Nervous about your teacher interview? Thinking about ways of landing your dream job? Struggling with the idea of what you can include in the demo lesson? Relax, we have all been there! To make your journey smooth, we have compiled a list of elements to include in your demo lesson. Your interviewer will be looking for your strengths and if you have a hold on your subject. Including these must-have elements will help your interviewers understand that you know your stuff.
Here are the top 10 elements to include in your demo lesson and ace your interview.
Hook
To make your demo lesson engaging, start with an interesting hook. You can use a question, short story, or picture to engage your audience. Maintain a pace in the classroom and ask questions. You can make the classes fun and interesting by relating chapters to objects. For example, if you are teaching the concept of a circle, you can use pizza as an example.
Understanding of the subject
When giving your demo lesson, focus on your students’ understanding. When you evaluate students’ understanding during the class, the interview panel gets an impression that you are helping your students fulfill the learning outcome. It will also make them understand your teaching method and how you will tackle different learning styles. You can adjust your teaching style to help your students learn better. For example, to check students’ understanding, you can ask questions or listen to their conversations during think/pair/share moments.
Differentiation
When giving lectures for a demo lesson, try to use differentiated instruction. It is a teaching approach tailored to meet the needs of every student irrespective of their learning abilities. This teaching style is based on the idea that no student should be left behind. Adding differentiation in your lectures will help interviewers understand that you are willing to extend support to your students. To include differentiation, you can ask varying levels of questions to check students’ understanding. If a student or a group of students fails to answer, you can give more attention to them.
Standards-aligned learning goals
Create learning goals that align with the standards that you are teaching. These goals must be measurable and fulfill the set objectives. You can use verbs like explain, describe, and identify when framing the objectives or learning goals. Use simple language and relate it to the content standard. To ace your teacher interview, give examples to students and make them understand the concept thoroughly. For example, if you are teaching poems to students of standard 2, you can explain the characters, traits, and emotions to them. To perform better in your teacher interview, you can make the class more interactive by using a voice-over or giving different voices to every character.
Modeling and metacognition
When teaching a concept, show the interview panel that you know how to teach a skill by modeling it during the lesson. When modeling the concept, try to use metacognition. Think out aloud before the interviewers and show them how you will think out aloud in front of your future students.
Depth of knowledge questions
One of the ways to ace your teacher interview and give a compelling demo lesson is to use the depth of knowledge questions. These questions are divided into four levels: recall, concept, strategic thinking, and extended thinking. The objective of using these questions is to understand the thinking order of students. Moreover, using these questions will also impress the interview panel as it will show that you will challenge the thinking abilities of students through these thoughtful questions.
Student talk
In most cases, classroom lectures become a one-way process where teachers deliver the information standing in front of their students. You can change this norm by allowing students to talk. Use activities like think/pair/share or turn and talk to encourage students and help them share their ideas during the lesson.
Closure questions
Always ask questions to your students to understand their learning goals. It will help you know if you have kept their interests aligned. You can ask students to fill out an exit ticket so they can tell you what they have learned from the lesson.
Matching independent practice
If you are using an independent practice task, it should align with the learning goals. It helps your students show what they have learned in the classroom.
Personality
One of the most important things to show during your teacher interview is your personality. Do not pretend to be someone else. Be confident and let your passion for teaching shine through.
You must include the ten elements listed above to impress your interviewer and secure the position of a teacher in your dream school. Creating a positive impact on the interviewer’s mind is vital to ace an interview.
Suggested Read: Strategies to Improve Reading Comprehension
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