Slides about Research on Peer
Instruction
Dr. Stephanie V. Chasteen
Physics Department & Science Ed. Initiative
University of Colorado – Boulder
http://STEMclickers.colorado.edu
Stephanie.Chasteen@colorado.edu
Co-presenters have included Steven Pollock, Jenny Knight,
Trish Loeblein, and Kathy Perkins.
Creative Commons – Attribution. Please attribute Stephanie Chasteen / Scince Education Initiative/ CU-Boulder
This presentation is copyrighted under the Creative Commons
License
Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike
That means: Please watch it, share it, and use it in your
presentations. Just give us credit, don’t make money from it, and use
the same kind of license on the works that you create from it.
More information about Creative Commons licenses here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Credit should be given to: Stephanie Chasteen and the Science
Education Initiative at the University of Colorado,
http://colorado.edu/sei

About these slides
We have created a variety of
workshops on clickers and
Peer Instruction for faculty
and K12 teachers. These
slides represent the
presentations and activities
that we have produced
through this work. You are
free to use this material with
proper attribution (see
previous slide).
 Not all slides or activities
were used in every
workshop.
 Activities are designated
with a peach background to
the slide
 You can find the full
handouts and activity
descriptions under
Workshop Materials at
http://STEMclickers.colora
do.edu
Overview
These meta-slides provide a little bit of
information for you about our presenter and
what we are trying to do with our professional
development workshops.
Creative Commons – Attribution. Please attribute Stephanie Chasteen / Science Education Initiative/ CU-Boulder
Introducing Me
5
Science Education Initiative
http://colorado.edu/SEI
Applying scientific principles to improve science education –
What are students learning, and which instructional approaches
improve learning?
Physics Education Research Group
http://PER.colorado.edu
One of largest PER groups in nation, studying technology,
attitudes, classroom practice, & institutional change.
Blogger & Consultant
http://sciencegeekgirl.com
Creative Commons – Attribution. Please attribute Stephanie Chasteen / Science Education Initiative/ CU-Boulder
U. Colorado clicker resources…
6
http://STEMvideos.colorado.edu
Videos of
effective use of
clickers
2-5 mins long
Clicker
http://STEMclickers.colorado.edu
resource page
• Instructor’s Guide
• Question banks
• Workshops
• Literature / Articles
Creative Commons – Attribution. Please attribute Stephanie Chasteen / Science Education Initiative/ CU-Boulder
“Clickers” are really just a focal point
7
We aim to help instructors:
 Use student-centered, interactive teaching techniques
 By the use of a tool (clickers) which makes a transition to
that pedagogy easier
Our talks are “how people learn”
talks in disguise. 
Bransford, Brown, Cocking (1999), How People Learn
Creative Commons – Attribution. Please attribute Stephanie Chasteen / Science Education Initiative/ CU-Boulder
The typical pattern of professional
development for faculty…
8




(we) Tell them how to do it
(they) Try it
(they) Fail or fade
(we) Repeat (louder!)
In physics, half of faculty only use Peer Instruction for a single semester
What’s missing?
 We need to help faculty anticipate challenges and difficulties with
implementing peer instruction. Lose the rose-colored glasses!
 We also need to provide less prescriptive “do this, don’t do that”
recommendations, which are hard to remember, and instead provide a
pedagogical strategy which will naturally lead to those “best practices”
These workshop materials are intended to help overcome some of the challenges
to sustainable improvements in teaching, as based on the research on
instructional change.
Creative Commons – Attribution. Please attribute Stephanie Chasteen / Science Education Initiative/ CU-Boulder
How we try to accomplish goals:
9
 Give a clear introduction to peer instruction. What does it






