The Interview Process

So, I skipped over an important part of getting accepted into a program under TNTP, and that is the interview.  The interviews are intense events, and can be pretty hard to prepare for.  I went through 2 separate interview events in different school districts both in the mid-Atlantic region. I did not feel that I did very outstanding in my first interview, and that was reflected by them not offering me a position.  Going into the second interview, I was much better prepared and had had a lot of time to reflect upon my first experience.


So assuming your application gets you invited to an interview event, what can you expect? Before you interview, I recommend reading this article from the Feb. 2010 Atlantic.  It talks about both Teach for America and The New Teacher Project, which have very similar interview processes. In addition, one of the programs sent two articles for candidates to read before the interview, one from the Washington Post  here, and one from Education Week here ( but only open to subscribers).  It is also very useful to check out some of the books on the recommended reading list.  I would also recommend following current events in the school district, state, and national education agendas.

The good news is that you are given a pretty good idea of exactly how the interview event is formatted ahead of time.  You will get an Interview Event packet with instructions and what to expect for the day of your interview. Read it carefully well in advance of the interview. There are multiple tasks in the interview process: a 5-minute sample lesson, a 20 minute essay, a group discussion, and then the one-on-one personal interview.

5-minute Sample Lesson
For the 5-minute sample lesson, you are instructed to prepare a lesson that you will give to the other candidates who will be your "class".  The guidelines are simple: "You will only have 5-minutes, Lessons should have clear beginning, middle and end, Teachers should communicate and work with students to achieve a specific objective, Lessons should be interactive and age-appropriate."  It is hard for me to say exactly what the evaluators are looking for in the lesson, but according the the article in the Feb. 2010 Atlantic, "What matters more, at least according to Teach for America’s research, is... Were you prepared? Did you achieve your objective in five minutes?"
So, my advice to preparing a great sample lesson, pick one and only one idea, objective or concept to teach.  If you need ideas of what is appropriate for a given subject or grade level, you can find sample lesson plans online to get you started.  Practice!  Practice a lot and time yourself.  Five minutes is actually no time at all, and you will also want to make sure you are giving yourself time in that 5 minutes to ask questions from the class and get responses.  You need to find the most efficient and clear way to convey your lesson objective.  Be familiar enough with your material that you can adapt what you say to meet the time constraints if you are running long.  I recommend taking a poster with some of your lesson already outlined, writing on the board takes a lot of time, and makes it hard to face the class.  It can be helpful to have a hand-out to give your students too. 

Writing Sample/Group Discussion
The essay writing portion of the interview will give you 20 minutes to write a response to a real world scenario.  I don't want to give away what the scenario might be, however the best advice I have for the essay is to think back to what your high school English teacher taught you about writing essays:  first make an outline of what you want to say, have a topic sentence for each paragraph or idea and the list supporting details.  Spelling and grammar count, although if your response isn't exactly poetic, that's OK.  Be clear, concise, and keep one eye on the clock so you don't run out of time.
The Group discussion was for me the strangest part of the interview event.  Since I am not privy to how they evaluate candidates, I am not sure what constitutes a successful showing.  Like in the writing sample, you are given a scenario and are asked as a group to discuss it, and come up with a plan of action or a response to the scenario.  I think here, it is important to participate and be polite, make your points concisely, and don't dominate the discussion.  In my PGCTF interview discussion, I felt that there was one person in particular who was just trying to say as many words as possible, regardless of how relevant.  If there is a quieter group member, make sure they are given an chance to speak.  At the end of the discussion period, you get 3 minutes to write a short response or summary of the discussion.

Personal Interview
And the last part of the process is a one-on-one interview.  I think for most people, this is really your time to shine, but it is also very different from any interview you have had before.  The person interviewing you, who may be program staff, but is most likely a current teacher or principal, is basically reading questions from a script, and then transcribing your answers as fast as they can.  So you will be talking, and the whole time they are not able to look at you and are scribbling furiously.  There isn't a lot of engagement with the interviewer during this time, and you don't have that personal, conversational feeling of many other types of job interviews.
 I won't give the specific questions that I was asked in my interviews, but I will refer you again to the Atlantic article:

"In the interview process, Teach for America now asks applicants to talk about overcoming challenges in their lives—and ranks their perseverance based on their answers. ...In general, though, Teach for America’s staffers have discovered that past performance—especially the kind you can measure—is the best predictor of future performance. Recruits who have achieved big, measurable goals in college tend to do so as teachers. And the two best metrics of previous success tend to be grade-point average and “leadership achievement”—a record of running something and showing tangible results. If you not only led a tutoring program but doubled its size, that’s promising...The most valuable educational credentials may be the ones that circle back to squishier traits like perseverance. Last summer, an internal Teach for America analysis found that an applicant’s college GPA alone is not as good a predictor as the GPA in the final two years of college. If an applicant starts out with mediocre grades and improves, in other words, that curve appears to be more revealing than getting straight A’s all along."

So think about the traits that make a great teacher, like determination, perseverance, hard work, leadership, patience, organization, ability to work with difficult people or accept criticism... and think of things from your life that demonstrate those attributes.  Give examples and be specific.  What challenges have you overcome in your life.  What things have you failed at, and what did you learn from the experience? And rehearse your answers and be prepared to use them when you are answering your interview questions.  

Be enthusiastic in your responses too.  I am not saying you need to bring your pom-poms and do a cheer, but make sure you are able to convey how much this job truly means to you. If you are applying for this job, you are obviously passionate about teaching, so make sure they know it.

Throughout the day, it is important to keep in mind why you are there and what your personal goals and values are regarding why you want to teach.  Ask yourself why you want to teach students in high-needs schools, what does it mean to you that you are seeking out this challenging environment.  Do you think that each and every student is capable of success, and what do you think you can do to help each student succeed?  And try to make sure that your answers and responses during the interview events reflect your answers.


And Good Luck!