Peer Instruction: A User's Manual

Source: Mazur E. (1997). Peer Instruction: A user manual. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

It’s about:
• Memorization versus understanding
• Recipe or problem-solving strategies; underlying concepts

Peer instruction
• Why lecture what you can read in the books
• Breaks the monotony passive lecturing
• Must think for them self
• Put thought into words
• Development of problem-solving-skills is left to homework assignment and discussion sections
• Provide immediate feedback

The Concept Test

What is
Short conceptual questions on the subject being discussed.

How to
Question posed 1 minute

Students given time to think 1 minute

Optional: student record individual answers

Peer instruction: Students convince their neighbors 1 -2 minutes

Optional: Students record revised answers

Plenary: Feedback to teacher. Tally answers (tellen)

Explanation answer

Lecture outline
Per key point
7-10 minutes Lecturing

5 - 8 minutes Concept test

No more: examples; derivations and definitions that are in the textbook.

Criteria for a good concept test

• Focus on a single concept

• Not to be solved by relying on equations
• Have adequate multiple-choice answers
• Be unambiguously worded
• Be neither too easy nor too difficult

Motivating students
Motivating students
1. It is very important to expectations from the students are in line with what will actually be
done in class.
2. Pre-course questionnaire
a. What do you hope to learn from this course?
b. What do you hope to do with this new knowledge?
c. What do you expect the lectures to do for you?
d. What do you expect the book to do for you?
e. How many hours do you think it will take to learn all you need to know from this course?
Include everything: lectures; homework, etc. ____ hours/week
3. Second (after 4 weeks) Questionnaire
a. What do you love about this class?
b. What do you hate about this class?
c. If you were teaching this class, what would you do?
d. If you could change one thing about this class, what would it be?
4. Important point: atmosphere of cooperation in the classroom.
5. Preclass reading
a. Schedule of reading assignment; and stick to that
i. Pre class reading
ii. Weekly discussion
iii. homework
b. Pre-class reading: -> Just-in-time teaching
i. Self-monitored reading quizzes (20 min before class + 5 minutes in class)
6. Examinations
a. Balance between computational and conceptual problems.

Preclass reading
http://perusall.com/

How to design a good reading assignment?

Best practices
1. Align the reading assignment with what you plan to discuss in class.
2. Omit everything that is not necessary.
3. Guide the reading with explicit prompts for the students of what to look for while reading.
4. Refer in class to things from the pre-reading – but do not re-teach them.
5. Be clear on why and how the pre-reading will be beneficial to the students.
Source: Cynthia Heiner and Georg Riege (September 2012) Preclass-Reading Assignments,
(http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca/resources/files/Pre-reading_guide_CWSEI.pdf)