really look like?
Give experience in peer instruction. How does it feel as a
student? As an instructor?
Provide disciplinary experience. Give examples from
multiple disciplines; have instructors sit next to others who
teach in their subject area
Why does it work? The research.
Respect their experience. Answer their questions/challenges,
rather than being gung-ho salesman.
Provide opportunity for practice and feedback. Especially in
writing questions and facilitation.
Practice what we preach. Do all this in a student-centered,
interactive environment. Don’t lecture about how not to lecture.
Creative Commons – Attribution. Please attribute Stephanie Chasteen / Science Education Initiative/ CU-Boulder
Research about peer
instruction
Following are a variety of slides highlighting key findings
regarding the effectiveness of clickers. We like to highlight
the research to show that we’re not “selling snake oil,” but
at the same time we find that too much time on the research
can be dull. Previous studies have found that instructors
aren’t *convinced* to use a new technique based on
r e s e a r c h : r a t h e r, t h e y a r e c o n v i n c e d b e c a u s e a t e c h n i q u e
seems like good teaching, or a colleague persuades them,
and then they use the research to *justify* what they have
chosen to do. Thus, it is good to show that there is
research to back up the technique but not spend too much
time on it. Links to key studies are at
http://stemclickers.Colorado.Edu.
Creative Commons – Attribution. Please attribute Stephanie Chasteen / Science Education Initiative/ CU-Boulder
Peer instruction helps students learn
12
Research shows that:
 Students can better answer a similar question after
talking to their peers
 Peer discussion + instructor explanation of question
works better than either one alone
 Students like peer instruction
 Peer instruction classes outperform traditional
lectures on a common test
See http://STEMclickers.colorado.edu for various references
Clicker Question
Honestly, I think that I’m most likely to modify this
technique of peer instruction to suit me and my
students. I know that there are at least ___ parts of
the technique that I’ll be changing:
A. None
B. One
C. Two-three
D. Four or more
Is there a problem with modifications?
I won’t tell you how to teach. You’re smart & you care
about instruction.
Be strategic about modifications. Know the research.
Some research on modifications
15
 63.5% of faculty (in physics) say they are familiar
with Peer Instruction
 30% report that they use Peer Instruction
 50% of those use Peer Instruction in the way
described by developers
 Often dropped are:



Is this a problem?
Probably.
Student discussion
Use of conceptual questions
Whole-class voting
Dancy & Henderson, Pedagogical practices and instructional change of faculty, Am. J. Phys., 78(10), Oct
2010.Web survey of 722 physics faculty at various institutions, initial sample of 2000.
Talking brings convergence
16
 Eric Mazur -
Harvard U.
Before discussion
Why do you think this happens?
After discussion
A
B
C
(A) StudentsA are getting
answers
from the ‘smart’ kids
(B) They’re learning from their discussions
(C) They just needed more time to think about it
B
C
Mazur, 1997
The hypothesis: If students learn from peer
discussion, they should show better performance
on a similar question. Ask a second, similar
question without any instructor input: Q2
Undergrad introductory genetics course. 16 Q1/Q2
pairs.
Research by Michelle
Smith, Bill Wood, Wendy
Adams, Carl Wieman,
Jenny Knight, Nancy
Guild, Tin Tin Su, MCDB.
Smith et al., Science. 2009, 323(5910):122.
Are they learning from peers?
100
100
1) Students answer
Q1 individually.
90
8080
70
2)
Students talk to
neighbors and
answer Q1 again
(Q1AD = Q1“After
Discussion”).
3)
Percent
Percent
6060
Q
Q
Q
50
4040
30
2020
10
00
Q1
Q1
Individual
Q1AD Q1a
After
Discussion
Q2
Q2
Individual
Students answer Q2
individually . Q2 tests
same concept as Q1.
Then explain answers to Q1 and Q2
n= 350 students
Smith et al., Science. 2009, 323(5910):122.
Can students answer difficult questions correctly after
discussion?
100100
Q1
90 90
Q1after discussion
Q2
70 70
60 60
50 50
Percent
Percent correct
80 80
40 40
30 30
20 20
10 10
0 0
Easy Easy
(5 questions)
Medium
Medium
(7 questions)
Smith et al., Science. 2009, 323(5910):122.
Hard
Difficult
(4 questions)
Very few students
knew correct
answer to Q1, but
after discussion,
many more
answer correctly:
students are
constructing their
own knowledge