Garnet Valley High School

Job Shadowing Employer Interview

Student Name: Sadie Allen Date: 11-5

Person interviewed, place of business, and job title: Michelle Coulter, Tower Hill, Preschool teacher

1. What education is required for this work?A bachelor's degree with certification in teaching and also
masters is recommended but not needed

2. What type of experience is needed? How do you suggest I build this experience?
A good experience is student teaching in college. Build this experience volunteering in summer or
working at different camps working with children
3. What skills are needed for this career? How do you suggest I build these skills now?
Patience is needed greatly, build these by understanding of child development and organization.

4. What types of interests are common for those in this career?

A must is you have to like kids.
5. What benefits do you have with this job?
Some benefits are positive feedback by showing that they care for the teacher. watching kids grow and
seeing the impact and HUGS.
6. What factors impact the average starting salary? What factors affect salary growth (clients,
economy, etc?)
Higher starting salary is impacted if you have master and more experience. If you go into
administration higher salary.

7. What are the opportunities for advancement? How do I gain skills I need to advance once I’m in the
job?
Opportunities for advancement is to try different grades and to specialize in an area such as a literary
or math specialist. To gain these skills you just need to work your way up with a lot of professional
development.
8. What other jobs are there in your line of work?
Some other jobs are administration, summer camp director, daycare worker.

9. What changes have occurred in this career in the past few years? How has technology impacted your
work?
The kindergarten program has gotten more academic for younger children than it used to be. The
technology he;ps enhance the classroom for example the smart board enhances the instruction,
children go to tech class.
10. What is the future outlook?
Good outlook because children always need to be educated.
11. What do you especially like and dislike about your job?
I love the feedback and watching them grow and dislike the low salary with all the hard work put into
the job.

12. What are your working hours? Is there overtime? (when, how much, how often?)
7:40-5:30 no overtime
13. Do you work on weekends or holidays? How often? no

14. How far do you travel to work each day?

15 minutes
15. How does your career affect your family and your lifestyle?
My career sets a positive role model for kids that work contributes to society. I’ve been able to work at
school children go to school.

16. What made you pick this career? I always loved kids, and really liked child development classes.

17. Original question ---

where’d you go to school?
tufts
18. Original question ---
what kind of communication skills do you develop?
learn how to talk to children well and interface with parents and collaborate with colleagues.
19. Original question ---
what made you choose tower hill?
I liked the community and small class sizes

20. Original question ---

what's your favorite part of your work day ?
I love seeing kids get really excited and engaged for the activities they prepared for.

Student Observations:

Describe the work environment (number of people, noise level, space, etc.):
The environment very kid friendly and colorful, tables and chairs meant for younger children. There
were 13 kids and two teachers in the classroom. Noise level got high at some points but lowerer when
asked a few times to quiet down. Space was very organized had a child-like feel to it.

As you observe the person you are shadowing, write down all the things that person is doing, what
tools and/or technology he or she may be using, whether the person works alone or with others, etc.
The technology she is using is a smart board (similar to garnet valley but more advanced) and a camera
that helped project papers onto the board. The teachers are interacting with the children lots and
being asked questions constantly. When a problem comes up they try to find a solution quickly and
efficiently.

After your interview and observation, how do you feel about this type of job for yourself? List the
reasons for feeling this way:
● I feel this job wouldn't be the best for me
○ It has low pay
○ Lots of work put into for not as much out of it
○ Lots of clean-up
● But…
 ○ I do like kids
○ And helping people

Other observations:

Michelle Coulter Michelle Coulter

Employer Name Signature