Reworking the Student Interview

Write a reflection on your practice interview and post it to your blog.  What did you learn?  What was difficult?  What went well?  How will this impact your interview protocol?  Did you learn any "tricks" that others might find useful in uncovering student understanding?


I found that a few things worked and a few things did not work with my student interview. I found that asking the student to draw a diagram of the heart was a good idea, because the student then has the ability to refer to the diagram in order to better articulate their answers.  I found that some of my questions were too simplistic, and some were more difficult than I had originally anticipated. It was brought to my attention that on two of the questions, I was essentially probing the same fundamental understanding twice.  My practice participant was extremely good at articulating his answers, and I realized that my interviewee could possibly be less so.  I have adjusted some of my questions to reflect this realization.  I want my interviewee to draw more while they explain their answers, so I have adjusted this in my line of questioning and have even implemented some usage of colored pencils to depict oxygen rich and oxygen poor blood.  I have also asked questions that involve the idea of transfer across disciplines, because most of the students who are in my class are going into the medical profession someday and will need to use the information they learn in this class to make informed decisions and diagnoses in their future professions.  By implementing questions about blood vessels and the pulse rate, this line of questioning is not just about the heart structure and function, and is making the student's lean on their new knowledge and implement it into real life situations.  Also, by asking the question about fetuses circulating blood, the student has to connect dots that have not been explicitly spelled out to them in class, and may result in elucidating some inconsistencies in their reasoning.  My in-class "mock interview" participant was a big help, and I couldn't have improved my question list without him.