Hi everyone,
This is my first time here and I am asking for your advice. I have been asked to be a parent representative on a selection team to hire a new 6th grade Special Ed teacher. For you parents out there, if you had this opportunity, what question would YOU want answered? Teachers, what would you have liked to have been asked at your interview to help get across to the team that you werethe best candidate for the job? Thanks in advance!
Lacie
good questions
How will they individualize for each student?
What pre and post testing does she do and how does she use the results to shape her teaching?
What programs and materials will they need to teach?
If they answer worksheets, look out.
What reading methods do they think work best and why?
How would they define multi-sensory?
How do they make their students’ learning multi-sensory?
Are they aware of the importance of phoneme awareness? What multi-sensory way do they use to teach phoneme awareness?
How do they teach syllable types?
What is their understanding of orthographic awareness and its role in reading?
What would they do with a student that refused to do an assignment?
How does she build self-esteem? Listen carefully to this. Providing praise for work that the student is well aware is less than adequate is not a good thing. TEACHING them and having them develop an “ownership” of what they have learned and a PARTICIPATION in their own learning will build self esteem.
What does she know about fluency and its role in reading?
Is she familiar with a handwriting series that really works? What is it and why does she feel it works?
When teaching math, what does she think is the most important thing to teach first;;;;
Before opening a reading clinic, I was a resource room teacher for 6 years and taught a non-catagorical self-contained classroom for 2. I was successful and loved everything about it except administrators. I was allowed to interview and hire my replacement. So I have some experience in this area.
For more questions, feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]
Sorry if their are any typos in this; my fingers must fly becasue I need to fly out the door. Eileen
Re: Interviewing candidates for Spec Ed job
I was a parent rep for interviewing for a new resource teacher for this year. There were very few candidates and one was going to be offered the job no matter what. So I wanted to hear about why they chose spec ed; sense if they would truly be an advocate for their charges; and awareness, interest and experience with multisensory research based programs. The details listed above are great, and a hands on demo is ideal, but I know how my school/district operates and the challenges the teacher is going to face .At the interviews the spec ed coordinator - who is there to watch for compliance issues only, certainly not for the benefits of the kids, kept parroting how Open Court is the system the teacher has to use because that is what the district uses. The selected candidate knows that is not the method that will teach children like my son. That is worth a lot.
What a great opportunity! All schools should be doing this.
As a parent of LD children and as a teacher myself, I’m always interested in a teacher’s manner with children. Past the interview, I’d want to see the candidates interacting with children in a classroom. I want warmth from teachers. I want them to be warm and friendly to the children and to give every impression that they like children. I’ve seen too many teachers teaching who don’t seem to like either teaching or children.
And I’ve seen too many teachers with a bad attitude toward parents and the community in general. People who like to complain. Try to read between the lines and find out if you’ve got a complainer or a problem solver in front of you as I think you’d likely want to hire the problem solver.
In an interview, candidates want to say what you want to hear. They try to guess what’s on your mind and feed that back to you. Watching them teach or interact with children in the school can give you insight into how well they interact with children and how much they enjoy it. How do the children respond to this person? How does he/she handle the childrens’ questions?
As a teacher, I’d want to be given this opportunity as I’m at my best when I’m doing my job.
Good luck!