A dyadic dialogue is a structured conversation between two participants. These conversations enable the partners to better understand each other’s strengths, weaknesses, talents, needs, grievances, and preferences. These activities enable the participants to learn with--and learn from--each other.
Autobiographical Milestones
This is a dyadic dialogue activity in which the partners share important events in their lives.
Synopsis
One partner identifies two autobiographical events. The other partner guesses which event occurred earlier. The partners share the impact of milestone events in their lives.
Participants
Two. Larger groups could be divided into pairs and participate in the activity in a parallel fashion.
Flow
Prepare a list of milestone events. Think back on your life, beginning with your early childhood. Make a list of milestone events that impacted your life. Reduce this list to 9 significant events.
Devise an imaginary event. Come up with a fictional event that did not happen in your life but could deceive other people into believing it is a real occurrence. Add this item to your milestone list so it contains 10 events.
Arrange the events in a random order. Scramble your list so they are not in a sequential order. (An easy way to do this is to arrange the events in alphabetical order.)
Example
Here’s the list of 10 Milestone events that I created during a recent discussion with my business colleague. The items are arranged in alphabetical order. The list contains a fictional event. I am not going to tell you which one it is.
Conduct training workshops in Switzerland.
Direct a 10-million-dollar USAID education project in Liberia.
Get a job designing training games.
Get my first consulting engagement.
Get recruited to be a research assistant at Indiana University.
Have a conversation with Mahatma Gandhi.
Learn to speak French.
Marry my high school sweetheart.
My mother dies.
Publish a book on contraceptive techniques.
Exchange and study the lists. Exchange your list with the partner. Study the 10 items on the list. Arrange the 10 events in a chronological order from the earliest to the most recent. Also try to find the fictional event in your partner’s list.
Ask your partner to place the list in the center of the table. This is list you created originally.
Point to any two items in the list. Ask your partner to guess the sequential order in which they occurred. List to your partner’s response.
Example:
Here are the two items I selected from the list:
Marry my high school sweetheart.
My mother dies.
My partner guessed the sequence incorrectly: My mother died when I was 7 years old and I married when I was 25. “High school sweetheart” is a misrepresentation. I was a high school teacher, and my bride was a student.
Give feedback and explanations. Give the correct order. Share details of each of the two events and explain the impact on your life. Encourage your partner to ask questions and make comments about these events.
Continue with two events from your partner’s list. Ask your partner to select two events from their list (that was given to you). Guess the order in which these events occurred. Listen to your partner’s feedback and explanations. Ask clarifying questions and make appropriate comments.
Detect the fictional event. Study the list you have and try to guess the fictional event. Invite your partner to discover the fictional event you gave them. Take turns to correct r verify the guesses.
Repeat arranging two events in the correct sequence. Continue the activity by taking turns to present two events from each list and guessing the correct order. Use the feedback opportunities to share details of the significant events and their impact on your life.
Conclude the activity. After a suitable number of rounds, conclude the activity. Continue with a conversation about the similarities and differences in your life events.