Paired peer learning through engineering education outreach

ABSTRACT

Undergraduate education incorporating active learning and vicarious experience through education outreach presents a critical opportunity to influence future engineering teaching and practice capabilities. Engineering education outreach activities have been shown to have multiple benefits; increasing interest and engagement with science and engineering for school children, providing teachers with expert contributions to engineering subject knowledge, and developing professional generic skills for engineers such as communication and teamwork. This pilot intervention paired 10 pre-service teachers and 11 student engineers to enact engineering outreach in primary schools, reaching 269 children. A longitudinal mixed methods design was employed to measure change in attitudes and Education Outreach Self-Efficacy in student engineers; alongside attitudes, Teaching Engineering Self-Efficacy and Engineering Subject Knowledge Confidence in pre-service teachers. Highly significant improvements were noted in the pre-service teachers’ confidence and self-efficacy, while both the teachers and engineers qualitatively described benefits arising from the paired peer mentor model.     

HistoViewer: An interactive e‐learning platform facilitating group and peer group learning

Understanding tissue architecture and the morphological characteristics of cells is a central prerequisite to comprehending the basis of physiological tissue function in healthy individuals and relating this to disease states. Traditionally, medical curricula include courses where students examine glass slides of cytological or tissue samples under a light microscope. However, it is challenging to implement group and peer group learning in these courses and to give students sufficient time to study specimens. An increasing number of medical schools have thus started to implement digital slide viewers, so‐called virtual microscopes, in histology and histopathology. These websites are mostly based on standard commercial software and offer limited adaptation to the special needs of first‐year students. An e‐learning platform has therefore been developed for use in cytology and histology courses. This virtual microscopy tool is coupled to a central database in which students can label and store the positions of individual structures for later repetition. As learning in pairs and peer groups has been shown to provide a high learning outcome, identified structures can be shared and discussed with students' peers or faculty via a built‐in communication module. This website has the possibility of opening an arbitrary number of frames which all can actively be moved and changed in magnification to enable the comparison of specimens and thus encourage a more global understanding of related tissues. HistoViewer is thus suggested as an e‐learning tool combining several modern teaching concepts. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.     

Interactive learning through web-mediated peer review of student science reports

Two studies analyzed impacts of writing and receiving web-mediated peer reviews on revision of research reports by undergraduate science students. After conducting toxicology experiments, 77 students posted draft reports and exchanged double-blind reviews. The first study randomly assigned students to four groups representing full, partial, or no peer review. Students engaging in any aspect of peer review made more revisions than students confined to reviewing their own reports. In the second study, all students engaged in peer review, and the influence of writing versus receiving critiques was analyzed using linear regression. Both studies showed receiving reviews to be more significant than writing them in terms of triggering report revisions. Students valued the peer review experience and credited it with giving them insights about their work. Conclusions address implications for optimal design of online peer review systems and for further research into student learning gains.

Conceptions of and approaches to learning through online peer assessment

The present study investigated junior college students' conceptions of and approaches to learning via online peer assessment (PA) using a phenomenographic approach. Participants were 163 college students. Students were asked to accomplish a given learning task via an online PA system. Of the participants, 62 were interviewed after the activity. The interviews revealed hierarchically related and qualitatively different categories of conceptions and approaches to learning via online PA. The main and achieved levels of conceptions of and approaches to learning were determined. The results showed that, within each level, conceptions emphasizing a fragmented and cohesive learning tended to be associated with approaches focusing on surface and deep learning, respectively. In addition, students with cohesive learning conceptions and deep learning approaches were likely to make greater progress in the early stages of online PA activity. The present study finally found that approaches to learning via online PA were less related to the learning outcomes than conceptions of learning.     

The assessment cycle: a model for learning through peer assessment

This paper advances a model describing how peer assessment supports self-assessment. Although prior research demonstrates that peer assessment promotes self-assessment, the connection between these two activities is underspecified. This model, the assessment cycle, draws from theories of self-assessment to elaborate how learning takes place through peer assessment. The model is applied to three activity structures described in the literature to analyse their potential to support learning by promoting self-assessment. Broadly speaking, the model can be used to understand learning that takes place in a variety of peer assessment activities: marking/grading, analysis, feedback, conferencing and revision. This approach contrasts most studies on peer assessment, which have focused on calibration of instructor and peer grades, rather than learning opportunities.     

