Journal Article

Challenges of peer instruction in an undergraduate student-led learning community: bi-directional diffusion as a crucial instructional process

Lewis, Daniel G. Rees, Gerber, Elizabeth M., Easterday, Matthew W., Carlson, Spencer E.

2018

Overview

Learning communities (LCs) can provide authentic, social learning experiences but require an extensive amount of time and effort to orchestrate, often more than instructors can provide in typical university courses. Extracurricular, undergraduate, student-led learning communities (SLLCs) overcome this cost through volunteer peer-instructors. Unfortunately, LCs theory is based exclusively on teacher-led LCs. Here we ask what instructional processes emerge in SLLCs? We conducted a qualitative case study of SLLC student leaders' attempts to teach a project management practice (StandUp) to student innovation teams. We found that instruction in SLLCs takes the form of a bidirectional diffusion process, in which peer-instructors influence students' decisions about what practices to participate in, and students influence peer-instructors' decisions about advocating for practices. Three major findings support the bi-directional diffusion model. First, students' participation in StandUp hinged on whether they saw the practice as valuable with respect to their social, learning, and/or performance goals. Second, peer-instructors struggled to persuade and scaffold students to participate in StandUp. Third, students influenced peer-instructors to stop advocating for StandUp. The bi-directional diffusion model highlights the practical importance of persuading students to participate in the community's practices. The model suggests that we might support peer-instruction by promoting peer-instructors' content knowledge about practices, their persuasion skills, and their motivation to advocate for practices.

• Publisher: Springer,Springer Netherlands,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Academic achievement / Advocacy / Barriers / Case Studies / Collaboration / College Students / Communities of Practice / Community / Diffusion / Education / Educational Psychology / Influence / Information dissemination / Innovation / Innovations / Instructional Effectiveness / Learning / Learning and Instruction / Motivation / Participative Decision Making / Pedagogic Psychology / Peer influence / Peer instruction / Peer Teaching / Peers / Persuasion / Project management / Qualitative Research / School environment / Social learning / Socialization / Student Attitudes / Student Leadership / Student teachers / Students / Teachers / Teaching / Teaching Methods / Teams / Teamwork / Undergraduate Students