Daycare Worker Question:

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It is a fairly common practice to have a prospective teacher come in and teach for a morning in order to see them at work. However, you should consider also asking them to perform a written observation on a specific child. When they are done you'll not only have a sample of their writing (no, they won't have to time to correct their work) but you'll be able to have a glimpse of what they see when they look at children in the program. Do they catch nuances of emotional displays by the child? Do they notice how a child connects with other caregivers or children? What have they said about how a child uses a specific toy? Gathering and sharing information about the child with the parent is a critical function of every teacher. As the applicant answers this question try to determine what observation skills and techniques they've used successfully. Find out if, in their previous jobs, was there time to do observations, or will this be a fairly new skill to them that they'll need to develop? What, if any, observation tools have they used? You may use a specific tool in your program and you'll want to try to gauge how much training you'll need to do.