Learning Partnerships: Structured Study Pairs and Cooperative Testing

Abstract

In my new course design, learning partnerships , students collaborate with the same partner for the entire term, including on assignments and exams. This design, which was inspired by John Zipp's work (2007), draws attention to two problems many of us at the conference have encountered, regardless of our discipline: student passivity and the static nature of summative assessment. I will present data, as well as demonstrations, that show that learning partnerships 1) facilitate discussion and increase collaborative learning without surrendering structure; 2) allow professors to better monitor what topics or concepts confuse students before they take the exams (formative assessment); 3) improve student performance on exams; and 4) transform the exams into learning tools (and even pleasant experiences), not merely summative assessment.

Location

Room 1909

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Mar 13th, 3:00 PM Mar 13th, 3:45 PM

Learning Partnerships: Structured Study Pairs and Cooperative Testing

Room 1909

In my new course design, learning partnerships , students collaborate with the same partner for the entire term, including on assignments and exams. This design, which was inspired by John Zipp's work (2007), draws attention to two problems many of us at the conference have encountered, regardless of our discipline: student passivity and the static nature of summative assessment. I will present data, as well as demonstrations, that show that learning partnerships 1) facilitate discussion and increase collaborative learning without surrendering structure; 2) allow professors to better monitor what topics or concepts confuse students before they take the exams (formative assessment); 3) improve student performance on exams; and 4) transform the exams into learning tools (and even pleasant experiences), not merely summative assessment.