Improving Teacher Selection With Behavior-Based Interviewing

What does it mean to be a school teacher? Before mindlessly declaring my major in teaching, I have decided to ask a teacher them self about their experience. My mentor, Gina Biles, has taught sixth grade students at Clear Lake Intermediate School for more than fifteen years. The opportunity to mentor a college student sounded exciting to Ms. Biles, who has always loved motivating, inspiring, and educating the youth. Throughout the interview, her goal has been to portray the life of an educator and to stress the impact education has had on her life.

As preparation for meeting the married teacher couple I was to interview, I started reading Approaches to Teaching (Thinking About Education) by Gary Fenstermacher and Jonas Soltis. It was early in the semester, only a few weeks in, and the overload of theory boggled my mind from the start. I set the book aside and approached the interview with a mindset to get a good outline of who these people are and how they teach. In the setting of their home, in the company of their young child and our mutual friend, I found two caring individuals with similar thoughts on their teaching experiences. Mandy* has been teaching at a large public high school for the last three years. Her degree is in engineering and she loves teaching her seniors

Ashlyn Edwards is an elementary school grades teacher and is licensed to teach grade levels K-6. She currently resides in Texas and has taken some time off from teaching to be with her family. Before taking the time off, Ashlyn worked in two different schools, one of which was in Georgia and the other in Kansas. In Georgia, she taught Kindergarten and in Kansas she taught grade 1. I chose to interview Ashlyn because I had met her several years ago through another friend and I found out she was a teacher at that time. Even though I had not got to know more about Ashlyn before this interview, I was hopeful that she would be able to provide me some insight into what it is like being a teacher and the ups and downs of the job. I asked Ashlyn five questions related to her job and she provided answers that not only guided me but also helped me to understand ways that I can become prepared to teach.

Teaching is an extremely important profession as we are responsible for training up the future generations of our community, country and in effect, the world. In order to be a successful and effective teacher there are some basic skills and competencies that one must possess. The experiences that students have inside (and outside) our classrooms, schools and various other institutes will shape and mould their approach to our subjects and to life in general. Therefore, it requires a certain level of skill and training to be deemed professionally fit to enter into this career path and even then, continuous

For the first informational interview, I interviewed a credentialed teacher, who is part of a program called Urban Teachers. I selected her because I wanted to know other ways or path to become a teacher. Additionally, I always dream of becoming a teacher, but I am hesitant on whether I have the skills to teach students. Lastly, my interest assessment showed that one of the possible careers that are suitable for me is teacher. Therefore, I decided to interview a teacher, who was referred by my mother. The interview was done through Skype because she is currently working at Washington D.C since the program Urban Teachers is from John Hopkins University. The question that I asked were: what was her hesitation in becoming a teacher, what is her

When I arrived for my interview at Tunica Middle School for the seventh grade math teacher position, I was asked the usual questions about strengths, weakness, and my previous work experience. In turn, asked questions about teacher expectations. The teaching position was open in February. However, I believe it was the perfect opportunity for Mr. Newson, the principal, to divulge and share his vision for the school. He did not. Mr. Newson did not display many of the Envisioner traits in my first year.

I interviewed a childcare teacher engaged in the Early Childhood Development. She graduated from East Tennessee State University. She has been intrigued by children her entire life, she has volunteered with children with disabilities and worked with children since age 16. You can say that teaching has been a dream job of hers. Going through the interview I went through a series of questions as follows. What are positive and negative parts about being a teacher? What disciplinary styles work the best? And how can teaching in America be improved?

