Eric Mazur

Peer Instruction, at Association of MIT Trained African University Lecturers (AMTAUL), Thursday, August 4, 2022:
Education is more than just transfer of information, yet that is what is mostly done in large introductory courses -- instructors present material (even though this material might be readily available in printed form) and for students the main purpose of lectures is to take down as many notes as they can. Few students have the ability, motivation, and discipline to synthesize all the information delivered to them. Yet synthesis is perhaps the most important -- and most elusive -- aspect of education. I will show how shifting the focus in lectures from delivering information to synthesizing... Read more about Peer Instruction
Interactive Learning, online and in-person, at IAP Research Symposium — Innovative Leadership: Transforming higher Education in the digital Age, Monday, June 20, 2022:
Learning is a social experience — it requires interactions and interactivity. The coronavirus pandemic has been a good opportunity to rethink our approach to teaching. Moving some tasks to an online format suggests that many activities that have traditionally been synchronous and instructor-paced, can be made asynchronous and self-paced. Eric Mazur will demonstrate how to move information transfer and sense-making online and make it interactive, promoting social interactions between students. In addition, he will discuss how the use of an online platform can promote intrinsic and extrinsic... Read more about Interactive Learning, online and in-person
Transform your teaching with Perusall, at Waseda University, Tuesday, May 10, 2022:
Learning is a social experience — it requires interactions and interactivity. The coronavirus pandemic has been a good opportunity to rethink our approach to teaching. Moving some tasks to an online format suggests that many activities that have traditionally been synchronous and instructor-paced, can be made asynchronous and self-paced. Through Perusall, Eric Mazur will demonstrate how to move information transfer and sense-making online and make it interactive, promoting social interactions between students. In addition, he will discuss how the platform promotes intrinsic and extrinsic... Read more about Transform your teaching with Perusall
How the Pandemic Changed My Teaching: The Moral Dilemma of Going Back , at MIT TLL Speaker Series, Wednesday, February 16, 2022:
The rapid transition to online teaching necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic has been a good opportunity to rethink our approach to teaching. Moving to an online format suggests that many activities that have traditionally been synchronous and instructor-paced, can be made asynchronous and self-paced. What may have seemed like a challenge, is a great opportunity to improve the quality of education.
Lessons from a year of remote teaching, at Evento de Apertura U.S. Honduras Embassy, Thursday, February 10, 2022:
The rapid transition to online teaching necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic has been a good opportunity to rethink our approach to teaching. Moving to an online format suggests that many activities that have traditionally been synchronous and instructor-paced, can be made asynchronous and self-paced. What may have seemed like a challenge, is a great opportunity to improve the quality of education.
Assessment for (not of) Learning, at SLO Symposium 2022 — Competency & Equitable Learning, Friday, January 28, 2022:
Why is it that stellar students sometimes fail in the workplace while dropouts succeed? One reason is that most, if not all, of our current assessment practices are inauthentic. Just as the lecture focuses on the delivery of information to students, so does assessment often focus on having students regurgitate that same information back to the instructor. Consequently, assessment fails to focus on the skills that are relevant in life in the 21st century. Assessment has been called the "hidden curriculum" as it is an important driver of students' study habits. Unless we rethink our approach to... Read more about Assessment for (not of) Learning
The moral dilemma of going back: How the pandemic changed my teaching , at Leccíon Inaugural, 2022 Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Friday, January 28, 2022:
The rapid transition to online teaching necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic has been a good opportunity to rethink our approach to teaching. Moving to an online format suggests that many activities that have traditionally been synchronous and instructor-paced, can be made asynchronous and self-paced. What may have seemed like a challenge, is a great opportunity to improve the quality of education.
Turning a large lecture into a seminar: Using Peer Instruction to Promote Deep Understanding, at Student Education Conference 2022, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK, Thursday, January 6, 2022:
I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the material. Who was to blame? The students? The material? I will explain how I came to the agonizing conclusion that the culprit was neither of these. It was my teaching that caused students to fail! I will show how I have adjusted my approach to teaching and how it has significantly improved my students' performance.
Peer Instruction in STEM Teaching, at Aalto University, Espoo, Finland, Wednesday, December 8, 2021
Education is more than just transfer of information, yet that is what is mostly done in large introductory courses -- instructors present material (even though this material might be readily available in printed form) and for students the main purpose of lectures is to take down as many notes as they can. Few students have the ability, motivation, and discipline to synthesize all the information delivered to them. Yet synthesis is perhaps the most important -- and most elusive -- aspect of education. I will show how shifting the focus in lectures from delivering information to synthesizing... Read more about Peer Instruction in STEM Teaching
Workshop on Peer Instruction, at Becas Santander Skills | Innovation in Teaching- Laspau, Wednesday, December 1, 2021:
Learning is a social experience — it requires interactions and interactivity. Since I introduced Peer Instruction three decades ago, there has been a concerted push away from passive lecturing to active engagement in the classroom. A successful implementation of the so-called flipped classroom requires students to come to class prepared either by reading the textbook or watching a pre-recorded video. A variety approaches have...
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