Proving the Benefits of Peer Instruction

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Another article that's on my mind as I consider how to integrate group work into an unusually large literature class.
In an undergraduate genetics course, students were, on 16 occasions during the course of a semester, asked a pair of "isomorphic" questions, which have different facts but require students to apply the same principles or concepts. Instructors asked students one of the questions, had them "click" their answers, discuss the question with their neighbors, and then revote. Then, they were asked to answer the second question individually, via the clickers. A significantly higher percentage of students answered the second question correctly than did so on either the original question or the first question when it was asked a second time (without revealing the results from the first query). -- Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed

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