UCSD Weekly Workshops: Best Practices for Peer Instruction

resources: ctd.ucsd.edu/programs/weekly-workshops-winter-2014/

CTD WEEKLY WORKSHOPS:
BEST PRACTICES FOR RUNNING
PEER INSTRUCTION WITH
CLICKERS
Peter Newbury
Center for Teaching Development,
University of California, San Diego
pnewbury@ucsd.edu
@polarisdotca
ctd.ucsd.edu
#ctducsd
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
12:00 – 12:50 pm Warren College Room

We know How People Learn
…and what that means for teaching [1]:
1. Teachers must draw out and work with the preexisting understanding that students bring with them.
Classrooms must be learner centered.
2. Teachers must teach some subject matter in depth,
providing many examples in which the same concept
is at work and revealing/modeling an expert’s
conceptual framework of the content.
3. Teaching (and practicing) metacognitive (“thinking
about thinking”) skills should be integrated into the
curriculum.
2

Best Practices for Peer Instruction with Clickers

traditional lecture
3


student-centered instruction

peer instruction with clickers
interactive demonstrations
surveys of opinions
reading quizzes
worksheets
discussions
videos
student-centered instruction
4


Let’s try it…
 Don’t get (too) distracted by the content of the
questions: this is not a test of your knowledge!
 Try to be aware of how the peer instruction is
“choreographed” – we’ll talk lots about it
afterwards

5


Astronomy class
We’re in an astronomy survey course. We’ve just
finished a worksheet on the phases of the Moon.

6


Clicker question
This is the phase of the Moon when it rises:

What is the phase of the Moon 12 hours later?
A

B

D

C

E

(Adapted from Ed Prather)
7


Clicker choreography
The instructor needs to run the peer instruction in a way
that gives students sufficient time to
1. think,
2. discuss, and
3. resolve the concepts.
We want students to focus all of their precious cognitive
load on the concept. We don’t want them wasting any
of it wondering, “What am I supposed to do now?”

8


1. Present the question. Don’t read it aloud.
Reasons for not reading the question aloud:
• your voice may give away key features or even
the answer
• you might read the question you hoped to ask, not
the words that are actually there
• the students are not listening anyway – they’re
trying to read it themselves and your voice may, in
fact, distract them

9


2. “Please answer this on your own.”
Goals of the first, solo vote is to get the students
• to commit to a choice in their own minds
• curious about the answer
• prepared to have a discussion with their peers
If they discuss the question right away:
• students are making choices based on someone else’s
reasoning
• those students cannot contribute to the peer instruction as
they have no ideas of their own
10


2. “Please answer this on your own.”
Students may be reluctant to quietly think on their
own. After all, they have a better chance of picking
the right choice after talking to their friends.
If you’re going to impose a certain behaviour on the
students, getting their “buy-in” is critical. Explain to
them why the solo vote is so important. Explain it to
them early in the term and remind them when they
start drifting to immediate discussions.
www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/SEI_video.html
11


3. Don’t immediately start the i>clicker poll. Instead
give the students sufficient time to make a choice.
What is sufficient?
• Turn to the screen, read and answer the question as if
you are one of your students.
• Another possibility: keep facing the class, watching
for confused stares and/or and satisfied smiles.
• Another possibility: model how to think about the
question by “acting it out.”
• When you notice students picking up their clickers and
getting restless, they are prepared to vote.
12


4. When you have made a choice or when you see the
class getting restless, ask the students, “Do you need
more time?”
If many students are not ready to vote, they will not
have committed to a choice and will be unprepared to
discuss the question.
Some students may be uncomfortable asking for more
time. Make it clear, from the first class, that you’ll
honour the request with no repercussions.

5. “Yes!” Give them a few more seconds.
“[silence]” Ask them to prepare to vote.
13


6a. Open the poll, “Please vote.”
If you’ve given them sufficient time to commit to a
choice, the voting should take very little time.

14


6b. Prepare to close the poll
When almost all the votes are in, say, “Final votes,
please, in 5…4…3…2…1…Thank-you!” and close
the poll.
Don’t wait for every last student to vote. Some may
be choosing not to vote.

15


7. Initiate small group discussions: “Please turn to your
neighbors and convince them you’re right.”
Students may not know how to “discuss” the question so
give them direction: “…convince them you’re right.”

Don’t display the histogram: if the students see it, they
tend to pick the popular choice on the 2nd vote even if
it’s not the answer they feel is correct: “lemming effect”

16


8. Wander around the room, listening to the
conversations.
o Avoid joining conversations – this is their time to
talk, not yours.
o Listen for misconceptions, places where students get
stuck – these nuggets of student thinking are your
source for improving the questions, clarifying the
questions, etc.

