Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Riker]

Anyone have any experience with interviews for public school? The recruiter claims the last applicants didn't make the cut because they were not "happy" enough.

[jrwhite82]

They usually want to know how you plan to motivate students. One of the big problems in school is that a lot of kids despise studying...so how are you going to reach these kids and motivate them in your classroom?

How do you think you will be able to adjust to the culture?

What will you do to make sure all your students are learning? Not just the high, middle OR low level students. You have to teach all 3 at the same time.

Maybe the previous applicant was another Dave's poster!

Smile A LOT during your interview. Your face should hurt by the end of it.

[Riker]

[Math]

[jrwhite82]

LOL! Not easily! What I do is split the class into three groups (not every class) by level. We have the Eagles, Falcons and Condors. Don't choose names like the Eagles, Cardinals and Buzzards...the Buzzards aren't going to feel too good about that. (or 1,2,3...3 is going to be sad) Yes, they will know that they are grouped by ability, but if you and your co-teacher don't label it that way, they shouldn't feel ashamed. Also, they will be more motivated to do work that they can understand and be successful at then doing something that is too easy or too hard. So for 10-12 minutes I work with one group. My co-teacher works with another group. And then the third group works independently on a task. Then they rotate. Then they rotate one more time. Each group has their own material they are working on that is tailored to their level. Edit: Forgot to metion, I will do some kind of role play activity or something, my coteacher will teach a grammar minilesson and then they have some kind of worksheet or reading material to do independently. What's nice about this method is that you are able to reach each group at their own zone of proximal development. (ZPD!!!) Your ZPD is basically one level higher than what you already know. So you are using existing knowledge and then building up on it one level. This is proven to be the most motivating for students, most successful at knowledge retention (read higher test scores) and best way to make them apply what they have learned to the real world (which is really the point of teaching).

Another way is called Jigsaw. It is a flexible grouping strategy. Lets say you have 36 kids in 6 groups of 6. They are working on an assignment about rooms in the house or something. So you give each kid in the group, a room that he is going to be the "specialist" on. Tier the level of content for each room. So the Kitchen students have advanced vocab and grammar. The bedroom students are learning really basic vocab and grammar. So your original group which has one member studying each room splits up and the "specialists" group up together and learn about their individual room. Then when they are done, the original groups get back together and each specialist has to share what they learned about their room with the group on a big graphic organizer/poster paper. So when you pass out the room assignments you and you co-teacher have to give the right room card to the right students. This method is great because it incorporates both homogenous grouping and heterogenous grouping by ability into the same lesson.

Or you can split the class right down the middle, you CT takes a group, and you take a group. Each group has content tailored to their level.

We don't do this every class, but at least once a Lesson. (16 lessons in the text split up into about 4 classes each)

[jrwhite82]