Qualitative Methods is a new class at the Ford School, and represents a distinctively different approach from the predominantly quantitative MPP curriculum. The goal of the class is to teach students how to design and conduct rigorous empirical studies about how people construct, interpret and attribute meaning to their experiences and environments, and why people engage in actions and behaviors. I designed the class based on an experiential learning philosophy, wherein students are asked to be hands-on participants in class exercises and workshops that are intended to illustrate, extend and apply the concepts and frameworks that they read about and discuss. Reflecting this philosophy, the grant will fund my efforts to integrate actors into the curriculum for students to practice interviewing. The open-ended, semi-structured interview is the primary method used in the course, and requires a significant amount of skill and practice to execute in a rigorous fashion. In order to provide this practice, I have taken a page from the concept of Clinical Medical Education (CME). In CME, medical students' classroom learning is supplemented by clinical experiences wherein they examine "patients" that are played by actors. The actors are trained to present the students with specific medical issues that the students must accurately diagnose by asking questions. Along the same lines, the actors in my class will be trained to present students with different situational challenges that they may encounter during interviews, with the intent of illustrating the difficulty of managing some social dynamics.