1. A concept question is asked

2. Students think individually for a couple of minutes

3. Students vote on the question

4. The result of the vote is shown as a histogram

5. Students are asked to convince their neighbor of their answer (“peer instruction”)

6. Students vote again on the same question

7. The result of the second vote is shown as a histogram

8. Lecturer explains correct response and why the distractors were incorrect

1. A concept question is asked

2. Students discuss the question for a couple of minutes in small groups

3. Students vote (individually or as a group)

4. The result of the vote is shown as a histogram

5. Students discuss their answers with the whole class, lecturer facilitates the discussion

6. Lecturer explains correct response and why the distractors were incorrect

So the difference here is that in the Mazur sequence, students get the chance to think and vote individually before entering the peer-instruction phase, whereas in the PERG sequence, students first discuss and then discuss in an even bigger group (which is, in my experience, basically what happens when you don’t explicitly ask students to think for them selves first in the Mazur sequence).

In the paper “Peer Instruction vs Class-wide Discussion in Large Classes:  A comparison of two interaction methods in the wired classroom,” by Nichol and Boyle (2003), the two models are compared.

Firstly, for both models students report that the clickers helped them learn compared to a conventional lecture, because they were more actively involved, felt motivated by receiving the immediate feedback, and felt that the instructor adapted instruction to meet their learning needs.

Secondly, in both cases students liked peer instruction, for many of the reasons we use it: They felt like they were convinced by the best arguments in the discussion, thus practicing putting forward strong arguments as well as learning the “actual content” of the course. They also mention how scaffolding, i.e. learning something from someone who only just learned it themselves is easier than learning from an expert, helps, because it is more accessible both in language and in explanation itself.

But do the different sequences make a difference? Rhetorical question, of course they do!

Almost all students preferred starting with individual thinking and voting rather than with peer discussion. They state that the individual vote forced them to think for themselves, whereas in an initial peer discussion they might slide into a passive role and unthinkingly accept answers from others.

As for class-wide discussions, while some students liked hearing both correct and incorrect responses from outside their own peer group, and some also liked the pressure that comes with knowing that you might be called upon to answer a questions as a motivator for staying focussed in class, there are drawbacks to it, too. For example, it takes a lot of time, it is easy to drift away from the question and it can easily become confusing, in addition to threatening. Benefit of class-wide discussion is seen mostly in cases where the class was clearly divided between two answer choices.

So based on this study, we should definitely make sure to have students vote individually before peer discussion, and this means enforcing silence in the classroom while the students think about what to vote.

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