For this assignment, I chose to interview Ms. Lisa Parker, who is a Math co-teacher and resource teacher for grades K-5 at Krahn Elementary which is a part of the Klein Independent School District and is one of the teachers I have been observing for my field experience. Ms. Parker has been a teacher at Krahn Elementary since 17 years. She started as a 1st grade teacher and was moved to 3rd grade after three years. The administration saw that she was really good with management and math, so she was given the below average, special education students and kids with adaptive behavior after seven years of teaching. With this, she adopted a style for teaching kids with special needs and decided to get a certification in Special Education. Ms. Parker has been teaching specifically in Special Education (SPED) since five years now and the special populations served by her in Krahn elementary include Gifted and Talented students (GT), students with Autism, students with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD), students with Learning disabilities (LD), students with Other Health Impairments (OHI) and Emotionally Disturbed children (EBD)

In the Early Childhood and Special Education program at Valdosta State University, students and professors follow a set of principles called the Valdosta State University Dewar College of Education and Human Services Conceptual Principles: Guiding Principles. These principles are supposed to be the foundation for teacher candidates in this program. These dispositions are in place to help instill professional, ethical, and successful beliefs and values into the program’s students. Post-graduation, when looking for jobs, many school districts and potential employers want to know about teacher candidate dispositions to better understand the teacher candidate’s overall potential as an employee. These concepts include skills and mindsets that student

A sit-down interview, in the interviewee’s classroom, on April 22, 2017, results in responses from Rachel, a female Elementary Education teacher at Deerfield Elementary School, in Deerfield, Wisconsin. Containing eight initial questions and two response follow-up inquiries, this interview represents a 4-year Kindergarten grade level perspective, and utilizes eleven years of teaching experience. As a University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate, Rachel began her career in Milwaukee before accepting her current position of nine years. With extensive knowledge of the field, Rachel qualifies as an excellent resource, both when actively pursuing plans to become an Elementary Education

The individual I chose to interview is Mrs. Felicia Colbert. She is a current assistant principal at my school. Mrs. Colbert’s experience familiarity extends from a classroom instructor to instructional educators as an assistant director. Her capability surpasses 15 years of service in and out the core content of science. Her experience in administration includes two years at middle school level and five years at a high school level as an assistant principal. I designated Mrs. Colbert as my professional to interview because I recently completed my administrator practicum under her supervision. Throughout those six months as an intern, I got to analyze just how much of an expert she is in administration leadership. Therefore,

Teacher Interviews using the questions above dealing with the effectiveness of the SRA program level placement.

As a future educator, I found this assignment beneficial because I was able to interview two educators who have gained a lot of experience in behavioral management through their years of teaching. I interviewed a school administrator and a teacher from my former high school. Mr. Gonzales is a Spanish teacher; he has been teaching for nine years. I also interviewed Mrs. Staha, an administrator at the school, who has had position for six years and was a teacher for twelve years. After, interviewing Mr. Gonzales and Mrs. Staha, I gained a lot of information regarding behavioral management. Some of the information they discussed, correlated with the information I have been learning in this course. Their information regarding behavioral management will benefit me as a future educator.

At the end of the first training session, teachers would know what the school-wide expected behaviors and the incentives for the desired behaviors. The teachers would also know the Intensity I behaviors and the corrective actions for and consequences of those behaviors. The staff would receive training in how to administer those corrective actions properly. In a large group setting, the teachers would receive handouts and a classroom poster of the behavioral matrix. The administrator would then show a PowerPoint presentation on the Intensity I behaviors, briefly explaining each. Then the administrator would speak about possible corrective actions, making it clear that the teacher action can vary from student to student; the action is chosen by the teacher to achieve the desired result from that child as quickly as possible. This portion of the profession development would last thirty minutes. The staff would then break into small groups to role play responding to the Intensity I behaviors. For this activity, each group would have slips of paper with an Intensity I behaviors on them. Each teacher would pick a behavior at random to act out, while another teacher in the same group would have to respond to that behavior. The teachers could then provide feedback to each other. This portion of the professional development would also take thirty minutes. Then the

According to the authors of this article (Donaldson, Marnik, Mackenzie, & Ackerman, 2009), principals need to concentrate on the development of skills and behaviors in order to be successful in motivating, leading, and changing the direction of a school. The successful principal understands that there exists a fine balance of caring for others and the need to accomplish specific tasks (Donaldson, Marnik, Mackenzie, & Ackerman, 2009).