This session officially kicked off our 2021 research team meetings. A few of the people who attended the first session did not return, and a few new people joined us who expressed commitment to the project. We started the session by asking people to share in w digital word cloud: what words come to mind when you think about the transition out of high school?
We dug deeper into the theme of young adulthood by asking the group to share in breakout rooms about their own experiences, hopes and fears about leaving high school, and also about someone they know who they think has done well through the transition into young adulthood.
Finally, as a way to introduce the team to the process of interviewing, transcribing, and coding, we listened together to a 2-minute clip of an interview from our first round of SPARC interviews, in Spring 2019. We then read through the transcription of the clip and coded the segment as a group, identifying themes and engaging in group data analysis.
We wrapped up the session by asking the team to brainstorm questions they wanted to ask the person they heard in the interview, including:
- When – exactly – did you feel that you lost your support?
- If you could tell your old high school one thing to work on, what would it be?
- How did the structure of Project Coach make a difference in your life? Was it tutoring, 1:1 meetings, etc.? What helped the most?
By weaving small group conversations, large group reflections, and the collaborative activity of live group coding, we created a sense of team and curiosity despite meeting in a virtual format.