Bill Robertson, Ph.D.
Teacher Education Department

Peer Led Team Learning Workshop

As part of the instruction in the First Semester General Chemistry class (CHEM 1305) at UTEP, Dr. James Becvar has reorganized the curriculum to incorporate Peer Led Team Learning (PTLT). The curriculum change now requires every student enrolling in one of the large lecture sections to co-enroll in a weekly two-hour Workshop section. Students attend 2 lecture sessions and a Workshop section weekly. The Workshop sections are composed of approximately 12 students commingled from the lecture sections. All instruction in the weekly Workshop section is coordinated by a Peer Leader, who uses cooperative, collaborative, team-based, active learning strategies to guide students through problem-solving and concept building exercises.

Since implementing this approach in the fall of 2000, the passing rate for first semester chemistry students has shown a significant increase from the mid-fiftieth percentile (historical average) to the mid seventeenth percentile. This translates to approximately 120 additional students progressing into their respective science, engineering and mathematics majors. The recent successes in passing rate in this course are attributable to the inclusion of the Workshop experience led by the Peer Leaders.

New knowledge builds on prior knowledge, and students should be guided towards synthesizing information in order to develop correct interpretations of content. The classroom environment should foster thinkers who ask questions, and look for their own answers. This inquiry-based approach also integrates research skills and applications. The goal is to develop intrinsically motivated critical thinkers, problem solvers who can take the knowledge they have gained and apply it to new and unrehearsed situations. The workshop format allows the Peer Leaders to focus on engaging the CHEM 1305 students in content by using appropriate methods of inquiry within the workshop activities.

The classroom experiences should provide opportunities for this type of growth. The Peer Leader takes the role of facilitator or guide in the delivery of curriculum, and each CHEM 1305 student encounters subject matter in explorations that emphasize problem-solving skills and real world connections. This approach demonstrates the way scientists work in the real world, but it also provides meaningful social interaction among students and the Peer Leader. Cooperative and collaborative learning encourages individuals to take responsibility for their own learning through structured dialogues, role and task assignments, and the sharing of information. It takes a facilitator to keep the group on-task and moving, but by using an inquiry-based approach and putting the responsibility back on the learner; the teacher can keep the learning directed towards the student.

The partnership between the College of Science and the College of Education would allow for a strengthening of pedagogical methods within the context of chemistry content for the Peer Leaders that would enhance their overall facilitation skills in the workshop setting. These pedagogical techniques would include Socratic questioning, cooperative grouping, constructivism, scaffolding and other instructional methods relevant to the content to be explored and explained from the lectures. The Peer Leaders would receive focused instruction in pedagogy while continuing to lead workshop demonstrations and experiments. The goals from this partnership are to strengthen the instructional abilities of the Peer leaders and to increase the conceptual understandings of content from the chemistry lectures for the CHEM 1305 students.
UTEP