Teaching most commonly involves the teacher taking centre stage in the classroom but there are other forms of instruction that educators and academic researchers have found to be effective.
One that makes use of the most plentiful resource in your classroom - your students - is peer learning.
What is peer learning?
Peer learning is a catch-all term for various forms of instruction that involve students working collaboratively in pairs or small groups. They could be discussing different concepts or problem-solving together, for example.
The concept has its roots in the work of Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934), who, in his book Thought and Language, showed that students learn better through collaborative, problem-solving activities rather than working alone.
Examples of peer learning vary enormously, from the classic think-pair-share exercise to students working on a written assignment together.
Other examples might be peer review (where students evaluate each other’s work), peer tutoring or jigsaw-type exercises where different groups learn about aspects of a topic, with the results then shared to the class.
How can peer learning help students to revise?
Students could team up with a study buddy and compare notes on different topics, presenting topics to each other and asking questions. To stop the revision session from descending into chat or becoming too vague or wide-ranging, it’s important to have a firm goal in terms of the topics to be tackled or memorised.
In class, students could answer practice exam questions and take feedback from peers, with a teacher on hand to settle any debates.
Students can also test each other using flashcards or come up with mnemonics together.
What does the research say?
There is a good amount of research evidence that peer learning can be effective.
For example, the Education Endowment Foundation highlights that relatively structured approaches - such as peer tutoring schemes where students gave each other explicit teaching support - had a positive impact on both tutor and tutee.
The EEF’s analysis shows an average positive effect equivalent to approximately five additional months’ progress within one academic year. It also stresses the importance of training for staff and student tutors.
The technique, it explains, is most useful for consolidating learning rather than learning new material.
For less structured peer learning, a 2020 meta-analysis found that peer interaction is associated with several beneficial learning outcomes across a range of skills and concepts, such as puzzle completion, route planning, mathematics and verbal memory.
But it also highlights that results were very much dependent on context. For example, older students may have a tendency towards “social loafing” (also known as slacking off during group exercises).
Tips and tools for success
There are many reasons why teachers may be wary of using forms of peer learning, including students’ hesitancy or inexperience, misbehaviour or the tendency of older students to doze off in a group situation.
Commentators on social media have claimed that group work is a waste of time in some schools for these and other reasons.
But the body of evidence suggests it’s worth having it in your teaching arsenal. If students are given an appropriate amount of structure and support - with a teacher on hand to see when things are going wrong - it has proven benefits.
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