Interview Questions
Who are you?
My name is Mitchell Burdick. I am a graduate from Grand Valley State University with a Bachelor of Science, major in mathematics, minor in biology with an emphasis in secondary education. I love to play sports, especially tennis. I enjoy traveling seeing the diversity of our world, taking pictures of nature and people from many countries. I enjoy our arts which promoted me to learn how to play guitar. I’m an alumnus of the Delta Upsilon International Fraternity. During my instruction, I love to help students make connections during the learning process by asking higher level questioning to stimulate their thinking. I want to provide students with the 21st century skills, with the focus on teamwork, critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration, in order for them succeed in their education and become an active person in our democratic society. I have a strong rapport with my students since I have a strong desire to gain knowledge of the students’ interest. This allows me to integrate the student’s culture into my lesson planning, which will allow students to become engage in the learning environment. I like to integrate music into my classroom to teach lessons. Also, I incorporate differentiate and multiple intelligence into my lessons in order to teach every learner and give the students an equal opportunity to demonstrate their learning. Lastly, I will continuous assess my students through various formative and summative assessments in order to gather feedback from the students understanding. For example, I plan to create songs about mathematical concepts and perform them in my class for the students to learn the concepts.
Why do you want to become a teacher?
I want to become a teacher in order to teach students the skills and knowledge to become active educated participants in our society. I have always had a passion in teaching and explaining concepts. I enjoy making a difference in someone’s life. As an educator, I will be a mentor for my students and it will be a privilege to see students grow over the semester in their academics. Every day, teachers mold the future by impacting and challenging students’ views and understandings. A teacher gives students a lens to view the society and provide students with skills to reach their potential career. Lastly, being an educator is a lifelong learner. I will be consistently learning how to teach, assess and how to modify my lessons to promote high levels of learning in my classroom. I will also be learning from my students from the formative and summative assessments. Students always ask the most interesting questions, which will prompt me to think deeper and learn more even outside of my content.
What are characteristic of a good lesson plan?
A good lesson plan incorporates the content, the student culture and engages in an authentic way. The lesson should differentiate since this allows the teacher to identify the students’ needs and assessing in order for learning to occur. The teacher should use multiple resources and teaching strategies to enrich the lesson, like integrating technology into the lesson. Also, the teacher should provide students with choice in the lesson in order for the student to pick how they want to demonstrate their learning which fits their learning style. This will allow the student to take ownership in their learning and become engaged with the lesson. Lastly, the lesson should be authentic. The teacher should create an interesting hook to grab the student’s attention and create activities or project based learning in order for the students to become active learners in the classroom as they learn the content and practice their 21st century skills.
Describe your classroom management plan.
My classroom management plan focuses on strong student/teacher and parent/teacher relationships. I want the students to feel that they are welcomed and the learning environment is safe. Thus, I will gain knowledge of the student’s interests and hobbies. I desire to maintain a strong rapport with the students during my instruction. It is important to invite parents to form a partnership in order have an open communication with one another. This will allow the parents to be actively involved with the students learning process. When students misbehave in the classroom, I will utilize the responsible thinking process (RTP) with the individual student(s). This process teaches students to handle their own problems and to think before they act. The teacher will ask the students questions to allow the student to reflect on their behavior in the classroom and become responsible thinkers. Thus, allowing the student reflect on their own behavior and take ownership for their own behavior in the classroom.
How do you deal with discipline in the classroom? Tell me about a success and a failure related to discipline.
As mention before, I use the responsible thinking process with the individual students in order for the student to reflect on their behavior in the classroom. I’ll ask them the following questions: “What are you doing?”, “What are the rules?”, “What happens when you break the rules?”, “What do you want to do now?”, “What will happen if you disrupt again?” I’ll use these questions to talk with the individual students who were misbehaving during my instruction which I hope promotes them to become responsible thinkers. One example of success when using the responsible think process was when a student became distracted and began talking to another individual in the middle of my instruction. I stopped my instruction and asked question both individuals utilizing the reflection questions. The student’s immediately changed their behavior and was on task for the rest of the period. The student’s realized that they shouldn’t be talking across the room and distracting the class from learning. Even though the majority of the time the responsible thinking process works, I had a failure with a student who wasn’t thinking about their behavior and continued to misbehave in the classroom. The student was very rude to me and didn’t think I had the power to deal with them. The student was not doing his work and was talking inappropriate topics with his peers. Once I overheard the student’s conversation, I asked the student to gather his items and come with me into the hall. Then the student became belligerent, yelling at me telling he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I asked if the student could change his behavior before stepping back in, but he decided he wanted to go to the Responsible Thinking Classroom instead of working on math problems. Thus, I gave the student their RTC form and he marched down the hall. A teacher often experiences success and failures with their discipline plans every day, but they must remain consistent with their student classroom expectations and procedures to maintain a safe environment for learning.
