions is for you!
Before my first interview, I remember scouring the internet for examples of interview questions.The problem is that you won’t get asked most of the typical job interview questions you find online since teaching is so specialized. Luckily, I’ve done interviews almost every year of my teaching career, and I have some tips to help you prepare!
How to Answer Teacher Interview Questions
I learned this tip back when I was actually a manager at Target during college ( name a more teachery college job – ha!). It’s called the STAR method.
When you’re asked a question, take a moment to gather your thoughts and what your answer is. Then, think about a specific example from your career that SHOWS your answer or the skill they’re looking for. Most teachers are pretty good at answering questions and knowing what the “right” answer is ( after all, we’re teachers!) so it adds far more value to demonstrate your EXPERIENCE over your knowledge.
Principals are usually looking for some keep personal and professional traits aside from our content knowledge and abilities. Will this teacher work well on a team? Will they prioritize student social and emotional wellbeing? Are they willing to try new methods and grow in their practice? Does their teaching philosophy align with our school’s culture and goals? Are they coachable, or do they think they’re God’s Gift To Teaching? ( we all know that teacher, right? Don’t be them!) In your responses, you should be subtly addressing these qualities as well as showing them your unique qualities and experiences as an educator!
This can be tricky! So let me give you an example:
Interviewer:
Tell me about a lesson you taught recently that went really poorly.
Me:
Context and situation:
Recently with my sophomores I was trying out hexagonal thinking as a way to review the themes of a novel we were reading before they wrote their final essay. I had done this before with seniors, and it worked so well! Those students had so much fun trying to figure out how to connect all of the hexagons thoughtfully, and they made deep connections with the text. By the end students had a thesis statement crafted as their exit ticket.
Task:
With my sophomores, however, the activity was a disaster. I put them in small groups and gave them hexagons with thematic words, symbols, and character names on them. I circulated the room and saw them making connections with their hexagons, but when it came time to share out their connections were very much surface level, connecting basic plot points rather than creating meaning around the themes of the novel. To add insult to injury, when I asked them what they thought of the hexagonal thinking activity, a couple of students said it was “kind of weird” and “just okay.” I was so bummed because I love the tactile nature of the activity and I am so used to seeing kids have those “a-ha” moments!
Action:
I realized that maybe students were struggling with the themes in the first place, and needed some scaffolding. This was first quarter, so I was still figuring out this group of kids. I talked with the freshman English teacher to ask about what things she had done with the students last year to get her thoughts. Although they were supposed to start their essays the next day, I decided to push that back and instead did a brainstorming activity with chart paper. I handed out quotes from the text on slips of paper and had students choose the most important word in the quotes, define it, connect it to one of 3 thematic words I provided, and then draw a symbol to represent it.
Result:
As they worked I circulated, having conversations with each group and pushing them to deeper connections. The final step was for them to write a theme statement on their chart paper. The results were so much better! In their share outs I got to see the a- ha moments I was expecting the day before. Even though I had to push my assessment out, it made sense because they definitely needed that extra work with the themes. If that lesson hadn’t failed I might not have known they needed that extra practice before they wrote their essays.
What makes this a solid response:
In this answer, not only does my interviewer see that I am not afraid to talk about my weak moments as a teacher, they also know that I am skilled enough to pivot when things aren’t going right. They also know that I like to try new activities and methods. Finally, it is clear that I am willing to lean on other teachers in the building when I need mentoring.
How can I prepare for this beforehand?
In order to pull this style of response off, I like to make a short list of recent noteworthy experiences with students. I practice describing these experiences concisely until I can recall them pretty easily. I also keep this list on notepaper that I take into my interview ( no shame in that!).
Here are some categories I try to have examples for:
- a recent awesome lesson
- a lesson where I involved the community
- a lesson where I reached out to others for support ( like SPED, language teacher, mentor, etc.)
- a lesson that had great scaffolding and enrichment
- a lesson that incorporated meaningful technology
- a lesson that incorporated SEL
- a terrible lesson ( and how I fixed it)
What questions am I going to be asked?
If you are able to nail down examples for the categories above, you should be able to mold these examples to answer just about any question you are asked! If you’re like me, you want to practice for specific questions though.
Here They Are! 10 Common Teacher Interview Questions:
- How do you develop a classroom culture that provides a safe place for students to learn and grow?
- What is a lesson you did that you really loved, and a lesson that was a disaster?
- How do you incorporate social- emotional learning into standards-based instruction?
- What is your teaching philosophy and how do you view your role and the students role in the classroom?
- Why would you make a great fit for this school(this is why it’s important to research the school and specifically their mission statement)?
- How do you include parents and the community in your classroom?
- Describe an opportunity where you were willing to be coached to improve on your teaching practice.
- How do you scaffold and provide enrichment in the same class?
- How do you incorporate technology into your lessons?
- How do you manage classroom behaviors?
Of course the best advice is always to know as much about the potential school as possible, take a deep breath, and speak from your heart. What’s your best job interview tip? Leave it in the comments below!
