Teaching Tips

Tackling Concerns About Peer Learning

Today, I’m talking about social constructivism and Peer Learning. I’ll discuss some of the problems of collaborative learning practices and offer some solutions. I’ll help you decide whether Peer Learning is appropriate for your classroom and your specific students and give you some advice about effective implementation.

*Warning! This a loooong post. You might want to bookmark it! 🙂

As an ESL teacher faced with huge class sizes (50+ was not unusual), peer learning massively appealed to me when I first heard about it. I wove it into my teaching and I felt like it was helping. However, I’m always aware of the trap of being satisfied with the appearance of learning – that is, lessons that seem to run smoothly. It’s easy to see students on-task, quietly communicating with one another, and producing work and assume that everything was great, especially if you’ve managed to follow your lesson plan. It doesn’t necessarily mean students have really learned anything. Likewise, putting students into small groups or pairs and asking them to collaborate doesn’t guarantee effective learning.

With these concerns in mind, when I began studying for a PGCE-i (an English teaching qualification), I decided to use my research projects to learn more about Peer Learning and investigate how I could use it, and, indeed, whether I should. I read so, so many academic papers… which were interesting, but I’d rather not have to read most of them again! Here are some of the issues with Peer Learning that I encountered and some suggestions about how you might tackle them.

Identifying the ADL and ZPD is (really) difficult

The main idea of Peer Learning is that, with peer support, students can work beyond their Actual Development Level (ADL) within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The work you assign students (or they choose for themselves) therefore needs to be slightly above their ADL. It’s essential to identify each students’ ADL and make an assessment of their ZPD so you can plan accordingly. This raises a number of issues:

First, effective measurement of student ability is difficult, time-consuming, and can be affected by the assessor’s skill and beliefs about the student. It may even be impossible. There is also little advice on how large the ZPD should be, although Beasley and Shayer suggested that it extends approximately two mental years beyond ADL. In addition, ADL and ZPD will be different for all students. They will also change and need regular reassessment.

Second, it will take time to design appropriate, personalised tasks and materials. Where such individualization is absent, it is doubtful that Peer Learning activates multiple students’ ZPDs equally.

Third, students are unlikely to be able to identify ADL and ZPD themselves and may struggle to choose level-appropriate work if given the opportunity. As they study together, they may be unable to assess where their partners need help or when that help needs to be removed. After all, they’re not teachers and few are likely to be subject experts.

What Can I Do?

  • Take responsibility for ADL and ZPD assessment. Don’t leave it to students. Don’t assume that they will naturally work within the ZPD.
  • Choose whether you will measure formally or informally.
    • If using formal assessments, like tests:
      • Do you trust them to truly identify student ability?
    • If informal:
      • What method will you use?
      • How will you guarantee your own objectivity?
      • Will you need a rubric?
    • For both:
      • Do you have time for marking and recording the results?
      • Can you justify the class time needed for assessments?
      • When will you reassess?
  • Consider how far beyond the ADL you want your students to work.
  • Plan individualised work based on your assessments, e.g.:
    • Open tasks that allow the students to work at different levels e.g. Essay questions, free writing, conversation.
    • Differentiated materials, such as worksheets for different difficulty levels.
    • Tasks that can be completed in multiple ways.
    • Group work that requires different skills and ability-levels from different students.

Peer Learning requires greater engagement and input from the student and skills they may not possess

Not all students have the knowledge, skills, or motivation to support fellow students. They are not necessarily subject experts and may provide imperfect modeling, negotiation, feedback, and peer support. In addition, students often fail at meta-cognition – they may be unaware of their own imperfect knowledge (Topping), be unable to identify mistakes, and be less effective than a teacher at supporting one another. Also, attention to accuracy may be lower in Peer Learning than with more explicit teacher-support (Philp et al.). Finally, students may go off-task or simply not cooperate, sitting adjacently but working as individuals.

What can I do?

