Principal Panel

My classmate James attended a principal panel and shared what he took out of that experience with the class. He was chosen along with two others to get interviewed in front of everyone by a panel of former administrators. He was asked a few questions that I found interesting, so I am going to answer them here so that I'm prepared to answer them when I'm actually interviewed.

 "What sets you apart from the other applicants"? 
I think what sets me apart from other applicants is that I want to be extremely involved in the school I'm in. I not only want to be an excellent teacher, I also want to start clubs, coach sports teams, help tutor after school, and help serve my district any way I can. I want to be involved in as much as I can, so that I'm making the biggest difference possible.

 "The whole class is engaged except for Johnny in the back who is sabotaging the lesson, how would you handle the situation"?
This situation is a nightmare for any teacher, but to really put an end to the problem behavior, you need to find out why the behavior is occurring. This is tough to do during lesson sometimes, so I would tell Johnny to take a quick walk out of the classroom to calm him down in the moment. After the lesson, I would find time to talk to him one-on-one and really figure out why he was misbehaving. No student wants to be yelled at by their teacher, even if that's how it seems in certain cases. There always is a deeper reason for the misbehavior and the behavior will not be truly dealt with until you find and fix that deeper reason.

How would you incorporate technology into the classroom?
Technology is an excellent tool in the classroom. I would use it as a supplemental tool whenever I can. There are great technology resources for every subject in the curriculum, so I would sue it occasionally across all subjects. I would also give any students with IEP's appropriate assistive technology to aid their learning.