Catalyzing Learning Using Peer Instruction and Learning Catalytics

Most -- if not all -- of the important skills in our lives are acquired outside the traditional classroom setting. Yet we continue to teach using lectures where students passively take down information. Peer instruction is a research-based pedagogy that actively engages students in the classroom and has been shown to dramatically improve conceptual understanding, even in large classes. While successfully implementing peer instruction doesn't require any technology, using the right technology can improve student engagement, increase learning, and make it easier to implement peer instruction in your classroom. In this workshop you will learn how to use Learning Catalytics -- a web-based technology publicly unveiled for the first time last year at BLC '11 -- to bring peer instruction to your students. You will get hands-on experience designing effective questions -- not just multiple-choice but also open-ended questions where students produce textual, numerical, or graphical responses -- and using Learning Catalytics to pose them to students. You will also see how to use Learning Catalytics to manage the discussions students have during class and promote engagement and conceptual understanding.