17



one best answer
(~ STEM)

9. When it starts to get quiet and/or you notice
students starting to disengage or talk about other
things, collect the 2nd vote:
“Group vote, please!” Start the poll.
“Last call on the group vote [pause 10 seconds] in
5…4…3…2…1…thank-you!” Stop the poll.

18



one best answer
(~ STEM)

10a. Now you can display the histogram – this is the
signal to the students that a discussion is about to
begin.
Depending on their votes, you have several
choices for sparking the discussion…

19



one best answer
(~ STEM)

10b. Correct answer is the clear
winner.
Ok, well done, B is correct but…





20

why might A be tempting?
why might someone think it could be E?
could someone explain why D is wrong?
(possible follow-up question)
How would be change the question so that A is right?



one best answer
(~ STEM)

10b. No clear winner.

Ok, this was a harder one, we
need to look at all the options…
 what reasoning would someone use for A (repeat for
all popular choices)
 if you changed your vote, what did you discuss in your
group?

21



one best answer
(~ STEM)

10b. If you’re not sure what to do, you’re never wrong
asking,
What did your group talk about?

22



one best answer
(~ STEM)

11. At the end, confirm the answer(s) and continue with
the class.
Even if more than 80–90% of the students have
picked the correct choice, some students may still not
sure why that choice is correct.
Briefly confirm the correct choice:
• explain why the right answer is right
• explain why wrong answers are wrong
• allows students who chose the right answer to
make sure they had the correct reasoning

23



many answers
(~ A&H, SS)

8. Wander around the room, listening to the
conversations.
o Avoid joining conversations – this is their time to
talk, not yours.
o Listen for misconceptions, places where students get
stuck – these nuggets of student thinking are your
source for improving the questions, clarifying the
questions, etc.

24



many answers
(~ A&H, SS)

9. When it starts to get quiet and/or you notice
students starting to disengage or talk about other
things…
Show the histogram – this is the
signal to the students that a
discussion is about to begin.

25



many answers
(~ A&H, SS)

10. Facilitate a class discussion, provoking the students to
share
 which answer they chose
 what evidence they have to support that choice
(for example, citing readings)

26



many answers
(~ A&H, SS)

11. Continue the discussion until each choice has been
discussed.
Create a “summary” slide with each point or
argument + evidence you wanted covered.
If the students get to all of them, great. If not, you can
briefly add anything that was missed.

27


Peer instruction takes time!
28

(Image: Ready steady go by purplemattfish on flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Where does that time come from?

Traditional classroom
29

 first exposure to material is in class, content is
transmitted from instructor to student
 learning occurs later when student struggles alone to
complete homework, essay, project

learn easy
stuff together
transfer

learn hard
stuff alone
assimilate

Flipped classroom
30

 student learns easy content at home: definitions,
basis skills, simple examples. Frees up class time for...
 students come to class prepared to tackle
challenging concepts in class, with immediate
feedback from peers, instructor

learn easy
stuff alone

learn hard
stuff together

transfer

assimilate


typical set of class slides

identify “easy” content

& content you want to do together

assign as pre-class readings and/or tasks

*

*
*
31


identify key
points, concepts

*

Resources
1.

2.

Peer instruction resources from the Carl Wieman Science Education
Initiative at the Univ. of British Columbia :
http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/clickers.htm

3.

Videos by the Science Education Initiative at the Univ. of Colorado
(Boulder) provide excellent background for using clickers:
http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/SEI_video.html

4.
32

National Research Council. How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and
School: Expanded Edition. J.D. Bransford, A.L Brown & R.R. Cocking
(Eds.),Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2000.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9853&page=1

Peer Instruction network blog.peerinstruction.net


Typical Episode of Peer Instruction (PI)
1. Instructor poses a conceptually-challenging,
multiple-choice question.
2. Students think about question on their own and vote using
clickers, colored ABCD cards, smartphones,…
3. The instructor asks students to turn to their neighbors and
“convince them you’re right.”
one best answer (STEM)

many answers (A&H, SS)

4. Students vote again and
4. Instructor leads a class-wide
instructor leads a class-wide
discussion where students give
discussion about why the right
evidence to support each
answer(s) is right and the
choice.
wrong answers are wrong.
34


UCSD Weekly Workshops: Best Practices for Peer Instruction

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (20)

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (20)

Ähnlich wie UCSD Weekly Workshops: Best Practices for Peer Instruction

Ähnlich wie UCSD Weekly Workshops: Best Practices for Peer Instruction (20)

Mehr von Peter Newbury

Mehr von Peter Newbury (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

UCSD Weekly Workshops: Best Practices for Peer Instruction