Through the Looking CLASS: When Peer Leader Learning Attitudes Are Not What They Seem

Abstract

The Teaching Internship is a credit-bearing program composed of undergraduate near peer instructors (teaching interns, or TIs) that offers supplemental assistance for students in the General Chemistry courses. With fellow undergraduates serving as a role model and student–faculty liaison, the benefits of near peer instruction have been well-documented. Because TIs develop a dual role of student and instructor over time, they afford a unique opportunity to explore the middle area of the expert/novice spectrum. Identifying the most influential components of the TI role may allow practitioners to implement these components in other ways for different groups of students. The present work provides a description of the TI model and uses a mixed-methods approach to analyze how the peer leadership role impacted the TIs’ attitudes about learning chemistry. Quantitative results show that TIs do hold predominantly expert-like learning attitudes compared to the General Chemistry population from which they are selected; however, evidence of novice thinking is still observed in some areas. This survey data was then used to inform a qualitative approach. Further analysis indicated that TIs’ responses on survey items were context-dependent, and that peer leadership experiences were associated with expert learning attitudes and appear to be influential in the development of these attitudes. These findings suggest that these factors should be taken into account when drawing general conclusions from survey results.

Inquiry-Based Activities and Games That Engage Students in Learning Atomic Orbitals

“…The Activity under discussion focuses on the communication phase. In the Activity, students are preassigned to study groups of three to four members and are instructed to present results to, and discuss questions with group members, teaching interims and instructors throughout the data collection and conclusion drawing procedures. Thus, communication occurs synchronously with the investigation and conclusion phase.…”

“…However, most scaffoldings, especially teacher facilitation, are available throughout the whole inquiry cycle. Teacher facilitation includes facilitation provided by both instructors and teaching interims in the actual implementation.…”

“…Students make use of Orbital Explorer as a visualization tool to explore atomic orbitals and as a virtual laboratory for data collection. Teacher facilitation, dialogic for this Activity, is guidance such as reminders, hints, or explanations provided by instructors and teaching interims who constantly monitor the activity progress. Peer discussion is a feature of collaborative learning and is important for knowledge construction. , In past implementation, students worked in teams on the activity in face-to-face instruction and worked individually on the worksheet first and then discussed in online conference rooms in remote instruction.…”

Beneath the Surface: An Investigation of General Chemistry Students’ Study Skills to Predict Course Outcomes

“…47−50 However, in the case of third-party videos that students seek independently, instructors and peer leaders should take time to educate (and remind) students of how to properly use these videos and monitor their understanding, emphasizing the pitfalls of passive learning or false confidence. 51…”

“…Finally, one notable finding was that, for at-risk, unsuccessful students, a higher frequency of studying via online videos is reported. There is no dearth of best practices literature on the use of videos education, such as the use of guiding questions or interspersed polling. − However, in the case of third-party videos that students seek independently, instructors and peer leaders should take time to educate (and remind) students of how to properly use these videos and monitor their understanding, emphasizing the pitfalls of passive learning or false confidence …”