Sample Interview Paper

S is a 59 year old African-American female born and raised in Anson County who has attended several institutes of higher learning. After earning a Bachelor of Science in Secretarial Administration from Barber-Scotia College, she later received special education teaching licensure from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Because of her love for learning, S has also taken online classes through the University of Phoenix. She has been a secondary special education teacher for three years and currently works with 8th graders at Anson Middle School.

Do you think Serge’s skills were assessed adequately? Do you think he was correctly identified as learning disabled? Why or Why not?

As my cultural other, I interviewed EMG, she is 26 years old and the au pair for my nephew and niece. She lives in their home since she moved from her hometown Cartagena in southeast Spain. She will be leaving this May to return to Spain, for her sister’s high school graduation, after about 18 months with the family. In the time she has been here, I have seen and interacted with her at family gatherings, usually holidays and birthdays. I have not personally created a bond or relationship with EMG, but I think she is a sweet girl. EMG has become friends with my daughter; they have gone to New York City for New Year’s Eve and Pennsylvania for a Taylor Swift concert.

For my informational interview I interviewed Hasty Elementary School Counselor Candace Thurman. Mrs. Thurman earned her B.A. in Psychology from Salem College and a MA Ed.S in Mental Health Counseling from Gardner Webb University. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor and a Licensed School Counselor. Her maternal grandfather suffered from mental illness and was homeless. Seeing the impact his condition had on him as well as her family compelled her to choose a career in mental health. Mrs. Thurman worked in the middle school setting for 11 years. This year is her first year in an elementary school.

Strategies that are in place are teachers and administration walk-through with feedback for growth. The school also provides support for teachers whose performance was

For my In-Depth Interview paper, I chose to Interview my co-worker Senada Cufurovic whom I work with at Bank of the West. Senada finds herself culturally diverse as being from another country and culture. As long as I have known Senada from working with her for the past two years, I have never been able to get to know her background from where she came from until this opportunity to interview her came up.

When we were given this assignment I was very uneasy about talking to another person about personal matters. Let alone someone who I had never had a conversation with and was of a different race and ethnicity. My interviewee's name is Micheal. He considers himself black of African American descent. He is a black 36 yr old black male. Michael was born in San Bernardino, CA. He’s an educated and a professional male who works in college. He is the father of 2 boys, happily married. His wife is considered a white woman. Michael is the second from the oldest of about 9 children. He was raised by his aunt and uncle who he very happily calls, mom and dad. They had 2 adopted children when he was taken in and then they adopted 2 more after him. He smiles

A collateral interview was conducted with Chelsea Barnes, former nursing assistant for Ms. Leavitt father. Ms. Barnes reported that she resides in Richmond Hill, NY. She has three children 22, 19, and 8. She also indicated that she has a grandson who is 9 months old. She indicated that her children was not difficult to manage. She reported that she does not have experience handling children who are aggressive.

For my interview of a healthcare professional, I interviewed Todd Reynolds of the imaging department at Virginia Gay Hospital in Vinton, Iowa. Todd has worked at Virginia Gay for about six years and has worked in the healthcare field for almost 44 years. Due to him working in the healthcare profession for so long, I decided to interview him to find out what has made him stay in one career field for so long.

Jeremy Bird started by buying a chip and tuning his own Buick Grand National. Jeremy then Bought chips for his own car and realized that the chips weren’t right, he decided he wanted to correct it, and felt the need to make the industry better. In 2002 Jeremy bought the software required to tune and began to sell chips at $100 per chip and his career carried from there.

A collateral interview was conducted with Ms. Joann DeSimone, paternal grandmother. She reported that her son did not have a history of substance or alcohol problems. She indicated that her son has not had any mental health issues.

In the process of conducting an informational interview with a professional working in a career field of my interest, I have chosen to find someone who is in the field of Project Management. Considering that the Bachelor of Arts degree in Enterprise Leadership would give me a solidified background allowing students to hone their skills in innovation, entrepreneurship, communication, critical thinking, problem solving and leadership (iowajpec.org) along with a Business Administration minor, I think I could obtain the abilities for this career and is something I’d like to pursue. The person I’ve interviewed is Brittany Hoffman who has recently been promoted to Project Management Senior Consultant on the Implementation Strategy and Operations

Using the interview guide, we interviewed Larissa, a Personal Support Worker (PSW) who works at Gary J. Armstrong (Gary J). Larissa has been working as a PSW for close to two decades and was able to provided valuable insight into her discipline. During the interview, Larissa discussed her role as PSW at Gary J and outlined the knowledge and skills required for her practice.

Analyzing data is a critical component for reviewing the performance and processes of a school. There are several ways this school goes about analyzing their performance and processes. First, all during the school year teachers are meeting each Monday morning in grade level or whole faculty PLCs in order to analyze performance of students and processes teachers are using to teach students what they need to know. The groups analyze test data, progress monitoring probes, intervention successes or failures and make data driven decisions about next steps. Additionally, near the end of the year the faculty participates in reviewing and analyzing data collected from the Title I evaluation process. This is an opportunity for the staff as a whole to analyze strengths and weaknesses of the school and what steps can be taken to improve next year’s performance and/or processes. Finally, this year the entire district went through a process called an Organizational Health Inventory (OHI). The OHI survey results were shared at the final faculty meeting of the year. The results showed that this school has a high level of morale and a culture for learning that is strong. However, the area of weakness that was gathered from analyzing the data is that we need to be better at making goals and then working to accomplish them. This process of analyzing data from all of our input was

Starting with establishing a healthy staff culture, Kelly and her administrative team has developed a monthly calendar, around the state and has provided open invitations to school staff to meet for coffee. Each administrator will create a public forum for teachers to come, meet and discuss their ideas, concerns or needs and most importantly, just be there to listen. Since establishing these frequent, open forums, teacher satisfaction survey results have shown an 11% increase in year over year satisfaction. She has taught me, by taking time to get to know her team, listen to their ideas and concerns, and be human, it has helped her eliminate some of the disengagement of staff members.