Part of CRLT's Equity-focused Teaching @ Michigan Series
Activities that ask students to conduct interviews, particularly of community members, can be a powerful method for helping students research real-world issues and understand diverse perspectives. While interview assignments are common across academic disciplines, less common is explicit instruction for students on effective techniques for interviewing. How might we prepare our students to effectively build rapport with, interview, and collect stories or information from communities?

In this session, staff from U-M’s Ginsberg Center will share methods for teaching students skills in appreciative interviewing, an approach to interviewing that emphasizes interviewee expertise and encourages interviewers to guard against deficit-based thinking. Throughout the session, we’ll model discussions and activities from Ginsberg Center that you can use to prepare your students for interviewing. In the process, you’ll have the opportunity to practice skills that will strengthen your own communication with students, be it in office hours, classroom instruction, supervision, or other contexts.