I went to the interview. I was there very early, but that was good because my driving directions didn’t work and I had to drive around the area and “find” the school myself. I actually drove around it without realizing it was that, since it includes buildings that used to be for something else and still look like those things.
I found the school. Then I walked around campus and found the building. Then I went outside and enjoyed the cool shade and graded papers. That was fun.
There were seven questions I was asked.
These were taped to the desk at the front of the room. They’d been interviewing quite a bit on Monday and Tuesday.
I’ll only be able to go with the simple version. They were far more elegantly stated.
1. Discuss your philosophy of grading, particularly as it impacts revision.
2. What is your experience with dual-credit, honors, distance-education, hybrid, and some other kinds of courses?
3. Tell us about your incorporation of technology in teaching writing and research.
4. Give us examples of your innovation and/or leadership and/or outreach.
5. Tell us about a situation when you worked with a student with special needs.
6. Tell us about a teaching method you used to use that you don’t any more and explain why.
7. What in your teaching and educational experience prepares you for working in an open-enrollment, urban, diversity enriched environment?
I like question #6 a lot. Don’t like having the questions taped to the desk: there’s a difference between hiring faculty and hiring factory workers. But the questions seem to be looking for depth in teaching. Which questions did you like?
I had a harder time with some questions than with others (4, 5). Some I liked because they were easy (1, 3).
I think 6 was a great question and 7 lets you brag on yourself and show that you know the job.
They also asked the questions, but the paper was taped to the desk as a reference for the interviewee. I would have preferred being handed a list of the questions that I could write on, but it worked okay.
Decent questions. I like that they’re all relevant. I agree having the papers taped to the table is rather unprofessional. I’ve had to interview people in succession all morning or afternoon and we didn’t need that.
During this job hunt, I’ve been asked “How many phone books are their in New York City?” and “Are you comfortable around Christians?”
Both made me uncomfortable with the interviewer. Right after the phone interview, I emailed them and had them pull me out of contention.