[nobe-l] Interview Lessons

Sat Apr 29 13:17:20 UTC 2017

Hi Tara,

Congratulations! Being invited back for a second round is already a great sign. And just so you know, I dealt with the same issues when I interviewed for  positions. 
I agree with Kathy. I would operate under the assumption that only the bare minimum assistance/materials are available. Often times, administrators want to see that you can handle these things on your own. When you sit down for the actual discussion/debriefing part of your interview, you can bring these sorts of things up. You can say things like, if it were my classroom I would've used this and this in order to do this. But using handouts and manipulative show that you could still teach even without supplemental materials or technology. Sometimes these things crash. So this shows that you would be fine no matter what. And it also doesn't force you to rely on anybody  during the interview stage. That being said though, I would make your handouts or your lesson as visually appealing as possible.
For example, when I did a demo math lesson without using technology, I had one of the students come up and balance out equations on the board with my assistance. I also created handouts to go with the activity with visual representations of what I needed the kids to do. I was very clear later that I would sit down and read these with somebody or use OCR software. But it showed the  administrators that I could do this sort of thing even if nothing more were available. And as far as the layout of the room goes, that shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Just walk around a few minutes before if you can and take a look at how many tables there are in the room. And group students together in a way that is manageable. In two or three groups. During this stage of interviewing, I have never talk to a group larger than about 10 or 12 students. So it wasn't too bad. 
One more thing, if you are really concerned about the technology part of the interview, you may even be invited back for another lesson. This happened to me a couple of times just to show the administrators what you can do once they already know that you are blind. If they like you, they like you. It's all about how you sell yourself.

Hope this helps,

--
Valeria

> On Apr 28, 2017, at 11:54 PM, Brian via NOBE-L <nobe-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
>        Hi,
> Great news, and best wishes on the second interview!
> Just a few thoughts/questions:
> Do you have a personal laptop that you can bring and plug into a projector, 
> if there is one already in the room?
> Can you go a day ahead of time to check out the classroom space to get 
> familiar with it?
> 
> As an aside, when I taught my five-minute lesson for my Teach for America 
> interview, we had no access to technology, just a white board. Rather than 
> writing the requested information on the board, I typed it up nicely, added 
> some  pizzazz in the form of related graphics, and gave it as a hand-out. 
> Granted, the lesson was to adults, and it was only a five-minute  lesson, 
> but there are almost always suitable adaptations that can be made to 
> lessons.
> Let us know how it goes!
> Brian
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tara Abella via NOBE-L" <nobe-l at nfbnet.org>
> To: "National Organization of Blind Educators Mailing List" 
> <nobe-l at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: <taranabella0 at gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, April 28, 2017 2:52 PM
> Subject: [nobe-l] Interview Lessons
> 
> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> Recently, I went to my university's teacher job fair and had two districts 
>> ask me for a second interview. If all goes well, after the second 
>> interview I will be required to teach a lesson. I'm a little nervous, 
>> because I won't be familiar with the layout of the room and it seems like 
>> interviewers are looking for the use of technology, but that would be 
>> difficult for a blind person to use the technology in the room without 
>> installing screen reading software. Could anyone give any advice for 
>> teaching a lesson for an interview.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Tara Abella
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
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> 
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