Assessing Peer Leader Skill Acquisition and Group Dynamics in a First-Year Calculus Course

Peer-led team learning (PLTL), specifically the model known as 'Workshops', has been shown to contribute positively and significantly to student success in STEM courses across subjects (Gosser et al., 2001). Our research adds to the SOTL literature describing the effectiveness of Workshops...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInternational journal for the scholarship of teaching and learning Vol. 12; no. 1
Main Authors Glover, Rebecca, Hammond, Nicholas, Smith, Justin, Guerra, Dalyana
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Centers for Teaching & Technology at Georgia Southern University 2018
Georgia Southern University
Subjects
Assessment
Calculus
College Mathematics
College Students
Content Analysis
Cooperative Learning
Group Activities
Interaction
Journal Writing
leader development
Online Surveys
Peer Teaching
PLTL
Problem Solving
Program Effectiveness
Skill Development
Student Leadership
Student Surveys
Teamwork
Workshops
Rhode Island
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Summary:Peer-led team learning (PLTL), specifically the model known as 'Workshops', has been shown to contribute positively and significantly to student success in STEM courses across subjects (Gosser et al., 2001). Our research adds to the SOTL literature describing the effectiveness of Workshops by reporting on the changes in student leaders. We examine the level to which leaders acquired new skills in effective teaching and describe the pedagogical interactions in the groups they led as a result of the combination of training and experience facilitating first-year Calculus Workshop sections. This was a semester-long study on twenty-two Workshop leaders for two multi-section, introductory calculus courses at a small research university. Our method is a novel overlay of two metrics that allows, with some forethought, a robust analysis of Workshop leader outcomes that would complement any assessment of PLTL implementation faculty might choose to undertake.
ISSN:1931-4744
1931-4744
DOI:10.20429/ijsotl.2018.120110