A Taxonomy, and More Examples, of Teacher Interview 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?
What do you recall about YOUR experiences as a student at the age you are to teach?
2. School organization
With what size and type of teacher groups do you work best?
What actions have you taken to better understand the work of secretaries, janitors, other staff?
3. Students
What actions have you taken to learn about student cultural backgrounds?
What do you do to keep up to date with student interests out of school?
4. Curriculum
Give me an example of a key idea in your subject matter and how
you developed your curriculum to teach it.
How do you select the concepts you emphasize in your teaching?
5. Instruction
Tell me about a difficult instruction problem you have worked
on recently.
Tell me some good techniques you use at the end of lessons, or days of instruction.
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?
When is it a good time to involve administrators in student discipline?
7. Other classroom issues
What preparation or experience do you have in working with classroom
volunteers, parents in the room, or classroom aides?
How have you provided for respect for diversity (ethnic, gender, physical) in your classroom?
8. Dealing with parents
Describe a time to me when you learned something about teaching
or an individual student by listening to a parent.
What methods or activities have you used to inform parents about your classroom?
9. Professional life
Describe some teacher-led organization, gathering, support group,
or network from which you have benefitted.
Tell me a situation in which you used fact or information finding techniques.
10. Educational philosophy
How should teachers respond to the achievement gap in this country
between rich and poor student families?
What are the benefits and problems of a strong focus on standards for student performance?
11. Personal
How can we help you to become the teacher you want to be?
How do you handle conflicting demands on your time?
12. Assignment
We asked you to attend a District teacher-support group. What
is one idea that you learned from the experience?
We asked you to read a short article. What is an important idea you took from it?
13. Ending
How do you think this interview went?
Is there anything else we need to know about you?
14. (Questions to avoid)
What are your child care arrangements?
Where did you get your accent?