Summer Graduate Teaching Scholars Program sgts.ucsd.edu University of Californina, San Diego Peter Newbury 5/9/2014

1. Summer Graduate Teaching Scholars
Preparing toTeach 3:
Getting your students to think
more like experts via
 2 minute pause
 peer instruction
May 13 and 15
1sgts.ucsd.edu

2. “What the best college teachers do”
“More than anything else, the best teachers try to create
a natural critical learning environment:
 natural because students encounter skills, habits,
attitudes, and information they are trying to learn
embedded in questions and tasks they find fascinating—
authentic tasks that arouse curiosity and become
intrinsically interesting
 critical because students learn to think critically, to
reason from evidence, to examine the quality of their
reasoning using a variety of intellectual standards, to
make improvements while thinking, and to ask probing
and insightful questions about the thinking of other
people.”
(Bain (2004), p. 99)sgts.ucsd.edu 2

3. What is expertise?
“To develop competence in an area of
inquiry, student must
(a) have a deep foundation of factual
knowledge
(b) understand facts and ideas in the
context of a conceptual framework, and
(c) organize knowledge in ways that
facilitate retrieval and application”
(How People Learn, 2000)
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knowledge

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knowledge
framework

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knowledge
framework
retrieval

8. Thinking in more expert-like ways requires
 modeling by the expert (that’s you!)
 deliberate practice by each student:
1. Approach each critical task with an explicit goal of getting
much better at it.
2. As you do the task, focus on what’s happening and why
you’re doing it the way your are.
3. After the task, get feedback on your performance from
multiple sources. Make changes in your behavior as
necessary.
4. Continually build mental models of your situation – your
industry, your company, your career. Enlarge the models to
encompass more factors.
5. Do these steps regularly, not sporadically. Occasional
practice does not work.
(from Tip Sheet: Perfect Practice (Colvin, 2006))
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9. Supporting deliberate practice
How much time? Aim for 10 min per hour?
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Stop to let students
think and discuss
Pose a question for
students to think
about and discuss
Give choices to
direct the students’
conversations
2-min
pause
2-min
pause Pro
peer
instruction

10. 2-minute pause
Every 15-20 minutes of your lecture, stop talking
and invite the students to take 2 minutes to:
 review their notes
 consult with neighbors to fill in missing points
 check with neighbors if anything is confusing
 formulate a question(s) that will clear up
confusion or fill in a gap
When conversations dies down (wait longer than
2 minutes, if necessary), lead a brief class-wide
discussion to answer questions, resolve confusion.
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11. Engineering Professor CAPEs
Quarter Enrollment Recommend
class
Recommend
instructor
SP10 25 91.7 % 58.3 %
SP11 47 89.5 % 73.7 %
FA11 123 91.7 % 56.3 %
SP13 105 94.6 % 83.8 %
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started using
2-minute pause

12. 2-minute pause (Pro version)
Provide a question in case they
 don’t have anything to talk about
 don’t know how to have an expert-like
conversion
 summarize material just covered
“What do you think would have happened if
they ran the experiment with adults instead of
children?”
 motivate upcoming material
“How do you think this will change when we
apply it in 3 dimensions instead of 2?”
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13. Typical episode of peer instruction
1. Instructor poses a conceptually-challenging
multiple-choice question.
2. Students think about question on their own
and vote using clickers,ABCD cards
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3. The instructor prompts
students,“Turn to your
neighbors and convince them
you’re right.”
4. After discussion, students
vote again.
5. Instructor leads a class-wide
discussion about why right
answer(s) is right and wrong
answers are wrong.
3. Instructor prompts students,
“Explain to your neighbor
why you made that choice.”
4. After discussion, instructor
leads a class-wide discussion
about each choice
Analytical skills
(typically one right answer)
Argumentation skills
(every choice can be defended)

14. Peer instruction with clickers
How many of these are characteristics of a
good peer instruction question?
 assesses if students understand content just
covered
 prepares students to engage with upcoming
content
 checks if students are prepared for class
 opportunity for expert-like thinking and talking
A) 2 of them B) 3 of them C) all of them
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15. In effective peer instruction
 students teach each other while
they may still hold or remember
their novice preconceptions
 students discuss the concepts
in their (novice) language
 each student finds out what s/he does(n’t)
know
 the instructor finds out what the students
(don’t) know and reacts, building on their initial
understanding and preconceptions.
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students learn
and practice
how to think,
communicate
like experts

16. Effective peer instruction requires
1. identifying key concepts, misconceptions
2. creating multiple-choice questions that
require deeper thinking and learning
3. facilitating peer instruction episodes that
spark and support student discussion
4. leading a class-wide discussion to clarify
the concept, resolve the misconception
5. reflecting on the question: note curious
things you overheard, how they voted, etc. so
next year’s peer instruction will be better
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before
class
during
class
after
class

17. t h e l e a r n i n g c y c l e
Peer instruction helps students learn...
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BEFORE DURING AFTER
setting up
instruction
developing
knowledge
assessing
learning
Adapted from Rosie Piller, Ian Beatty, Stephanie Chasteen

18. t h e l e a r n i n g c y c l e
Peer instruction helps students learn...
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BEFORE DURING AFTER
setting up
instruction
developing
knowledge
assessing
learning
Adapted from Rosie Piller, Ian Beatty, Stephanie Chasteen
The students have not
solved concept X.
But they’re know X exists
and why X is interesting.

19. t h e l e a r n i n g c y c l e
Peer instruction helps students learn...
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BEFORE DURING AFTER
setting up
instruction
developing
knowledge
assessing
learning
Adapted from Rosie Piller, Ian Beatty, Stephanie Chasteen
Students have had
opportunities to
try, fail, receive feedback and
try again without facing a
summative evaluation. [Bain]

20. t h e l e a r n i n g c y c l e
Peer instruction helps students learn...
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BEFORE DURING AFTER
setting up
instruction
developing
knowledge
assessing
learning
Adapted from Rosie Piller, Ian Beatty, Stephanie Chasteen

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What makes a good clicker question?
clarity Students waste no effort trying to figure out
what’s being asked.
context Is this topic currently being covered in class?
learning
outcome
Does the question make students do the right
things to demonstrate they grasp the concept?
distractors What do the “wrong” answers tell you about
students’ thinking?
difficulty Is the question too easy? too hard?
stimulates
thoughtful
discussion
Will the question engage the students and
spark thoughtful discussions? Are there
openings for you to continue the discussion?
(Adapted from Stephanie Chasteen, CU Boulder)

22. Sample Questions
Look through the collection of questions.
Some are good, some are not.
Try to identify at least one characteristic
(clarity, context,…) that makes each
question good (or not).
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 SamplePIQuestions

23. Peer instruction helps you teach
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BEFORE DURING AFTER
setting up
instruction
developing
knowledge
assessing
learning
t h e l e a r n i n g c y c l e

24. t h e l e a r n i n g c y c l e
Peer instruction helps you teach
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BEFORE DURING AFTER
setting up
instruction
developing
knowledge
assessing
learning
Do they care about this?
Are they ready for the next topic?
What DO they care about, anyway?
What do they already know?

25. t h e l e a r n i n g c y c l eDid they notice key idea X?
Where are they in the activity?
Peer instruction helps you teach
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BEFORE DURING AFTER
setting up
instruction
developing
knowledge
assessing
learning
Are they getting it?
Do I need to intervene?

26. t h e l e a r n i n g c y c l eHow did I do?
Did they get it?
Peer instruction helps you teach
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BEFORE DURING AFTER
setting up
instruction
developing
knowledge
assessing
learning
Can I move to the next topic?
Did that activity work?