Enhancing the status of peer observation through the scholarship of teaching and learning

In this Reflection on Practice I argue the case for using the principles of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) to serve as a framework for evaluating and designing peer observation programmes in higher education contexts. I suggest that for peer observation to be an activity worthy of SoTL, it should be systematic, collaborative, rigorous, peer reviewed, and focused on learning about teaching to improve teaching. Using a set of criteria to critique a current peer observation programme I account for its strengths and weaknesses and suggest a way forward for elevating the status of peer observation.     

Induction seminars as professional learning communities for beginning teachers

This paper explores the operation and contribution of induction seminars operated as learning communities for new teachers. Mixed methods were used: 378 new teachers and 29 seminar leaders completed questionnaires, 16 new teachers and 14 seminar leaders were interviewed, and 20 seminar meetings were observed. Findings showed that seminar discussions focused primarily on coping with discipline problems, building self-confidence, and developing a professional identity. The main contribution of the seminars was emotional support provided in a non-threatening environment. Findings imply that seminars can be a significant supplement to in-school mentoring for the professional development and adjustment of new teachers.     

Peer relations in peer learning

Over the last decades, much research on peer learning practices has been conducted. Quantitative, experimental designs focusing on problems of cause and effect dominate. Consequently, effects on achievement are well documented, as is the influence of different conditions on the effect rate. In spite of the general acknowledgment of the importance of peer learning and a large amount of research on collective learning practices, questions regarding the quality of peer interaction, and how peer relations influence learning, are not well elaborated. This paper complements the discussion on effect focusing on the processes of interaction between peers, and relates these to theoretical perspectives on learning as fundamentally social. Inspired by meta-ethnography an integrative analysis across seven qualitative studies was accomplished. The approach enabled an investigation of peer interactions in different educational settings. The analysis elaborates on how instructional designs and students’ relational knowledge mediate interaction in peer learning. The paper further discusses the potential of approaches synthesising qualitative studies as a tool in qualitative research.     

The practice of poetry among a group of heroin addicts in India: naturalistic peer learning

As part of an ongoing ethnographic study, this paper aims to consider the practice of poetry, sher-o-shayari, as naturalistic peer learning among a group of heroin addicts in Yamuna Bazaar, New Delhi. By examining meanings given to sher-o-shayari and experiences of participating in the practice, this article makes the claim that the practice of poetry involved three learning processes. First, it entailed ‘legitimate peripheral participation’ during group sessions in which implicit performance rules were created, evolved, and transferred to newcomers. Second, it included ‘meaning negotiation’ in which participants ‘break’ and ‘join’ different lines, images, or themes in group improvisation or individual creation events. Third, it contained ‘reflective learning’, which enabled development of the ‘whole’ person and helped situate the individual in the social world. Such data are important for the creation of ‘organic’ peer education programs that utilize naturalistic peer learning mechanisms.     

Novice teachers learning through participation in a teacher study group

Using Lave and Wenger’s framework of legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice, this case study explores the experiences of three novice teachers engaged with more experienced teachers in a teacher study group during their first year of teaching. The study illustrates how, over time, the novices moved from more peripheral to more central participation as revealed through changes in their talk and feelings about participating. The study highlights the importance of legitimacy and peripherality provided by the more experienced teachers and identifies the ways in which the facilitator scaffolded and mediated the novices’ participation and learning.     

Transferable skills for online peer learning

Efforts to enhance learning through peer interaction in an electronic forum are now commonplace. However, facilitation and moderation of such a forum by academic staff can be of limited effectiveness and very time‐consuming. The skills required by peer learners to effectively manage such distributed discourse for themselves have rarely been clearly identified. This paper compares the social, organizational and cognitive characteristics of effective peer learning interactions in face‐to‐face and online environments (with particular reference to peer tutoring and peer assessment). This leads to a specification of transferable skills for online peer learning, at the macro and micro levels, with commentary on areas needing particular attention. The implications for assessment of such online distributed discourse process skills are explored with reference to professional practice and future research.     

