Students Take the Driver’s Seat: Learning Improves When Students Teach Students

Students Teach Students: A Method to Improve Learning

“While we teach, we learn,” said the Roman philosopher, Seneca. When we give students a concept to teach, students learn what they know and what they don’t know. Teachers in successful classrooms often recruit their students as teachers.

How to Effectively use Students as Teachers

We hear people say – you learn something best when you teach it! Have students teach other students a concept by communicating the learning target, explaining the concept, and providing an example. Classmates listen and complete a rating scale on how well they believe the concept was presented. With “5” representing the highest level of accuracy and “1” the lowest level. For younger students, replace numbers with smiley faces. Once each student completes the rating scale, accumulate the results using frequencies and mean ratings. Students and teachers use these findings to form a discussion and reinforce the learning concept aligned to a learning target.

Anna Murphy Paul stated in her article from TIME:

“Students enlisted to tutor others, these researchers have found, work harder to understand the material, recall it more accurately and apply it more effectively. In what scientists have dubbed “the protégé effect,” student teachers score higher on tests than pupils who are learning only for their own sake.”

Featured Image: Students teach students to read – edutopia •  Additional Image: International School of the Peninsula

Resource: Who’s Engaged? Book