Esperanza Torres

21 February 2017

5th period

Teacher Interview Response

I interviewed Ms. Rye by sending her my questions through email. My first question

asked how she plans an effective lesson and how long that takes. She replied that she starts by

looking through the state standards for that unit, and then she plans the next week or two. She

said it is an ongoing process that takes about 15 hours a week. Next, I asked her about which

teaching methods she preferred and why. She said that she uses a variety of different teaching

methods in order to meet her students needs. Then I asked how she assess her students to know

if they understood the material. She said that two methods she uses are exit cards and in class

practice problems. Then I asked her about any non-instructional tasks that she participates in

after school, and for what reasons does she call a students parent. She said that she helps with

credit recovery, and she calls home when a child is in danger of failing her class. Next, I asked

her how she keeps her students interested. She said that she likes to use a variety of teaching

methods and transitions to keep her students interested. Finally, I asked her why she wanted to

become a teacher. She talked about how one summer she stayed in Florida with her grandmother

who was a teacher. She was excited to see how much the students loved her grandmother, and

decided that she wanted to be a teacher as well.

The next teacher I interviewed was Mrs. Solano. She is my English 2 teacher, and she

teaches creative writing. I asked her the same questions that I asked Ms. Rye, so I am just going

to summarize her answers. Firstly, she said that it takes her 2 to 4 hours of straight work to plan

for a lesson. She said that for English classes she plans by looking for the standard she will focus
on, then she decides how she wants her students to master that standard, finally she finds a text

that goes with the standard. For the next question, she said that she finds digital based learning to

be the most effective teaching method because her students quality of work seems to be better

when technology is involved. She said that she assess her students by giving assignments, such

as quizzes, worksheets, and essays. Outside of teaching, she is the girls soccer coach. She also

said that she calls home when a student is failing, when a student has bad behavior in her class,

or when a student does really well and she wants their parents to know about it. When asked

about how she keeps her students engaged throughout her lessons, she replied that she likes to

joke around with the students about stuff that is relevant to the topic. Lastly, she said that she

decided to become a teacher because her husband said she should. He told her that since she is

good at English and writing, that it would be a good idea to become a teacher for that subject.

For my counselor interview, I talked to Mrs. Stasiorowski. Firstly, I asked her about how

she plans for individual sessions; she replied that for the most part she does not. She said

sessions are impromptu so she reacts to the situation as she is hearing it. However, if there is a

student that she needs to speak to then she will send a slip to them to see her, and she plans for

those meetings. Next, I asked her about what methods she uses when dealing with different

situations. She said that she uses a lot depending on what is going on. She likes to talk in person

for very personal problems, she prefers to e-mail with students that have simple questions, but it

mainly depends on what needs to be accomplished. When I asked about how she assess the

progress of the students she meets with, she said that she does not normally do that at all. She

replied that sometimes she would monitor a students PowerSchool, but that is it. Then I asked

her about how often she calls parents and why. She told me that she calls parents as needed, and

she calls for a variety of reasons. This can be anything from something that is very personal that
their child is going through to talking to the parents about their child failing. Next, I asked if it

was harder for her to deal with certain types of situations. She replied that it is not really

harder but it can be challenging to deal with problems where the student will not take

responsibility for their actions. She also said that it is a little difficult to deal with personal issues

that go against her beliefs. Lastly, I asked her about what tasks she performs that do not involve

students. She said that she does many things that does not directly involve students, but it will

eventually affect students. She ended the interview by saying that counselors do a lot behind the

scenes.