  • Don’t assume that students instinctively know how to learn collaboratively.
  • Prepare the students for peer learning:
    • Explain how you want them to study and why.
    • Frequently identify, promote, and celebrate collaborative skills.
    • Run activities that develop collaborative skills, such as those featured in my previous post about Peer Learning. These don’t need to have an academic goal.
  • Ask students to assess their own contribution to Peer Learning sessions with self-assessments or group plenaries.
  • Observe and support Peer Learning sessions. Although collaborative learning can be great, freeing you up for other tasks, PL is not time off for the teacher – you should be watching and helping, and identifying where collaborative learning is failing.

Peer Learning may be unsuitable for certain learning goals.

A study (Williams) found that language negotiation in Peer Learning was predominantly lexical, with little morphosyntactic negotiation displayed. Now, that might be gibberish to you, but the takeaway is that teachers should consider whether PL will help achieve specific goals. It’s not a blanket methodology that will be effective for every topic.

What Can I Do?

  • Consider Peer Learning as one of a range of learning situations at your disposal.
  • Don’t be afraid to return to teacher-led instruction, individual study, or larger group situations.
  • Look for research on whether PL might work for a particular goal, topic, or task. Ask colleagues and others within your professional community for their experiences using PL for what you are planning.
  • Observe PL sessions carefully and monitor students’ progress. Did they achieve the goals? Try to identify trends from multiple sessions – are there specific activities or topics that seem to work best?

Peer Learning Opportunities may be Unequal

Absolute equality of learning opportunities is an impossible goal. There are so many factors that affect learning equality, and many of them cannot be controlled. However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive to make learning more equal. Research of PL has shown that:

  • Group composition and size may affect the likelihood of interaction (Webb & Cullian) and student achievement (Lou et al.).
  • There can be significant variations in learning opportunities in different types of pairs, with passive-passive and dominant-passive constructions least effective (Zheng; Storch).
  • Peer Tutoring may not support or benefit students in the ‘tutor’ role.
  • It can be low in two-way interaction (Parr & Townsend).
  • Grouping via ability is problematic:
    •  Heterogeneous-ability groups are most effective for lower-ability students and least effective for middle-ability students. Higher- and lower-ability students may form informal novice/expert relationships. This is detrimental to middle-ability students, who are excluded and less likely to receive peer-support or participate  (Lou et al.).
    • Heterogeneous-ability groups may undermine the improvement of higher-ability students (Lou et al.,).
    • Homogeneous-ability groups may be most effective for middle-ability groups and least effective for lower-ability groups (Lou et al.).
    • Students in lower ability groups may have limited access to more knowledgeable peers (Webb & Cullian; Olsen & Kagan cited in Oxford & Dean), undermining learning opportunities beyond ADL (Huong).
    • Negative behavioural and attitude norms are also more likely in lower-ability groups, undermining the effectiveness of the group (Parr & Townsend; Wilkinson & Fung).

What Can I Do?

  • Take responsibility for Peer Learning grouping. If you allow students to choose groups, they’ll almost certainly choose their friends. This is often good for group harmony but may not result in collaborative learning.
  • Set specific goals for PL sessions and consider what personalities and skills will be needed. Select group members accordingly. I try to include students that bring different skills that can support the other group members, e.g. a high-achiever, a good speaker, someone who likes to help, someone who’ll work hard.
  • Monitor the progress of different types of students – are the high-ability students making equivalent progress to the lower-ability students?
  • Monitor and change the groupings fairly frequently. Often personal relationships between students will have a significant effect on learning success. You need to spot groups that aren’t working and support or change them.
  • Use homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping carefully. For example, you might sometimes use homogeneous grouping to:
    • Allow high-ability students to work together or independently on more challenging tasks.
    • Ensure that middle-ability students can support one another and are not cut-out by higher and lower students pairing up.
    • Spend more time with the lower-ability groups, giving them additional support.

Stigmatisation

In Peer Learning, there are two main risks:

  • Homogeneous-ability grouping may create stigma for lower ability groups.
  • The students being supported (usually the lower ability students) may feel stigmatised, undermining their motivation and expectation of success. This is particularly true in paired work/peer tutoring.

