Rehearsal to a Real Life Interview

By conducting an interview, students can develop research, speaking, and active listening skills. This assignment helps them prepare by rehearsing with a chatbot.

Assignment Details

Credit

Katharine Welsh

AI Theme

Subject

Tools

Skills

Learning Objectives

Design and ask relevant, appropriate, and open-ended questions that elicit meaningful and informative responses

Instructions

  1. Identify someone to interview. Depending on the project, this could be an older community member as part of an oral history, an individual of a particular demographic to study health needs, ethnographic research, and more. Reach out to schedule a time and place to meet.
  2. Develop a set of interview questions by conducting research online and/or by talking to a librarian (do not use a chatbot for this portion of the assignment). If planning to interview a prominent individual, make sure to review publicly available interviews to form thoughtful questions that do not repeat past interviews. Keep your questions short and ask only one question at a time. Remember to hold on to this initial set of questions.
  3. Rehearse the interview with a chatbot that is powered by a large language model (ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, etc.) by asking it to play a role. Prompt with “Play the role of a [role] with [amount of professional experience] and [personal experience, more details, etc.].” For example, “Play the role of a flood warden with 20 years of professional experience and a personal experience with flooding.” Add as many specific details as you can from your research.
    • Part of conducting a good interview is listening intently and asking thoughtful follow-up questions. It’s best to avoid asking all of your prepared questions one after the other; probe deeper into each response before moving on.
    • Practice this with the chatbot: ask a follow-up question or two with each response to your prepared questions. Take note of the possible paths that the conversation can take. 
    • At the end, ask what interview questions you might be missing.
  4. Create a revised set of interview questions (keep a copy of the original) that incorporates insights from your rehearsal interview with the chatbot.
  5. Now meet with the real person and conduct your interview. Have your questions printed out or written down (screens like a laptop, tablet, or phone will be distracting). Record the interview. Make sure to listen and ask follow-up questions, and ask one question at a time. 
  6. Transcribe the interview and edit for clarity. 
  7. Write a brief (400-600 word) reflection on your process of researching, developing questions, rehearsing with the chatbot to further develop your questions, and the actual interview. Which chatbot did you use? How did the chatbot rehearsal influence your real interview? Compare and contrast the qualities of the interview with the chatbot and the real interview. Was the chatbot shallow or insightful compared to the real interview? What was surprising? What kinds of things did you have to correct when you edited it? Was there a pattern in the errors?
  8. Turn in your initial interview questions, revised interview questions, the transcription, and the reflection. 

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Rehearsal to a Real Life Interview

By Katharine Welsh

By conducting an interview, students can develop research, speaking, and active listening skills. This assignment helps them prepare by rehearsing with a chatbot.

https://aipedagogy.org/assignment/rehearsal-to-real-life-interview/

Learning Objectives

Design and ask relevant, appropriate, and open-ended questions that elicit meaningful and informative responses

Instructions

  1. Identify someone to interview. Depending on the project, this could be an older community member as part of an oral history, an individual of a particular demographic to study health needs, ethnographic research, and more. Reach out to schedule a time and place to meet.
  2. Develop a set of interview questions by conducting research online and/or by talking to a librarian (do not use a chatbot for this portion of the assignment). If planning to interview a prominent individual, make sure to review publicly available interviews to form thoughtful questions that do not repeat past interviews. Keep your questions short and ask only one question at a time. Remember to hold on to this initial set of questions.
  3. Rehearse the interview with a chatbot that is powered by a large language model (ChatGPT, Claude, Bard, etc.) by asking it to play a role. Prompt with “Play the role of a [role] with [amount of professional experience] and [personal experience, more details, etc.].” For example, “Play the role of a flood warden with 20 years of professional experience and a personal experience with flooding.” Add as many specific details as you can from your research.
    • Part of conducting a good interview is listening intently and asking thoughtful follow-up questions. It’s best to avoid asking all of your prepared questions one after the other; probe deeper into each response before moving on.
    • Practice this with the chatbot: ask a follow-up question or two with each response to your prepared questions. Take note of the possible paths that the conversation can take. 
    • At the end, ask what interview questions you might be missing.
  4. Create a revised set of interview questions (keep a copy of the original) that incorporates insights from your rehearsal interview with the chatbot.
  5. Now meet with the real person and conduct your interview. Have your questions printed out or written down (screens like a laptop, tablet, or phone will be distracting). Record the interview. Make sure to listen and ask follow-up questions, and ask one question at a time. 
  6. Transcribe the interview and edit for clarity. 
  7. Write a brief (400-600 word) reflection on your process of researching, developing questions, rehearsing with the chatbot to further develop your questions, and the actual interview. Which chatbot did you use? How did the chatbot rehearsal influence your real interview? Compare and contrast the qualities of the interview with the chatbot and the real interview. Was the chatbot shallow or insightful compared to the real interview? What was surprising? What kinds of things did you have to correct when you edited it? Was there a pattern in the errors?
  8. Turn in your initial interview questions, revised interview questions, the transcription, and the reflection.