Hello, and welcome to the second session in the course how to nail the teacher interview. My name is Sam Rangel. And thank you again for joining me in this course I'm so grateful that first of all, you have chosen to make teaching your life's work. But you know, also thank you for allowing me to help you in your journey. In the last session, I shared my first recommendation, make building positive relationships a priority, make sure that comes out in the interview. In this session, I share another recommendation that probably a little obvious in this session, my recommendation is no your common core.

Very, very important. You know, if you're in the United States, the educational standard guideline for teaching is called Common Core and other countries. You know, they have different educational standard, but the point is to become an expert in whatever standard a guideline your country uses. In America. It's common core. So since that's what I know.

I'm going to focus on that in this session. So Most candidates I interview understand Common Core, it's part of their teacher training in college. You know, it's important, however, that you can articulate that understanding. I recommend that before you go into the interview, do some more research online just to refresh your brain about the basic concepts. I've included a link to a good site where you can do just that. They're going to ask you, I'm confident that they're going to ask you about your understanding of Common Core.

So when you're asked about common core, here are some good points to mention. Number one, Common Core allows teachers to go more in depth with the lesson. teachers in the past, all they had to do, according to the guidelines would just expose students to a certain set of information. No, when I was a history teacher, all I had to do to comply with the requirements of the standards we had back then, was just to make sure that I covered certain historical events throughout the year. Because we were always running out of year, I kind of rushed through a lot of those historical events that able to go into depth. Well Common Core allows teachers to actually spend some time and go into depth.

That means they don't have to cover everything, they just have to identify what they feel is the most important elements to to focus on in the classroom, and they can go deep into those particular concepts. So that's one thing. The second thing is students are asked to discover on their own the concept of using collaboration and investigation. So this is, this is no before we would, you know, give students the information and then they had to prove that they knew but on a test or some kind of other assessment with common core, students are encouraged to try and discover on their own the lesson. I like that part. I like the fact that now students actually have to go and figure things out on their own.

And they're allowed to work with groups and And do research on the wrong which is, I think, a good part of common course. And that's different than what we had before. Number three students are asked to write more even a subject like math and science and in history like in my class I used to when I taught history, students would get the the concepts and the content but not really required to do a lot of writing, you know, they would add, tell them what the what happened in history, and they would let me know that they understood by filling out the correct answers on a test. Now, students are required to write more and explain more with their writing, that they understand the concept. Another one of those things that I kind of like I kind of liked that about common core. So number four, Common Core allows more collaboration among the different subjects.

Now with writing more encouraged in every subject, it's easier to collaborate amongst The different subjects in science and math and get together and create a lesson history and language arts again could get together and create a lesson. And it provides students with just a greater opportunity to learn at a higher level, we always say we want to collaborate with with each other common core allows teachers to actually do that more easily. So that's another thing that I like about common core able to collaborate among the different subject areas. Next thing students will have to do more than just come up with the right answer, they will have to explain how they arrived at that right answer. Again, another another way where students have to actually demonstrate not that they can remember well, but that they actually understand the concept. You know, a lot of times the student with the best memory or the best what's called recall strategies, they do the best in class.

Now you have to be able to ask actually understand the concept well enough to explain it, explain it on paper or explain it in, in some kind of essay on the test number six Common Core encourages students to use their higher level thinking skills. Once again, more than just remember, now they have to think about the lesson think about the concept and explain it in a greater and greater detail. You know, the thing about common core, the main thing is that we want to prepare students to be successful beyond the classroom. We want students to be prepared for college and career. And, you know, when you get into college and career, you got to work with people, right? You have to collaborate, you're on a team and some of those skills aren't were not being taught in previous guidelines or standards.

Common Core encourages that kind of teamwork and collaboration and group work and discovery that allows students to not only be successful in the classroom but beyond the classroom. In college and career, so common core is is what we will we have now as far as the American educational system? It would, it would go well with you if you can include some of these basic concepts in the interview, let the panel know that you know what you're talking about, you know, Common Core and you know, the reason behind it mentioned that you want to you want to help prepare kids for success beyond your classroom, that would really impress the panel. And that would impress me, definitely, if I was on that panel. So, like I said, there will probably be at least one question about common core, and it's good to be able to respond with a knowledgeable answer instead of just a rambling attempt at one now you don't want to just ramble in the in the interview, right?

So know your common core. Now a good question that you might be asked is, how will you incorporate Common Core into your lesson planning the good question, how would you answer Alright, so that's it for this session guys. I know it was kind of quick, but it's very important that you understand Common Core and be able to explain it and incorporate it and will actually demonstrate how you will incorporate it into your lesson planning because that will impress the panel. Alright, so that's it for this one. Stay tuned. We're going to move into our next session really soon.

All right, see you in class. Talk to you later.