Interesting, but how practical?

I really adore the idea of interviewing students for pre- and post-learning evaluation of learning. It gives us a much better developed idea of the way in which students develop their unders... See More

I really adore the idea of interviewing students for pre- and post-learning evaluation of learning. It gives us a much better developed idea of the way in which students develop their understanding, and I really wish we could do more of it. I used it extensively (and informally) at the college level, and I saw incredible growth. I also interviewed all students - something that the authors suggest is not necessary. They tell the reader to choose students carefully to interview, but without a good rubric or rationale for selection. In today's classrooms, interviewing any students on a regular basis is a challenge, and scheduling an 8-10 minute interview with a representative sample could involve hours of prep time. Interviewing all students would be about 30 hours for a typical teacher (assuming about 200 students). There are many good ideas for how to conduct an interview that will not intimidate the students, but from a practicality standpoint, probably this is not a very workable approach.