Although we are all quarantined in our homes, we can still increase engagement in our instruction. A powerful way to accomplish this is by giving students the opportunity to take action in real life, to actively engage in a process, hands-on. A great tool for this is by having students conduct an Interview. This is a great learning activity for multiple reasons such as improving social interaction skills, professionalism, critical thinking skills, increased ability to organize ones’ thoughts (organizational skills), acquisition of a powerful research tool, improved understanding of needed technology for assignment, as well as a fun and engaging way to learn (Creswell, 2007; Cox, 2020; Gangel, 2005; Visser, 2010).
Once again, to make this article more exciting, let’s start with an example. I’ll explain the example and technique after the following video example.
I made this video for a course I was taking at the beginning of my Ph.D. studies at Kansas State University. The instructor gave us minimal guidelines except to interview someone via any medium as long as they had something to do with instructional design. I decided to make a video and to interview myself (she thought it was very creative, fully fulfilled the assignment, and gave me an A+). I really enjoyed the assignment and wrote a reflection paper afterward describing my process and the many things I learned.
Interviewing Instructional Technique Explained
There are many ways to use the interviewing instructional technique and it can be the main purpose of the lesson or simply a tool to learn something else (such as in the example above). Yet this technique is very powerful because it is real, hands-on, and can invoke real emotional connections that greatly adds in motivation, learning, and retention. This is the way to achieve transformational learning.
One way to achieve success with using interviewing as an instructional tool is to simply let your students loose. Offer some minimal guidelines such as what makes for a good interview question but let them make up their own. Provide some examples of what can be done such as my video example but allow them the freedom to use creativity to come up with something unique and interesting, this also greatly increases motivation. In my case (example provided) I had to use/learn different technologies in order to produce the final video. This can also tie in with role-playing where the student must now be a researcher, detective, journalist, etc. and now has to interview someone. It is also good to have a follow up writing assignment to help the student reflect on what was accomplished and learned thereby going through the experiential learning process (Anders, 2019; Kolb & Kolb, 2017).
Another educational approach is the Three-Step Interview instructional technique developed by Kagan (1989). With this technique students are divided into groups of two or three. Student 1 interviews student 2 while student 3 observes and takes notes on the process (if in a group of three). Then students switch roles. This allows for the interviews to take place during class and the instructor can observe and have a student discussion afterwards (Cox, 2020; Kagan, 1989).
Regardless of the method used, giving your students the opportunity to conduct interviews helps students in the multiple ways already explained, helps builds confidence, and helps develop 21st-century skills. Even though we are all quarantined due to coronavirus, students could still interview family members in their homes, or roommates. Through the use of videoconferencing, students could also contact other people to interview; the possibilities are endless. Interviewing as an education technique is a powerful hands-on interactive method of instruction that will also induce emotion and will make a memorable learning event for the student. I strongly recommend all instructors consider this technique to make their instruction that much more experiential.
As always please share your thoughts and/or experiences with using interviewing as an educational tool.
Reference
Anders, B. (2019). The Army Learning Concept, Army Learning Model:A guide to understanding and implementation. Emporia, KS: Sovorel Publishing.
Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design choosing among five approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Cox, J. (2020, April 2). Teaching strategies: The three-step interview.TeachHUB. https://www.teachhub.com/teaching-strategies-three-step-interview
Gangel, K. (2005, March 14) The interview as a teaching technique. Bible.org. https://bible.org/seriespage/20-interview-teaching-technique
Kagan, S. (1989). The structural approach to cooperative learning. Educational leadership, 47(4), 12-15.
Kolb, A. & Kolb, D. (2017). Experiential learning theory as a guide for experiential educators in higher education. ELTHE: A Journal for Engaged Educators, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 7–44.
Visser, L. (2010). Interviewing as a learning tool. Distance Learning, 7(1), 23.