Peer Instruction

The basic goals of Peer Instruction are to encourage and make use of student interaction during lectures, while focusing students' attention on underlying concepts and techniques. The method has been assessed in many studies using standardized, diagnostic tests and shown to be considerably more effective than the conventional lecture approach to teaching. Peer Instruction is now used in a wide range of science and math courses at the college and secondary level. In this 2-3 hour long workshop, participants will learn about Peer Instruction, serve as the "class" in which Peer Instruction is... Read more about Peer Instruction

How can I help my students learn in ways that pique their interest and enrich their subject matter understanding? We will explore this perennial question by considering an innovative, research-based teaching method called Peer Instruction (PI). Originally developed by Dr. Eric Mazur to address major gaps in students' conceptual knowledge of physics at Harvard University, this interactive pedagogical method is now widely used by thousands of instructors across the world. PI leverages the power of social learning and the latest advances in instructional technology to confront students'... Read more about Peer Instruction: Real strategies for your classroom

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 improved my students' performance significantly

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 students take down as many notes as they can. This lecture format tends to reinforce the idea that learning is about acquiring information rather than gaining a new way of thinking. In fields such as physics, in which learning does consist primarily of developing new thinking skills, this is disastrous. Students get frustrated because they are not succeding, in large part... Read more about Peer Instruction: Turning a Lecture Into a Seminar

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 improved my students' performance significantly

The basic goals of Peer Instruction are to encourage and make use of student interaction during lectures, while focusing students' attention on underlying concepts and techniques. The method centers around asking interactive questions, called ConcepTests, that help students build understanding. In this workshop, participants will learn how to design good ConcepTests.

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

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 Introduction to Peer Instruction

Educación es mucho más que transferencia de información, sin embargo es lo que comúnmente se hace en cursos introductorios de gran tamaño -– los profesores presentan material (a pesar de que ese material puede estar disponible en su versión impresa) y para los estudiantes el principal propósito de las clases magistrales es tomar la mayor cantidad de notas que puedan. Pocos estudiantes tienen la habilidad, motivación y disciplina para sintetizar toda la información que se les entrega. Sin embargo la síntesis es quizás el más importante -- y el más eludido -– aspecto de la... Read more about Comprensión o Memorización: ¿Estamos haciendo lo correcto?

Our current approach to education in science and technology, focuses on the transfer of information, developing mostly right-brain thinking by stressing copying and reproducing existing ideas rather than generating new ones. I will show how shifting the focus in lectures from delivering information to team work and creative thinking greatly improves the learning that takes place in the classroom and promotes independent thinking.

The basic goals of Peer Instruction are to encourage and make use of student interaction during lectures, while focusing students' attention on underlying concepts and techniques. The method has been assessed in many studies using standardized, diagnostic tests and shown to be considerably more effective than the conventional lecture approach to teaching. Peer Instruction is now used in a wide range of science and math courses at the college and secondary level. In this 2-3 hour long workshop, participants will learn about Peer Instruction, serve as the "class" in which Peer Instruction is... Read more about Peer Instruction

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 Memorization or understanding: are we teaching the right thing?