Peer review of teaching: External review of course content

External peer review of course content is described. Content is an important component of courses that most peer review models exclude. General suggestions on the development of models are provided to assist in creating a local model. A detailed content review model developed at the author's institution is included.David J. Malik received his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from the University of California at San Diego and both an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a B.S. in Chemistry from California State University at Hayward. He is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. His research interests are theoretical chemistry and chemical physics. In recent years, he has been actively developing programs in teaching evaluation and improvement and has published work in developing techniques and practices for effective departmental administration.     

Peer teaching in higher education: A review

In the last decade, peer teaching has gained momentum in higher education. Socio-psychological, pedagogical, economical and political considerations have all contributed to this recent interest. A number of peer-teaching models including discussion groups led by undergraduate students, proctoring (PSI), student learning groups, the learning cell, and student counseling of students (parrainage) have evolved. Several issues and problems may confront the instructor who wants to use undergraduates as teachers: selection of student partner, functions of student teacher, cooperation vs. competition, the structure of the learning situation, preparation of the student teachers, benefits of peer teaching, the role of the professor, financial aspects and instructional facilities. The evidence reviewed suggests that peer teaching, best used in conjunction with other teaching and learning methods, has great potentials for both student teacher and student learner, especially if one seeks to enhance active participation and develop skills in cooperation and social interaction. A student's colleagues often represent the least recognized, least used and possibly the most important of all the resources available to him. (Mackenzie et al., 1970).Portions of this paper have been presented by the second author at the International Symposium on Ingenieurpädagogik '75, 14–16 April, 1975, in Klagenfurt, Austria and at the International Conference on Improving University Teaching, 9–11 May, 1975, in Heidelberg, Germany.     

Peer review improves the quality of MCQ examinations

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of the introduction of peer review processes on the quality of multiple-choice examinations in the first three years of an Australian medical course. The impact of the peer review process and overall quality assurance (QA) processes were evaluated by comparing the examination data generated in earlier years (2008) with those held under the new QA regime (2009 and 2010) from the same blueprint. Statistical analysis and comparisons of overall examination performance were made by year. Regarding multiple-choice questions (MCQs), item analysis was used to compare the proportion of difficult and discriminating items and functional distractors on summative examinations in 2008 (pre-implementation of peer review) and 2009 and 2010 (post-implementation). The impact of peer review processes resulted in a decrease in the number of items with negative discrimination; increases in reliability, appropriate item difficulty, and numbers of items with significant discrimination. There was an associated improvement in the effectiveness of distractors for the MCQ items. The trend of overall improvement in the quality of MCQ items continued in 2009 and 2010. The introduction of QA processes, specifically peer review of MCQ items has resulted in a sustained improvement in the quality of MCQ items within our examinations.     

Peer assessment in university teaching: evaluating seven course designs

Peer assessment is understood to be an arrangement with students assessing the quality of their fellow students’ writings and giving feedback to each other. This multiple‐case study of seven designs of peer assessment focuses on the contribution of peer assessment to the acquisition of undergraduates’ writing skills. Its aim is to arrive at an optimal design of peer assessment. Factors included in this study are: the quality of peer assessment activities, the interaction between students in oral peer feedback, students’ learning outcomes, and their evaluation of peer assessment. Most students took assessing the work of their fellow students seriously, and included the peer feedback in the revision of their work. In most conversations, students provided feedback in an evaluative manner. In others, the interaction was more exploratory. For peer assessment, we recommend a combination of written and oral peer feedback.     

Peer teaching: Academic achievement of teacher-led versus student-led discussion groups

Problem-based small-group discussions are the cornerstone of health sciences education at the University of Limburg (The Netherlands). In each of three courses, fifteen discussion groups of about eight students were randomly assigned a staff-tutor (control condition) or student-tutor (experimental condition).In two of the courses no significant differences in cognitive test achievement between the two conditions were found. In one course students tutored by staff-tutors performed significantly better than students tutored by student-tutors. However, no significant differences in test performance were found between students tutored by high-achieving versus average-achieving student-tutors. These findings contradict the congruence hypothesis from information processing theory. Several other explanations are explored.     

