Use paired interviews early in a group's life to build connections and surface participant information¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · no claims cited

Description¶

The guide recommends paired interviews in the early stages of a group so members start connecting quickly. It states that "Paired interviews are a great way to get people talking to each other, to elicit a lot of valuable information about participants, and to make sure that each person has at least one 'buddy'." The exercise should be repeated in subsequent meetings with changed topics and pairings so everyone converses with everyone else.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Repeating the exercise across subsequent group meetings with changing topics and pairings

Constraints¶

Target Learners¶

• Adult learners new to a collaborative learning group

Target Learning Goals¶

• Group cohesion, mutual knowledge, and comfort with group interaction

Related Strategies¶

• Use sentence completion interviews to elicit learner concerns and generate group themes
• Icebreakers
• Icebreakers And Introductions
• Community Building
• Using Empathy Interviews for Family Engagement

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Philadelphia Mayor's Commission on Literacy. (1994). Collaborative Learning: An Alternative Approach to Adult Literacy Instruction. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED376329