Preparing for an Instructional Coaching Interview

This summer, I’ve gotten SO MANY emails from people asking me the same question, over and over again. How should I prepare for an interview for an instructional coaching position?

This is a great question. If you’ve never interviewed for an instructional coaching position before, you at least expect that it will be different from a classroom teacher interview.

And you’re right! There are some significant differences in what you will be asked during a coaching interview vs. a teacher interview.

If you consider the interview questions in terms of the different roles and responsibilities that instructional coaches have, it starts to make a lot of sense!

Here are the different categories and questions you can think about to be ready for your big day!

Want these questions in a worksheet so you can prepare and practice? Get it at the bottom of the page!

Curriculum
* How do you approach planning a new unit?
* In what ways do you look at data, and for what purpose?
* How do you integrate different types of assessment into your lesson design?
* What best practices/approaches/methods/strategies do you find are supportive of student learning?
* How do you engage students in their learning?

Leadership Roles (cadres, committees, mentoring, etc.)
* How have you served as a leader on your campus?
* What is your leadership style?
* Describe a time you worked on a team with a positive outcome.

Building Relationships
* How would you engage with teachers who have not had instructional coaching support before?
* How would you
* How would you support a…
    – new teacher?
    – experienced teacher?
    – teacher who doesn’t want your help?
    – teacher in a grade/content area/language you haven’t taught before?
    – effective teacher?
* How would you handle working with teams who are not getting along with each other?

Adult Learning
* What kinds of professional development have you provided to your campus?
* What components make up a quality professional development?
* How would you support learners who have not implemented district or campus initiatives?
* How would you provide ongoing learning opportunities for teachers?

Campus-Wide Change
* How would you implement systemic change on your campus?
* What do you believe an ideal PLC looks like?
* How would you go about creating a 30/60/90 day plan for change?
* What would your priorities be for our school? (requires you to know a little about the school!)

Time & Responsibility Management
* How will you balance your time between teachers/students/administrative tasks?
* What would your priorities be for the first week? month? year?
* How do you feel about taking on extra work assignments?

These aren’t all the questions you’ll hear, and every school and district has their own agenda when it comes to how they use coaches. However, this is a good start and should get you thinking in the right direction!