Interview Questions for Computer Science Teachers

As I looked into why several posts from a while back were getting so many page views lately I realized that search values similar to “interview questions for computer science teachers” were probably responsible. The two pages in question are two where I interviewed CS educators about themselves and their work. That is probably not what most of these searchers were looking for though. Since it has been a while since I interviewed for a computer science teacher position (as either hiring manager or job hunter) I went to social media looking for examples of good questions for job interviews.

People were very helpful. I quickly received dozens of questions. I’ve got the whole list below but I wanted to focus a bit on a few I felt were key. Oh and if you feel a question is missing or have thoughts on any in the list I would to read about it in the comments.

A couple relate to teaching in general.

• Do you like kids? You’d better if you want to do a good job teaching. Kids know if you don’t like them and they will not respect you if you don’t like them.
• Are you ready / willing to share your "war stories" with the class, to help humanize the subject?  This is important to me. I think teachers should make teaching personal and that means sharing your own history.
• What strategies would you use to help struggling students? Everyone learns differently and the great teachers are not the ones who help the students who get it easily but the ones who help the struggling students.
• I walk into your class..describe to me what's going on and why. Are they going to fit in with your school? Are they ok with a noisy class? That’s my favorite. Or do they favor the sit and get method of teaching?
• What approaches will you bring to the classroom to make this subject matter worth learning?   Relevance may be an overused work in some circles but it is still important.

Some are more Computer Science related. Well at least somewhat.

• What strategies would you use to attract and retain women and minorities in your program? If they don’t know this is an issue and haven’t thought about strategies for it they may not be ready.
• Why are you passionate about CS? I think passion is huge. And it can’t easily be faked.
• Why teaching instead of industry? Do I need to say more?
• Explain the role of ethics within your CS program. With the massive changes that computing is making on society today having ethics being someone a teacher thinks about and addresses is important to me.

Here is the full (mostly unedited) list I received from a number of helpful teachers. It’s in no particular order.

• What strategies would you use to attract and retain women and minorities in your program?
• Experience in CS
• what projects you have done in college
• why are you passionate about CS
• Teaching and tutoring experience at which levels.
• What's your vision for the CS program here, what part do you want to play
• what resources do you need,
• which classes should we teach.
• Why teaching instead of industry?
• How would you explain what a ZIP file is?
• What are the common misconceptions about nested for loops?
• What have you learned from a student?
• Pick a language and tell me why it's the best language for our students. Now tell me the challenges of using that specific language with these students, and how you would overcome them.
• Students at this school need some help with <concept/skill>. Tell me how you would use your CS class to help them.
• I walk into your class..describe to me what's going on and why.
• How have/would you balance individual, pair and group assignments?, How does this impact assessment of your students' progress?
• Explain the role of ethics within your CS program.
• What strategies would you use to help struggling students?
• How would you keep the students off Facebook and games during class?
• One area is attitude and skills
• Do they like kids?
• How would you connect your curriculum to real world problems and core curriculum ?
• In what ways can your program increase students overall problem solving and critical thinking skills?
• Can they relate to age group of the students
• Can they communicate?
• Do they like to learn? Are they excited about learning? Are they still actively learning?
• Are they disciplined? With themselves and in the classroom. Can they mange their time?
• Not only can they teach but do they like to teach?
• Do they have high expectations?
• Do they know the tools (Windows, MacOS , IOS, Android)
• Can they program?
• Do they know the software?
• Can they handle large classes
• Is there 1-on-1 coaching
• Can they make a lecture interesting?
• Are they flexible in classroom environment
• Are there self-paced classes and can they work with that?
• What approaches will you bring to the classroom to make this subject matter worth learning?
• Why is Grace Hopper worth knowing about?
• What do you do when you've got a kid who, despite repeated attempts, just doesn't get it?
• What was your favorite part in the movie "The Imitation Game"?
• Are you ready / willing to share your "war stories" with the class, to help humanize the subject?
• In your opinion, how does CS apply to everyone's every day lives?
• What does "rigorous computer science curriculum" mean to you?
• How would you implement a rigorous computer science curriculum while ensuring that students who have no prior computing experience can have a class that is both rigorous and accessible?
• What are the most important topics to teach the beginning computer science student and why?