A Taxonomy, and Examples, of Teacher Interview Questions

(A longer version of this is available on MORE QUESTIONS)

This information is taken from Peterson, K.D. (2002). Effective Teacher Hiring: A Guide to Getting the Best. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. This text gives 156 teacher interview questions.

1. Opening/ice breaking
What were some strengths of your teacher education program?
2. School organization
With what size and type of teacher groups do you work best?
3. Students
What actions have you taken to learn about student cultural backgrounds?
4. Curriculum
Give me an example of a key idea in your subject matter and how you developed your curriculum to teach it.
5. Instruction
Tell me about a difficult instruction problem you have worked on recently.
6. Classroom management and discipline
Using your experience, how do classroom management and discipline differ from the beginning of the year compared to the middle of the school year?
7. Other classroom issues
What preparation or experience do you have in working with classroom volunteers, parents in the room, or classroom aides?
8. Dealing with parents
Describe a time to me when you learned something about teaching or an individual student by listening to a parent.
9. Professional life
Describe some teacher-led organization, gathering, support group, or network from which you have benefitted.
10. Educational philosophy
How should teachers respond to the achievement gap in this country between rich and poor student families?
11. Personal
How can we help you to become the teacher you want to be?
12. Assignment
We asked you to attend a District teacher-support group. What is one idea that you learned from the experience?
13. Ending
How do you think this interview went?
14. (Questions to avoid)
What are your child care arrangements?

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