@Nymzie ^^^ sorry lol
@Nymzie that could be a good idea, but as twynn said they are looking for you to teach something and assess students learning. So the general outline that my recruiter gave me was to spend about 2 minutes teaching something, 1-2 minutes asking questions and doing an activity to evaluate whether students learned and correct any mistakes students make, then 1-2 minutes wrapping up (depending on how much time you take in the activity). Also, be sure to try to engage with everyone. She also told me that a handout looks good because it looks like you prepared a lesson and a handout that is collected after completion is also an evaluative measure.
@Nymzie I would shy away from reading a book or teaching material that is elementary or ECE level. The only reason I say that is because a girl in my virtual interview did something similar where we went over primary and secondary colors and a lot of people were laughing, not taking it as seriously as other lesson plans and were reluctant to engage. I absolutely loved it but I think other people just felt silly and weren’t familiar with how a lesson plan for younger kids works. Remember that you can teach whatever you want during your five minutes, it doesn’t have to correlate with the grade you are hopping to teach. That being said, teach whatever you feel most confident about and listen to everything @FSUforTFA said in the above post! Good luck 
Thank you so much for your advice!! I really want to do a pre-k lesson. I feel 100% comfortable with pre-k, and I have no confidence in anything above Kindergarten. If the other interviewees want to be dicks about it, wont that just make THEM look bad? Their behavior sounds completely unprofessional.
I hate that it’s virtual. I have done hundreds of lessons, I’ve done 10 observed/mock lessons in the past year. But thinking of one that can be done through a screen is pretty tough. A story is the only one that makes a lot of sense. I live in Cambodia so an in-person interview is not an option. I’ll just have to keep brainstorming. I’ll think of something
I just realized how rude I sounded, judging the other applicants. Every mock lesson I’ve ever done has been with other early childhood educators and they all replicated children perfectly, because they spend half their time with them. I forgot that most people never interact with prechoolers and don’t know how they behave. Maybe I’ll do phonics with a song and beginning/ending sound flashcards.
Hi there. I interviewed and was accepted last month. Honestly, don’t hesitate to pick something that you’d consider too simple. You can always fill your time with extra verbal assessment or questions and answers. I taught a mini lesson on imagery found in poetry. We defined it as a group, read a poem aloud, and I made a simple worksheet for my “students” to fill out citing examples from the poem. Going into it, I felt it was way too elementary, but it filled my five minutes well with time for discussion. Hopefully this helps any/all of you planning your lesson. Good luck!
@HopefulSpedTeacher I find out on Friday where I’ll be placed regionally-- I’m guessing we won’t really know what subject we’re teaching until we begin interviewing for those positions. I’m still not 100% on how all of that works.
Anyone else hoping for the Eastern North Carolina region?
@bitsysanders I’m not hoping for ENC, but I did go to a KIPP school there growing up and had TFA teachers. My interviewer was also the lc for the ENC region.
@twynn1 Well, I hope I do your stompin’ grounds justice if I get placed there. Good luck to you
I think we may also find out what subjects we will be teaching or else that kind of defeats the purpose for choosing the specific subjects we would like to teach in the region. I know that when we interview for these positions, it might change depending on your region, but I think we should find out the region and assignment as well on Friday.
You find out the region, subject, and grade level on Friday 11/4/16. You have to know subject and grade level so you can pass the required certifications in your state.
Do you guys think the code will tell us early again?
I’m thinking probably not. I went ahead to check to see if anything was visible there, but this is all that came up, so II am guessing that we have already been assigned to a region and grade level, but will just have to wait until the official notification tomorrow.
“applicantDispositionStage”:“APPLICANT”,“applicantDispositionStep”:“ASSIGNMENT”}}]
I was playing around with the inspect element feature and searching each of the regions I listed. The regions I highly preferred showed up five times each while the regions I preferred showed up three times each. Memphis (which was in my preferred list) showed up five times and was the only region that went against the pattern I found. I am not fluent in code or web formatting so I honestly have no idea if this has any significance.
@ddbowens Thank you-- you’re right. We have to know what subjects we’ll be testing for in the coming months. I had a friend who went through this process, expecting to teach math but then got hired for a position teaching middle school general science, so she had to hurry up and test again. I keep having dreams that I bomb both Praxis exams.
No news about my assignment yet, but I did just get an email saying that my transitional funding notification would be delayed until Monday because of a glitch.
@tfahopeful17 Yes, I got the exact same email from TFA. I’m more so just waiting to hear about the assignment more than anything.
@ddbowens Exactly, that’s what I’m most anxious about. I keep refreshing this, my email, and my TFA page to see if there are any updates.
@tfahopeful17 Same here. We still have until the 15th to accept or decline right?