Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast #053: Peer Instruction

Last week, I did something really cool: Bonni Stachowiak interviewed me about peer instruction for her Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. I was a bit nervous about talking on the phone, knowing I would be recorded, but Bonni is so knowledgeable and friendly, it turned into a great conversation between colleagues.

Visit Podcast #053 to listen to the podcast and read Bonni’s podcast notes full of resources.

How People Learn

Early in the interview, Bonni asked about one of my blog posts where I quote How People Learn about the characteristics of experts:

  1. experts have a deep foundation of factual knowledge
  2. experts understand those facts and concepts in a conceptual framework
  3. experts organize the knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application

Here’s how I picture that conceptual framework:

Novice
Novice

Expert
Expert

It’s not enough just to teach the factual knowledge: you also have to help students build the conceptual framework and give them practice retrieving and applying the facts and concepts:

Factual knowledge
Factual knowledge

Conceptual framework
Conceptual framework

Retrieval
Retrieval

As Bonni and I discussed in the rest of the interview, peer instruction is a powerful and versatile tool for giving your students opportunities to practice thinking like experts.

Great graphics, too

Bonni pulled out a bunch of quotations and turned them into great graphics. Here are a couple of my favorites. (Thanks, Bonni, for sharing these with me!)

(Graphic by Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed. Used with permission.)
(Graphic by Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed. Used with permission.)
(Graphic created by Bonni Stachowiak.
(Graphic by Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed. Used with permission.)
(Graphic by Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed. Used with permission.)
(Graphic by Bonni Stachowiak, Teaching in Higher Ed. Used with permission.)

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