Peer teaching and higher level cognitive learning outcomes in problem-based learning

Law education at the University of Limburg (Maastricht, The Netherlands) features small-group tutorials alternating with periods of independent study. Every group of 10 students was tutored by a staff member or an undergraduate student from the third or fourth year. Students guided by a staff member scored significantly higher on a test designed to measure higher order cognitive skills than students guided by a student tutor. Student tutors were rated no differently from staff tutors with respect to the way they stimulated learning processes, directed the discussion content and monitored the discussion process. It seems that in a quantitative way, staff tutors and student tutors behave more or less the same. Qualitatively, however, there may be differences in their behavior which the tutor functioning questionnaire is unable to tap. Interventions of staff tutors may be more to the point than those of student tutors due to the fact that they are experts in their fields.     

关于“生成性教学”的研究综述

新课改进入深水区的今天,生成性教学已逐渐被人们所熟知,国内外关于生成性教学也进行了很多理论和实践方面不同的探索。但对于这些研究,仍然存在着研究不深入,多停留在理论层面;陷入研究误区,产生大量误解;本质"泛化",内容"窄化"等问题。关于生成性教学的研究前景,应该突破理论"重围",登上实践"舞台";抓住本质,扩大视野;紧抓新课改的时代背景,消除误解,走进课堂。     

Peer teaching as a strategy for conflict management and student re-engagement in schools

This article reports on a major action research program that experimented with the use of cross-age peer teaching in schools to assist teachers to manage conflict issues in their classrooms, and to re-engage disaffected students in learning. The research, which was conducted in a range of elementary and secondary schools in Australia, was part of a larger international project using conflict resolution concepts and techniques combined with drama strategies to address cultural conflict in schools. The use of formal cross-age peer teaching emerged as a highly effective strategy in teaching students to manage a range of conflicts in schools, and especially in learning to deal with bullying. Operating as peer teachers also enabled a number of students in the study, with serious behaviour problems, to re-engage with their learning. The article therefore evaluates the effectiveness of peer teaching in both conflict management and student re-engagement.     

法国FLE教学及教学法发展历程综述

FLE教学(fran ais langueétrangère)意为法语作为外语的教学。法国FLE教学实践历史悠久、理论研究更居前沿。本文通过对法国文献资料分析、归纳与整理,对法国FLE教学及教学法发展历程进行综述,旨在向我国法语教学实践者推介在法国已发展成熟而在我国尚待推广的FLE概念与理论,为改变我国法语教学理论研究的滞后性和实践的盲目性、推进我国法语教学改革的深化与发展提供参考。     

Peer review,Bourdieu and honour: connecting Chinese and Australian intellectual projects

The reviews of papers for refereed journals are rarely a source of exhilaration, only occasionally a pleasure and frequently dispiriting. Using peer reviews of research containing Chinese concepts, this paper explores different ways of thinking about knowledge, its evaluation and transfer. Bourdieu’s concepts of fields of power, position taking, positioning and honour provide a framework whereby peer reviews are positioned as integral to scholarly argumentation. They are used to test efforts to connect Chinese ideas into the global dynamics of research‐based knowledge, and to teach early career researchers about how to engage in academic disputation.     

新疆少数民族汉语教学中汉字教学研究综述

本文主要综述了新疆少数民族汉字教学研究现状.     

Reciprocal teaching and reading comprehension: a review

Reading researchers recently have turned their attention to co-operative forms of learning and teaching. One particular form of co-operative teaching is reciprocal teaching which involves the reciprocal interaction of experts and novices in explicit, overt demonstrations of strategy use. Scaffolding, active meaningful involvement, feedback, and fading of the expert's leading the interactions are seen as critical elements of the technique. This paper outlines the theoretical underpinnings of the technique and reviews research examining the effects of reciprocal teaching of comprehension strategies (summarising, predicting, clarifying, questioning) on comprehension disabled subjects. In general the findings show powerful effects, effects that transfer and generalise. The potential of the technique for enhancing other reading skills is discussed.     

高职英语教学模式研究文献述评

利用关键词搜索的方式,对上个世纪80年代后期至今,知网数据库中所搜到关于高职英语教学模式的文献进行了查阅、分析和整理。通过研究得出:各类教学大纲在高职英语教学中有着举足轻重的作用。特别体现在《大学英语课程教学要求》(试行)颁布以来,促使高职院校关于英语教学的研究实现了数量与质量上的突飞猛进,其研究所关注的重点也逐渐由语言学习转向语言技能培养,从传统教学模式逐渐走向对新模式的探究,教学主体也由传统的老师为主体转变成了以学生为主体,评价方式由单一的课程评价发展成多元化。本文对长久以来的高职英语教学相关研究文献做出了研究述评,旨在为我国当前的高职英语教学提供借鉴和参考。