Category Archives: interview

Individual Interviews vs. Typical Test

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What I did:

1.  I collaborated with my students to develop a rubric for their understanding of the Chapter 10 content.  The left side lists the four main skills from this chapter and the top shows the criteria necessary to earn each score.

2.  I created a schedule (in a shared Google Sheet) for students to sign up for their 10-minute appointment window.  Most were during class time, but some were before school or during a lunch/break/X-block.

3.  I created a sheet (for myself) with sample questions from each section so that I had questions ready to ask during the interview.  This also allowed me to ask different students different questions.  Students also used this sheet when they assessed themselves at the end because I broke the questions in to sections that matched the topics on the rubric.
4.  I interviewed each student for 7 minutes (with a 3 minute buffer).  During that time, I asked them questions about each topic (not just “Solve this…” but “Why did you do that step?”), students assessed themselves on the rubric, then I assessed them (as they were walking back to get the next student).
Why I did it: 

A few chapters ago, I asked students to make me a video (similar to a Khan Academy video) explaining the concepts we learned in that chapter (exponential expressions).  They did this in place of a typical written test.  The feedback was very positive and since then their ability to simplify exponential expressions has really impressed me.  Whereas a lot of math concepts tend to get forgotten after the chapter ends, these concepts seemed to stick.



PROS of the interview process: 

  1. I watched students hold each other to a higher standard when they were explaining and reviewing the concepts.
  2. The students said that they studied harder/better knowing they would have to explain themselves.
  3. Students were way more involved in the assessment process.
  4. I was finished grading as soon as the interviews were finished–there was nothing to take home!

CONS of the interview process:

  1. I had to limit myself to 7 minutes per student which limited the number of questions I could ask each student.
  2. The timing also limited how long we could spend on any given section.  If a student didn’t understand the concept, I would eventually have to move them along to the next section.
  3. I do not have the same amount of evidence to support my score of the student as I would have on a typical test.  Since the majority of the “work” for this assessment was a conversation (not every problem was worked out) I do not have a lot of evidence to base my score of the student on.  I wrote little notes and the students worked through some problems on paper (and they assessed themselves), but I definitely do not have written evidence to support every score.

Next steps:

I am going to continue with an “alternative assessment” for our last chapter, but my students and I are redesigning it with some changes.  Here are our ideas so far:
  1. Students pair up and assess each other.  This will allow students to have more time in their “interview” since multiple interviews will be going on at one time.
  2. Students will have the opportunity to re-explain a concept for a higher score on the rubric.

Do you have any ideas for us to consider?