Massive online classrooms bring together students from around the world in one connected classroom. Is it possible to teach the millions of students in an online class as well as the students in a traditional, physical classroom? Is it possible to teach them better?
We think this is possible, and that the key to this answer lies in the network of peers in these courses. Over the past three years, we have created both pedagogical styles and software systems that embed them to leverage this network of peers
Software Free and cloud-based; requires no installation
To date, tens of thousands of students have used our research systems in over 50 physical and digital classes.
- Talkabout connects students in massive classes through scaffolded live video discussions. Talkabout discussions are incredibly diverse, most six-person discussions have students participating from five countries. Diverse discussions encourage reflection through self-reference and comparison of perspectives. To date ten massive classes and 3000+ students who have used talkabout.
- PeerStudio provides students qualitative feedback on open-ended work. It also enables instructors to incorporate peer-supported learning with little setup. It can be used both in massive classes, and in-person ones, and has been used in multiple classes at UC San Diego.
Our vision
Google[x] invited us to give a moonshot talk; here's the 'landing'
Resources open source, and adapted widely
- Peer and self assessment: how and why
- Lecture Videos 100k+ students have watched these on the online class, and they've been used at many universities.
- Rubrics We revise assessment rubrics in a data-driven manner after every iteration of the HCI online class. Here's the last iteration.
- Community Site for HCI Instructors Swap insights and battle stories
Publications
-
Framing Feedback: Choosing Review Environment Features that Support High Quality Peer Assessment
-
$1 Conversational Turn Detector: Measuring How Video Conversations Affect Student Learning in Online Classes
-
Supporting Peer Instruction with Evidence-Based Online Instructional Templates
-
Structure and messaging techniques for online peer learning systems that increase stickiness
-
PeerStudio: Rapid peer feedback emphasizes iteration and improves performance
-
Talkabout: Making Distance Matter with Small Groups in Massive Classes
-
Do Numeric Ratings Impact Peer Reviewers?
-
Scaling Short-answer Grading by Combining Peer Assessment with Algorithmic Scoring
-
Talkabout: Small-group Discussions in Massive Global Classes
-
Peer and Self Assessment in Massive Online Classes
-
Are MOOCs the Future of Education?
- Learning Innovation at Scale CHI, 2014
- Community TAs Scale High-Touch Learning, Provide Student-Staff Brokering, and Build Esprit de CorpsLearning@Scale, 2014
- How do we harness the scale and diversity of an online class?Learning with MOOCs, a Practitioner's Workshop, 2014
Courses that have used our tools:
Contact
To use our software, or for press inquiries, please contact us at hello@peerstudio.org. We also welcome your contributions to our open-source code. Here's our contributor license.
You're welcome to reuse our slides for publications in your class/reading group, and there is no need to ask for permission.