Moderation of peer assessment in group projects

It is shown here that a grade distribution scheme commonly used to moderate peer assessments where self assessment is excluded is based on a false premise and will give an erroneous ranking in the situation where the best performer in a student group ranks the second best performer much higher than the other group members. An alternative to normalisation is proposed based on the idea that the rank order of peer grades should be preserved and should as far as possible be consistent between assessors. It is shown that the method correctly recovers the rank order of students within the group for all cases examined, while still eliminating biases that can result from differences in marking standards in the group. It is suggested that the approach could also be used to check for bias when self assessment is included.     

Training proportionality through peer interaction

The study aimed at determining the effects of training based on peer interaction over practical problems of proportion with normal subjects aged from 8 to 12 years. Two experimental groups were assigned to two treatment conditions: (a) training in solving problems of proportionality with social interaction (T1), and (b) training in solving the same problems without social interaction (T2).Training groups included either 5 or 10 subjects who were heterogeneous with regard to their initial level of mastery of the concept of proportion. The results indicated that in group T1 the scores on proportionality improved significantly while group T2 and a control group did not. Thus, practice alone produced no change. The improvement on proportionality in T1 proved durable over a period of two months and generalized to a structurally related concept (probability). The variation in group size did not affect the extent of improvement. The number and duration of interactions within the group discussion over problems were not directly related to the amount of improvement. A detailed analysis of the pre- and post-test difference revealed that only 50% of the Ss in T1 improved substantially, and, in line with the Genevan view, improvement from training was found to follow the same sequence as normal development.     

Improving learning achievements,motivations and problem-solving skills through a peer assessment-based game development approach

In this study, a peer assessment-based game development approach is proposed for improving students’ learning achievements, motivations and problem-solving skills. An experiment has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in a science course at an elementary school. A total of 167 sixth graders participated in the experiment, 82 of whom were assigned to the experimental group and learned with the peer assessment-based game development approach, while 85 students were in the control group and learned with the conventional game development approach. From the empirical results, it was found that the proposed approach could effectively promote students’ learning achievement, learning motivation, problem-solving skills, as well as their perceptions of the use of educational computer games. Moreover, it was found from the open-ended questions that most of the students perceived peer assessment-based game development as an effective learning strategy that helped them improve their deep learning status in terms of “in-depth thinking,” “creativity,” and “motivation.”     

Developing healthcare practice through action learning: individual and group journeys

Action Learning is now a well established strategy for reflective inquiry in healthcare. Whilst a great deal is know about action learning there has been inadequate research on the process of learning that takes place, and the impact that this holds for individuals, groups or organisations. This article reports on the findings of 15-month action learning program based in a special care nursery. A realistic evaluation of the program uncovered individual and group journeys and provide evidence that action learning is an effective strategy in practice development.     

Designing computer systems to support peer learning

This article begins with a review of the various roles which computers have played in supporting collaborative learning and argues that, whatever role it plays, technology is not neutral with respect to interactions with and between users. Interfaces to learning environments embody particular representational schemes which have the potential either for competing with representations of the learning domain or for giving access to it. In this respect, the learner-machine interface has ‘Epistemic significance’ and its design is as important as the design of the materials and activities to which it interfaces.     

Improving the effectiveness of peer feedback for learning

The present study examined the effectiveness of (a) peer feedback for learning, more specifically of certain characteristics of the content and style of the provided feedback, and (b) a particular instructional intervention to support the use of the feedback. A quasi-experimental repeated measures design was adopted. Writing assignments of 43 students of Grade 7 in secondary education showed that receiving ‘justified’ comments in feedback improves performance, but this effect diminishes for students with better pretest performance. Justification was superior to the accuracy of comments. The instructional intervention of asking assessees to reflect upon feedback after peer assessment did not increase learning gains significantly.