Transforming Students into Masters: Unleashing the Power of Collective Peer Teaching

 

At the heart of an educational revolution at OsloMet, our student teachers have bravely stepped into the role of instructors on campus, and the results are challenging everything we thought we knew about effective learning. Over 160 students in the fall of 2023 took over a significant part of the lessons in pedagogy on campus. 

In the first half of their 9th semester, the students engaged in collective peer teaching, switching on being responsible for different lessons. This pedagogical practice appears to be an exceptionally powerful engine for learning. Simply put, it involves allocating more time for the students themselves to lead the teaching. Consequently, the formal teacher will lecture less.

Peer teaching differs from all other learning journeys in that all students take turns being captains of their part of the journey. The initial thought might be that this is a journey that will never reach its destination. However, it's quite the opposite; students become more satisfied with the journey and also discover new, unknown territories.

The most striking result from the student evaluation this semester is that 62% of the students experienced that student-led teaching was better than traditional seminar teaching led by a teacher educator. 23% were unsure, while only 16% felt the teaching by the teacher educator was better. In student-led teaching, a clear majority (64% scored 4 or 5) reported a high learning outcome.

This result challenges our conventional notions of learning but also sheds light on the greatest underrated learning resource in the classroom: the students themselves. On the surface, it might seem contradictory that students, who are themselves in a learning process, can offer better teaching than experienced teachers.

However, this phenomenon is not a case of pedagogical magic but rather the result of three powerful learning mechanisms that I explore in my recently published book, Effective Use of Collective Peer Teaching in Teacher Education Maximizing Student Learning.

• Learning Position I: "Learning by Teaching" - This role transforms students into teachers, requires a deeper academic understanding and engagement, the use of advanced learning strategies, and strengthens teaching abilities.

• Learning Position II: "Participating in student-led teaching" - Here, students often find the teaching more relevant and engaging, with language and a relationship that is more accessible and symmetrical.

 

• Learning Position III: "Collective Learning Processes in the Classroom" - This position leverages the added values of group diversity, observational learning, and collective knowledge development. The premise is that everyone contributes and learns from each other by taking turns in being responsible for lessons.

 

These three learning positions create a unique classroom interaction that can explain the surprisingly high learning outcomes reported by the students.

The Future of Peer Teaching: A New Pedagogical Era?

Further documentation and research around the learning effects of collective peer teaching are needed, but I have no doubt that this will become a much more important pedagogical practice in the future. In teacher education, this appears to be a "no-brainer" because students also gain valuable and necessary teaching training on campus. However, I believe that this pedagogical work form is highly relevant to use in other professional educations and in primary schools.

In a time when democracy in the world is threatened, it's more important than ever that teachers and students together contribute to creating a more dynamic and engaging learning. Or as Paulo Freire expresses it:

"Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers. The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow" (Freire, 2005, p. 80).

However, everyone knows that it is extremely difficult to change historically established practices both in teacher education and in schools. It is far from easy to compete with the seemingly supreme efficiency of lectures. Nevertheless, collective peer teaching challenge us to rethink our roles about what it means to be both a teacher and student, and not least our understanding of what deep learning entails. 

Kilder

- Baltzersen, R. K. (2024). Effective Use of Collective Peer Teaching in Teacher Education: Maximizing Student Learning. New York: Routledge (Open Access)

- Baltzersen, Rolf K (2024). Studentevalueringsrapport for 9.semester ved OsloMet (høsten 2023). (Ikke publisert).

- Baltzersen, Rolf K. (2024) Hverandreundervisning. Pressbooks. https://pressbooks.pub/laerersamarbeid/chapter/hverandreundervisning/

- Baltzersen, Rolf K. (2024) Design av hverandreundervisning. Pressbooks.
https://pressbooks.pub/laerersamarbeid/chapter/design-av-hverandreundervisning/

- Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.https://envs.ucsc.edu/internships/internship-readings/freire-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed.pdf