EELB 532 Interview Protocol (20pts)

Your name: Brittanie Priest

Grade level: 1 Topic: Parent and offspring animals
1. Main Objective(s): Describe what (and why) you want to learn about student thinking on the topic here.
(2pts)
The students (in getting ready for Mothers Day) will be matching mother animals with their offspring, so I
want to know why the students match certain mother animals with certain baby animals. This is to teach
them that animals have offspring that look like them, but not exactly like them. When I ask them why they
paired the animals the way they did, I expect they will say something like, Because they look alike. I will
keep asking why until I figure out why they think that way. (NGSS 1-LS3-1: Make observations to construct
an evidence-based account that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents.)
2. Description of the activity: (2pts)
Students will be put in groups of three to four students. Each group will be given white construction paper
(12x18), a pack of markers, glue sticks, and five pairs of animal pictures. These pictures will contain five
mother animals of different species and five baby animals, each of which will correlate with one of the
mother animals. As a group, they will first talk about which animals belong together, then they will sort the
animals, putting the baby animal with its mother, then gluing mother and baby next to each other on the
construction paper. Students will draw lines as borders between the different types of animals, along with
habitats for the animal pairs.

3. Materials (1pts)
Each group needs
White construction paper
Pack of markers
Five pairs of animal pictures (parent and offspring: Great Dane, elephant, duck, pig, and frog)
Glue
4. Introductory Paragraph Script:
Hi _____, are you excited for Mothers Day? Im going to be asking you a few questions about the project
you are working on. I just want to know what you think, and I will probably write down all of your good
ideas, is that alright? Great, so my first question is

5. Questions Please follow the format provided and have 6 productive questions that include at least 4
different types. If appropriate, you can also include reasoning questions. (Each question: 3 pts, 15 pts
total)
Question 1:
Goal: I want to see if they understand that while offspring look like their parents, they do not look
exactly like their parents.
Question (attention-focusing): Do all baby animals look exactly like their parents?
Probing Question(s) as needed for further elaboration: Why or why not?

Question 2:
Goal: I want the students to recognize that while the pig and elephant have similar characteristics, they
cannot be mother and offspring.
Question (Comparison Question): Could the mother pig have the elephant baby?
Probing Question(s) as needed for further elaboration: Why cant they be mother and baby?

Question 3:
Goal: I want them to think about why the puppy has different markings than its mother.
Question (Comparison Question): Does the puppy have the same exact spots as its mother? (I would
point to the picture of the Great Dane and its puppy that both have spots, but of different shapes, sizes
and placements.)
Probing Question(s) as needed for further elaboration: What do you think the puppys father would look
like? (Do you think the puppy got the spots from its father?)

Question 4:
Goal: I want them to be able to discern that even though the piglet is with the Great Dane, the Great
Dane is not the mother of the piglet.
Question (Action Question): What would you think if you saw the mother Great Dane with the piglet?
Would that mean that the Great Dane is the piglets mother?
Probing Question(s) as needed for further elaboration: Why or why not?

Question 5:
Goal: I want to see if they understand the changes that occur to tadpoles, or even help them if they did
not originally place the tadpole with the frog.
Question (Reasoning Question): Why did you put these (I will point to the frog and the tadpole pictures)
pictures together?
Probing Question(s) as needed for further elaboration: Why does the tadpole have a tail and no legs
when the frog has four legs and no tail?

Question 6:
Goal: I want them to reason why some animals look like miniature models of their parents (like pigs),
but other animals (frogs) look like an entirely different species from their parents.
Question (Reasoning Question): Why does the piglet look so similar to its mother, but the tadpole looks
so different from its mother?
Probing Question(s) as needed for further elaboration: Why do you think frogs start life as tadpoles
rather than looking more like a frog?

6. Close to interview:
I loved all of your ideas and thoughts about animals. Did you like learning about these animals? What
other animals would you like to learn about? Thank you for answering all of my questions.