One of my assignments for my student teaching experience is to conduct a mock interview with a school administrator at my cooperating center. After reviewing this assignment and meeting the administration at Octorara High School, I knew exactly the right person for this task. Lisa McNamara recently accepted the position of K-12 Program Administrator. More specifically she has taken on the responsibility of being the Program Director for all of the High School's CTE programs. These programs include the agricultural mechanics program that I currently teaching. Lisa was Octorara's Elementary Principle and recently took on this new administrative position in the high school. Lisa is heavily involved in the interviewing process at Octorara and has previous experience in interviewing and educating youth about these professional development skills. For these reasons I felt Lisa would be the perfect administrator to interview me and provide me with excellent constructive feedback.
One of the scariest and most intimidating parts of an interview is being asked questions that you don't know will be asked. In my interview, Lisa asked me a variety of excellent questions. When I say excellent questions, I mean she asked some challenging questions! She asked me about how I would handle conflict between myself and another Ag teacher in the program. She asked me what I think is the most common misperception that people have about me. She also asked me how I would handle a situation in my classroom if a student was misbehaving in such a manner that the situation would need addressed immediatly. Another great question that Lisa asked was how I would use my resources and community to impact my program. These were just a few questions that I have never been asked before in an interview that I thought we most beneficial for me.
Answering some of these difficult questions was not always easy. In fact because I have been student teaching in the program for weeks now, it was difficult answering the questions without having a biased opinion. For the most part, however, I felt confident in answering the questions that Lisa had prepared for me in this interview. Lisa had found and created a list of questions that she specifically wanted to ask me. This helped the interview remain focused and organized. I felt Lisa did great job setting this up for me. At the end of the interview she told me that my answers were excellent and that she felt that I was well prepared for this interview. She also provided me with a few helpful suggestions. One of them being to slow down when I am talking and answering the questions. I know that I have a tendancy to talk fast when I am focused on a certain topic or subject that I am passionate about. I also have a tendency to talk fast when I am nervous. So probably a little bit of both contributed to this fast pace of verbal communication.
At the end of the interview Lisa opened the discussion for any questions that I may have. I asked Lisa two questions about the agriculture program. The first question I asked was about where she sees the agricultural program in 5 years and what are some the goals in place for the next 5 years. Lisa's response exemplified her drive and passion to see the program move forward. There are great opportunities in store for the Ag program at Octorara if all participants obtain the same determination as Lisa does to see such growth evolve. My second question to Lisa was about the type of curriculum they have in thier program and what new curriculum they would like to see implemented in the program. Lisa explained that right now the program is working on developing a specific curriculum for the program and would eventially like to see the CASE curriculum utilized in the program. These questions helped me understand the future of the program and where administration would like to see the program go.
With this particular interview there were many aspects that I was impressed with. I was most impressed with the questions that I was asked. I did not feel that the questions that I was asked were general or cliche questions but rather detailed and indepth. They really got me thinking about how I would handle difficult situations in my classroom or program. For some of these questions I had to pause for a bit and think about what I wanted to say and how I was going to best answer the question. The aspect of this interview that I was least impressed with was the lack of interest that was shown in reviewing my cover letter and resume. I had shown Lisa where my cover letter and resume was in my professional portfolio; however, it was not looked at. For myself personally I think I was least impressed with my ability to provide examples during my interview. From previous interviewing training I was taught to always include real life examples. I feel that I could have included more examples when trying to get a point accross in my interview.
In conclusion I really enjoyed this opportunity to once again gain more interviewing experience. I told Lisa after our interview that although I have a job lined up for the Fall, it will always be helpful to expose myself to these types of professional development opportunities. Every interview is different and every experience is an opportunity to gain or build a skill. I believe that my interview today has helped me build my interviewing skills. This experience allowed me to prepare with the best for the best.
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