How do you assess student learning? What is the purpose of assessments in your classroom?
I plan on continuously assess my students throughout my instruction. I plan on using and implementing various formative assessments in my instruction to check the students understanding. This will allow me to gather data from the students and see if I need to reteach any concepts and/or how I can modify my instruction. Also, I plan on creating various diagnostic, selected responses, extended response and performance based assessments to allow students opportunities to demonstrate their understanding of the content. Within each assessment, I will give the students choices, so students can demonstrate their learning. I plan on creating authentic assessments where students can apply their knowledge and understanding of the content to a situation or project. This will encourage the students to apply their understanding to a new novel situation.
What are your strengths and weaknesses (related to content)?
In Mathematics, my strengths are teaching and problem solving in algebra, trigonometry and calculus. I have been a GVSU tutor over 4 years, volunteered in various classrooms in the Grand Rapids and Muskegon area as well as been involved with teaching assisting on these subjects. I’m more fluent with teaching mathematics. I’ve created many lessons, and assessments for these three classes, and have an understanding of student’s misconceptions. I know how to facilitate and stimulate the student’s thoughts to allow them to form their own connections as they problem solve. I believe one of my weaknesses in mathematics would be teaching geometry. I’m eager to learn more about geometry and gained a better understanding to make sure can teach this discipline of mathematics if I am ever given an opportunity to teach the course.
What are your strengths and weaknesses (related to classroom management?
I believe that I have the ability to develop a solid rapport with my students in any classroom. In any culture, it’s easy for me to connect with students. I often ask them about their interests and usually find a common interest between us. In my teaching assisting placement in Muskegon, I found it was easy to talk with the students about sports, and video games. My weaknesses that I identified during this time would be that I need to be firm and consistent with my discipline. I felt there were a few situations while I was student teaching in which I ignored the student’s behavior since I was very focused on the content. Instead, the students distracted my classroom and caused the rest of the class to misbehave as a whole. I need to use the responsible thinking process frequently and consistently in order to prevent students misbehaving in the classroom. I’m looking into other strategies to blend with my discipline strategy in order to create the safest learning environment for my students.
What do you want to be doing in five years from now?
Within the next five years, I see myself establishing a teaching position within a school district. I hope that I can make an impact in my students’ academic and professional career and teach them life lessons and skills outside of the classroom. I also hope to be taking leadership roles within the school community as well. I wish to be an assistant coach to the tennis or soccer team, which I had a passion for these sports since my middle and high school years. Also, I would like to be an assistant coach for Science Olympiad and/or Math Olympiad to encourage student’s interest in the math and science discipline. Lastly, I would like to create two student organizations for instance, a recreational tennis club and a guitar club, to enhance the non-competitive events. I want to have a strong rapport with all my students and stay connected with them after they leave my classroom.
Why should we hire you?
Your school district should hire me because I’m a young teacher who is ambitious to start my teaching career by thinking creatively with fresh new ideas. I have a will power to help improve the student’s education with following the state standards. I’m familiar with the common core state standards and feel confident that I can integrate them with technology and literacy as I incorporate the student’s culture in each lesson. I’m a quick learner and always have strong communication skills. Often I am described as a very personable person that loves to work as a team member. Even though I may lack experience, I am eager to learn new things and use new technology in my classroom. I’m a self-motivated person, and I do not lack self-confidence. I’m confident that I can teach and prepare students as they need a strong foundation in their education. I desire for them to become active educated members of our society. I’m an expert in teaching mathematics and biology and most of all, I am eager of a new challenge in my life to strengthen and improve my skills as I become an educator.