PGCE Secondary Maths interview

[crhodes]

At 35 I've decided to go for it and retrain as a teacher. I'm hoping to do it part time and have an interview next week. Apart from the obvious why do you want to be a teacher any advice on what they might ask?

I've also got to give a 5 mins presentation on an area of maths!!! Any advice or recommendations on what to do my presentation on would be very gratefully received. I haven't got any teaching experience so can't use a lesson I've observed. Luckily because I have trained people in my previous job as an accountant they don't seem too worried about my lack of teaching experience altough they have said they'll make it a condition of my offer to do some.

It's years since I've interviewed or given/written a presentation!!@@

They might ask about your ideas on inclusion in the classroom, what about maths makes you want to teach it, how to engage students in the classroom.

The could also have you taking through ideas or team teaching with other interviewees.

Pick a topic that you're interested in. I always think statistics are easy to make interesting as they directly affect real life. Hopefully they've given you more guidance than just 'a 5 minute presentation' though? If they haven't, they're just checking you can present clearly and the topic is mostly irrelevant.

Well done to get this far and good luck! I would pick something tiny for the 5 minutes - when I did mine ( retrained English) I did commas. I'm not a mathematician but go with idea above - what do you love about maths?

There are some stunning Maths lessons on Utube Just type in a subject ( negative numbers, for instance) and something interesting will come up and some of the presenters are very succinct.
Khan Academy.com has lots of videos covering every topic for Secondary maths. IXL has some fun stuff.