Interactive Orals – Bringing Back the Joy of Teaching

One of the subjects I am Subject Coordinator for recently changed its assessment items. In ETL504 Teacher Librarian as Leader, there is now a supervised assessment component, which has been built into Assessment 1 as an interactive oral. As I cross the halfway mark of facilitating these interactive orals with the current students in ETL504, I have a confession to make: this process has been the absolute highlight of my last six years teaching at Charles Sturt University. Despite the initial set-up and logistical challenges of scheduling 140 interactive orals (of which I am doing 60 and the remaining 80 are being covered by my mighty marking team), being in the thick of them now just affirms that my gut feeling was right – this really is a lot of fun! Here is why these interactive orals have brought me so much joy.

First and foremost, these orals have allowed me to finally put faces to the names of students I have only previously engaged with through written work. In the world of online and distance education, it is incredibly easy to feel disconnected, but having these live, face-to-face conversations has been a lovely change of pace. It is also just one small way that these kinds of assessments can contribute to developing real relationships with students (Felten & Lambert, 2020); something I have felt I’ve been missing in my online teaching lately. During these interviews, I have found myself telling students that this experience makes me feel like I am truly teaching again because I get to talk to real, live students. It’s also been great to hear back from students (mostly after the “assessment” bit is over) that they have also appreciated the chance to speak with me one-on-one. Engaging with my cohort in a way that I have not been able to do for years has been so refreshing and rewarding. It completely transforms the dynamic from a transactional grading process into a genuine, human connection, while also ticking off some rubric requirements at the same time.

Another major reason I have enjoyed every single oral is that I absolutely love hearing directly from the students about what they think and what they have learned. Reading an essay is one thing, but listening to a student passionately explain the intricacies of their school’s hierarchy and leadership structure is incredibly rewarding. It has been great to hear back from students that this task, which I am proud of having designed, has given them the chance to really think about what is happening in their schools and how they can apply the theories they’ve been learning about to real situations. This task is far more aligned with the real-life, everyday advocacy that teacher librarians must do in their schools compared to a traditional written assignment. While this task may have finally gotten the glow-up I’ve been dreaming of for ages because of the way that education has needed to respond to AI (Corbin et al., 2026; Lodge et al., 2023), in my eyes, this was just an added benefit. Yes, the interactive oral type of assessment can provide some more assurances of student learning, but for me, it’s the authenticity that makes it all worth it (Sotiriadou et al., 2020; Villarroel et al., 2018). I know that many educators strive to create authentic assessment items, but I really think this one may have achieved it. 

Lastly, you might think that conducting up to 60 individual, ten-minute interviews would be an exhausting marathon, but I’ve been finding that the energy I get back from the students because of their passion for their learning and the teacher librarian role goes a long way in offsetting the drain. I won’t lie, this is day 10 (in a row) of having between 3 and 5 interviews each day, while also juggling moderation of my marking team and keeping up with other parts of my job, and my body is feeling the strain, but it is much easier to sit back down at my computer to mark when I know that I will be meeting a student to talk about what they’ve learnt. Having these orals come to life so successfully has made me incredibly happy. It is an absolute pleasure to engage in these unscripted, professional dialogues, and I genuinely look forward to meeting each new student.

The observation I wanted to leave you all with, is that these interactive orals have reminded me why I love teaching. They break down the digital barriers of online learning, celebrate the authentic voices and practical knowledge of our future teacher librarians. To all the students who have participated so far, and to those whom I am yet to meet, thank you for sharing your insights, your time, and your wonderful stories with me. I cannot wait to see where your leadership journeys take you next!

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