Interviewing Question for Teachers / Education Administrators

[Garden Kitty]

A teacher friend who will be interviewing for jobs in the education field asked a question about the need for "portfolios" or handouts at an interview. She has heard that many job seekers will have some sort of handout to leave with the interviewers beyond a typical resume or application.

So if you were either interviewing for a job, or interviewing people for a job, as a teacher, would you bring or expect to receive something beyond a resume (such as lesson plans, articles or outlines). Would your answer depend on what level of job the person is seeking?

Would you bring (or expect to receive) something like a portfolio for an interview in administration such as a principal or superintendent staff?

I'm sure I'm not phrasing this correctly, but thanks in advance for any advice or input on the question.

[rfisher]

It's probably different for secondary education than college. Lists of publications and even some copies are typical for university faculty positions, particularly, if grad students sit in on the interviews and presentations. I'd think portfolios might be more common for a community college position, but I'm not certain.

[PrincessLeppard]

I took my portfolio to all my interviews, and a couple people sort of haphazardly flipped through it, but the only thing I made sure to take with me were extra copies of my resume.

The student teachers I've worked with since then have all had their portfolios online. Which I think is weird. But I guess then the interviewer could go look at it at his or her leisure.

Not sure how it works when interviewing for admin positions.

[Garden Kitty]

What type of stuff is in a teaching portfolio, Princess Lep?

[PrincessLeppard]

Letters of recommendation, lesson plans, sample tests and quizzes, adjusted lesson plans for special ed students, and examples of student work, iirc. Mine is at school and I haven't looked at in forever....

[barbk]

The only time I've really seen a portfolio used well was by a principal who showed us how she analyzed K-2 reading assessments to identify clusters of students who needed specific types of additional support and instruction (reading specialists, literacy coaches) and teachers who needed additional training and support in specific aspects of literacy instruction and intervention, all with detailed follow-up charting. It was like a battle plan. To nobody's surprise, kids at her school just creamed the third grade literacy testing, year after year.

More often, it is a chance to admire someone's unit on the rainforest, which tends not to be so compelling.

I haven't seen one for college or high school.

[agalisgv]

College has completely different expectations so I would bracket that out. At the high school level, I used to bring supporting materials, particularly lesson plans, and would actually do a sample lesson during the interview. Some places wanted that and others not so much, but ime it was better to be prepared in case of requests for supporting documents than to go in with nothing.

[minuet]

It's encouraged here for teaching positions. Basically a binder of the grade level in question in a nutshell. When I interviewed for my current position it was grade 2 French immersion.

I walked in with my grade 2 immersion binder to show them that I was ready to go for the start of the year, knew the curriculum and had units ready to go that went beyond the general resources. I was later told that this was what got me hired as people with more experience had also interviewed but their experience was not at the grade 2 level. Since this was the lead class for the French immersion program the position entailed starting a classroom from scratch.

Included were math centre explanations, language arts units, art projects, the science booklets I had created at my previous school, my favourite lessons which I explained in detail when they asked me to share my binder etc.

[Skittl1321]

I've never had a handout I've left behind but I do have a portfolio with sample lessons (including pictures of me teaching them), sample student work, letters of reference etc. The portfolio also contains papers about my teaching philosophy etc.

Some schools ask for these to be sent over before the interview.

I no longer have it, but when I was right out of college I had all of this in an online portfolio as well, and that included videos of me teaching. This was required by our certification program.

It was all moot for me though, as I never interviewed for teaching positions (went into publishing instead)...but everyone I know had the same thing, and they all got teaching jobs.