I’m doing the in-person interview on Friday. Can anyone gives some tips/pointers/heads up on the sample teach and group activity?
@BeTHEChange93 Just be calm and it will show through on your sample lesson! Be in command of the room and encourage participation. Really nail in the “I do, we do, you do” method and you will be golden. Make sure that if you hear the “1 minute remaining” and you’re still in the middle of your lesson that you’re able to adjust on the spot to stay within your limit. It’s actually so much easier than it feels once you’re up there! In the group activity, make your voice heard and compliment other members on their opinions. Don’t dominate the conversation but definitely make yourself heard. Offer to be the one to write down ideas, too! Good luck, the interview is SO much fun and you’re going to do great!!
For interviews, keep in mind that this isn’t a competition among you all. You are collaborators in the lesson, group work, and throughout interviews. This could also be good practice to show how you would work with co-workers.
What did you guys do to bide the time between interview day and decision day? I interviewed friday and I’m an anxious, impatient mess. I’ve been reading articles and watching YouTube videos on peoples TFA experience. This about to be a long 3 weeks!
Another question for you guys! Before TFA revamped their website and portal, I remember seeing a page that had a graph of the grade levels and subjects taught by corps members in the specific region. I can’t seem to find that information again! Anyone know how to get to it? I really, really want to get placed in Eastern North Carolina. I was hoping since its already a high priority region that if my grade/subject preferences matched their needs it would help my chances of getting placed there. I just interviewed Friday and my portal won’t open up to put in my preferences till 11/14, but I just wanted to get ahead on the regional research.
You could talk to a recruiter from that region but when you go to select location preferences there will be a US map that shows what regions you’re eligible to teach in and what subjects you’re eligible to teach in that area. You can then preference those subjects. Let me know if this helps.
@tfaenbie ohh, okay! Just so that I’m clear, when that portion of the portal becomes available it will be showing me just the regions I’m eligible to teach in not all 50 regions?
No, I apologize I should’ve been more clear. The location preference page will start out by asking “do you want to be sent wherever there’s a need” or “would you like to rank your top 10 locations”. Once you hit the ranking option, a map of the entire US shows up with a dot on all of the TFA regions. When you run your mouse over a region/dot it will tell you the name of the location. If you are not eligible for an area it will show up as a grey dot and a pop up will tell you why you aren’t eligible (either undergraduate coursework or gpa). If a region has a blue dot, you are eligible to teach there. When you slide your mouse over a blue dot, a pop up appears and it will tell you what subjects you are qualified to teach and there will be a button that says “add location”. (If you are eligible for a high need area, it will appear as a red dot.) If you want to add a the region push the “add location” button under the pop up and it will add the name of the location to a vertical scale below the map of the US. You will then rearrange the locations into 3 sections of something like “highly preferred”, “preferred”, “least preferred” and you will be able to rank “sub regions”.
So, I wanted to be placed in Philly as my top choice however, I was ineligible because of my undergrad coursework (I’ve mostly only taken humanities classes). When I initially opened my portal I was also ineligible for New York however, the eligibility requirements changed a few days later and it went from grey to blue. I then added it to my list and ranked it as #4. San Diego, Cal was my first choice. My second choice was The Bay Area and I organized the sub regions as follows: 1. San Francisco, 2. San Jose, 3. Oakland 4. Richmond. I was placed in San Jose, California. I hope this offered some clarification.
@tfaenbie yes, crystal clear! Thank you so much for that explanation!
@tfaenbie I also took mostly humanities classes (Bachelors Degree in Social Work) so I really hope I’m eligible to teach in Eastern North Carolina. Fingers crossed! Guess I’ll just have to wait and see the map on the 14th
Yeah, I’m Sociology, Africana Studies, and Food Studies (I go to a liberal arts college) but we have certain distribution requirements so I’ve taken several language and several English classes. I took 1 math class but I was qualified to teach math in several states. It truly varies by state. Have you considered Special Education?
How would you all rank the importance of the different parts of the application? Like between your resume, personal statement, recommendations, the level of diversity you bring to the corps, GPA, personal interview, group interview and your lesson?
I’m interested to see what people say.
Interested as well. My belief is that it is ranked such as: 1) personal interview 2)resume/gpa 3)level of diversity 4)lesson plan 5)group activity 6)recommendations 7)personal statement.
@Rcb2019 I don’t think that any one part is the absolute most important. However, I would say that your interview is more important than the application. If you’ve been invited to an interview they obviously like what they have seen so far, otherwise they wouldn’t have asked you to the interview. That being said, personal statements are important in that they reflect what a TFA corps member should represent. The resume is probably a little less of the focus unless you’re applying as a professional and not a recent graduate. recommendations are important for their own reasons, and you should only pick someone who will sing your praises. You can have a GPA as low as 2.5 and still qualify for many areas, so that’s probably less of their focus as well. The personal interview gives you a great opportunity to expand on things you want to hit home and be able to demonstrate who you are. Having a very well prepared lesson is very important because they need to know you have the ability to lead a classroom without having gone to school for it specifically. the group interview shows how well you work together with others. These things can’t really be compared to each other because they all have importance in different areas. All of it is very important to prepare for in separate ways. As long as you know what to expect and practice, practice, practice, you’ll do just fine! But as far as ranking importance, you really can’t judge all of those components on the same field, in my opinion.
@Rcb2019 i havent heard weather or not Ive been accepted yet so take what I say with a grain of salt, but my personal interview was mainly questions about how Ive overcome adversity and how I face challenges. My interviewer flat out said she didnt need to ask me certain questions based on what I said in the group activity and what I wrote in my application and pre interview activity.
I completed my virtual interview yesterday, and just submitted my regions/subject preferences. I’m sooo nervous, and I keep reflecting on the aspects of the interview I feel I could have done better on! I really hope I get in, and can’t wait for December 3rd! I would love to hear from some others who applied during this round. What are your most preferred regions and subjects? How did your interview go? Are you also anxious for December 3rd?
Also, how do you all feel about other candidates’ sample lessons? Many of the other interviewees seemed to rush through their content / weren’t affective during the lesson plan. How much emphasis is placed on this part of the interview?
@elydawn19 I’m a second round applicant too! Very anxiously waiting for December 3rd as well. I don’t think there are anymore YouTube videos, blogs, reviews, or TFA articles out there i haven’t already read lol I’m hoping to be placed in Eastern North Carolina and elementary education. I thought my teaching lesson went very well at the time. I knew my idea was creative and the other applicants were engaged. Afterwards I started doubting myself on how I handled the interviewers asking questions, I think I could have given them more time/attention. I thought most of the other applicants did pretty well during their lessons. There were only 2 that I was kind of worried about. They more so lectured and I wasn’t really able to follow along with what they were teaching (as a college graduate!). I thought our group activity went really well and I felt good about my role in that because I contributed an idea that our group ultimately agreed on. My personal interview was fairly short and straight forward, but I think I was getting good feedback from the interviewer. It was kind of hard to tell because she was typing for the whole time. Over all I had a good feeling, but I’m still pretty anxious.
Second round applicant here! I thought most of the lessons were pretty good! I would say mine had a lot of content, as I was teaching 10th grade Biology, but I definitely left a few minutes for quiz questions and an activity, so I feel good about my lesson. My personal interview was interesting, because it was very conversational and he didn’t seem to be writing a lot down. I would also say my interviewer talked about his experiences in the K-12 education system almost as much as I did. So I’m not sure how good or bad all that is. In terms of placements, I would like to be in St. Louis or Chicago teaching high school biology or middle school science.