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When Talking Is Better Than Staying Quiet
written by Nathaniel Lasry, Elizabeth Charles, Chris Whittaker, and Michael Lautman
The effectiveness of Peer Instruction is often associated to the importance of in-class discussions between peers. Typically, a greater number of students have correct answers after peer discussions. However, other cognitive and metacognitive processes such as reflection or time-on-task may also explain this increase because students answering conceptual questions reflect more and spend more time thinking about their understanding. An identical sequence of conceptual questions was given to three groups of students. All groups were polled twice on each question. Between polls, students were asked either to discuss their choice with a peer, or to reflect for a minute (no discussion), or were given a distraction task (sequence of cartoons: no discussion and no reflection). Increases in the rates of correct answers between the first and the second poll were found across all conditions. The 'Distract' condition had a small but positive increase (3.4%). The 'Reflect' condition had a greater increase (9.7%) while the 'Discuss' condition had the greatest (21.0%). All conditions showed gains, possibly because of 'testing effects', though peer-discussions clearly yield greatest increases. Our findings show that learning gains through peer discussions cannot be explained only by additional time on-task or self-reflection.
Physics Education Research Conference 2009
Part of the PER Conference series
Ann Arbor, Michigan: July 29-30, 2009
Volume 1179, Pages 181-184
Subjects Levels Resource Types
Education - Applied Research
- Active Learning
= Peer Instruction
Education - Basic Research
- Cognition
- Lower Undergraduate
- Graduate/Professional
- Reference Material
= Research study
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Formats:
application/pdf
non-digital
Mirror:
https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3266709
Access Rights:
Free access and
Available for purchase
A preprint of the work is available. A hard copy of the PERC 2009 proceedings is also available.
Restriction:
© 2009 American Institute of Physics
DOI:
10.1063/1.3266709
PACSs:
01.40.Fk
01.40.gb
01.30.Cc
Keywords:
PERC 2009, Peer Instruction, discussion, distraction, metacognitive processes, peer instruction, poll, reflection, reflection
Record Cloner:
Metadata instance created October 7, 2009 by Alea Smith
Record Updated:
March 11, 2010 by Lyle Barbato
Last Update
when Cataloged:
November 11, 2009
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