What Can I Do?

  • Don’t use terms such as ‘high-ability’, ‘teacher’, ‘student’, ‘helper, or ‘learner’ to refer to groups or students. You might use these terms privately when planning groupings, but it’s better to use more neutral terms like ‘student A’ or ‘team panda’.
  • Allow students to choose group names.
  • Try activities in which peer support seems authentic. For example, I use a crime reporting Peer Learning activity in which the ‘police officer’ is really a higher ability student and the ‘victims’ are lower ability students. The police officers naturally prompt the victims in the initial interview and help the victims write and edit their statements.
  • Promote a classroom ideology in which students of all abilities know that they are valued:
    • Praise the efforts made by all students.
    • Celebrate non-academic achievements and positive behaviours.
    • Reduce the emphasis on the importance of grades.
    • Celebrate progress-over-time. I’ve had lower ability students disappointed with narrowly missing a passing grade in a test until I showed them how much they had improved since the previous test. Show them the upward trend.

Pedagogical / Ideological Conflict

Prevailing school ideologies can affect the success and suitability of Peer Learning. Stroet, Opdenakker & Minnaert found that motivation to learn is lower in schools with combined educational philosophies. Students may find it difficult when the Peer Learning conflicts with the teaching practices already established in their school.  McDonough discovered that, despite the clear learning benefits demonstrated by students engaging in Peer Learning, they found it unhelpful and preferred teacher-led instruction.

Peer Learning, which challenges student-teacher hierarchies and focuses on equality of learning opportunities, may also conflict with certain social ideologies. If a society is strongly hierarchical and teachers are ranked much higher than students, students may struggle to assume the role of a more knowledgeable peer. If society values any groups unequally, such as women, specific ethnic groups, or certain language-speakers, this can undermine Peer Learning as the status of students affects their communication with each other and their learning opportunities (Kayi-Aydar). Wilkinson & Fung, for example, found that group work is least effective for girls in mixed-sex groups, with their requests for support ignored or rejected by both sexes.

What Can I Do?

  • Sell Peer Learning to the students – explain how it can help them.
  • Discuss and emphasise the importance of students taking responsibility for learning. Many students still believe education is a transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. Challenge this assumption and encourage active learning.
  • Introduce PL gradually, providing greater support in the early stages.
  • Promote equal opportunities and challenge discriminatory behaviour in the classroom.
  • Monitor which groups of students are participating and benefiting most.
  • Identify any groups being discriminated against and support them.

Peer Learning May Conflict with Students’ Goals

I taught English in Thailand, where achievement is measured (almost exclusively) by high-stakes written exams. These did little to investigate communicative ability or deep understanding. Many of my students prioritised exam success and the skills required to pass them. In this context, I had to question my responsibility: was it fair to the students to focus on their emotional and social development if this might undermine their ability to pass written exams? Did my goals as a teacher, my commitment to certain teaching practices, my disbelief in the value of their exams, contradict my students’ goals? I hope peer learning helped students in many areas, including exam prowess, but it’s important to consider the potential for this conflict when selecting learning techniques.

What Can I Do?

  • Talk to your students! Challenge them to set honest learning goals – if they just want to pass an exam, that’s OK, and they need to know it’s OK to say so. Also, don’t just swallow ‘fluffy’ answers. Lots of students will give a teacher the answer they think you want to hear. Your aim should be to identify what they really want.
  • Ask students which activities/ learning situations they enjoy and which they think will help them achieve their goals. Discuss their opinions and provide your own – be prepared to defend practices if you believe in them. Students have a lot of experience of education and they should have a voice but, remember, they’re not teachers.
  • Plan learning activities that support their goals. If this includes a few sessions of written exam practice, that’s OK.

Well done if you made it all the way to the end! It ended up being longer than I had intended, but I hope you found it helpful. If you have had experiences with Peer Learning, tell me what you learned in the comments or on twitter.

…and if you want more ideas about Peer Learning, check out this post about Successful Peer Learning and Pop Star Interview Activity or this Peer Learning Tips (Infographic).

 

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