Marilyn Burns's Tips for One-on-One Interviews

  

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We are happy to have Math Solutions – the newest member of the Scholastic family – contribute to the Math Hub blog.

Relying solely on students' written assignments to assess their skills may hide misunderstandings. In "Snapshots of Student Misunderstandings", Marilyn Burns shows how one-on-one interviews give teachers valuable insight on exactly what is being learned from a math lesson.

Tips from Marilyn Burns for Using One-on-One Interviews:

• Tell students that you are asking the questions so that you can be a more effective teacher, not so that you can give them a grade.
• Spend 10-15 minutes interviewing each student. Engage the rest of the class with math games that give them practice with skills and strategic thinking so you can pull individual students aside to work with.
• Use the information you gain from the interviews to guide your instruction—don't rely solely on students' written work to gauge what they know.
• Incorporate the questioning and probing techniques used in one-on-one interviews into whole-class discussions to provide more opportunities for students to practice explaining their thinking.
• Find the balance between the teaching of math and the teaching of students. Talking to students one-on-one can help you find that balance.

Need more inspiration? Watch Marilyn Burns conduct one-on-one interviews with Jonathan and Cena in the videos below: