On ES2007D “Professional Communication”, a course offered by CELC to students from the
School of Design and Environment, students take over the ‘teaching’ of one topic of the
course. Instead of being taught the principles and strategies of oral presentations (a major topic of the course), students research aspects of the topic and in teams, peer ‘teach’ an aspect assigned to them. The instructor takes a step back, becomes part of the audience and is responsible only for correcting factual and language errors.

Here are the reasons for adopting this approach:

a. Students typically suffer from ‘lecture lethargy’ resulting from years of attending lectures.

b. Students are more involved in the learning materials if they have a hand in developing it.

c. Students are capable of learning independently.

In groups, students are given two weeks to research a sub-topic assigned (e.g. Principles and Strategies of Team Presentations). To make it challenging, I require that each group is asked questions by other groups as well as by me. In this way, I ensure that students are responsible for the following:

• Understanding that a premium is placed on their ‘teaching’ each other.

• Being thorough and organised, and ensuring facts need to be accurate and clearly presented, since they are ‘teaching’ the topic.

• Learning to listen attentively while others present, so as to ask questions.

After each group’s presentation, I critique their coverage of materials, the application of the
principles they ‘taught’ (this is very pertinent given the topic presented), and the audio-visual
aids used (e.g. Powerpoint slides, videos). The last is done to ensure that factual and language errors are corrected, before the slides are uploaded on to the class workbin on IVLE for others to refer to and learn from.

I have observed these outcomes:

a. Students welcome the opportunity to take on the role of ‘teaching’ their peers—there is always excitement when the task is assigned, even if they foresee the amount of work involved.

b. Students take responsibility for their own learning—the onus is on them to learn it well enough to be able to ‘teach’ it to themselves and to others.

c. The output is tremendous—the teaching set of slides assigned to instructors consists of
16 slides whereas the students produced six sets (six sub-topics were set), totalling 178
slides. Numerically, the difference is already significant, what more the length, breadth and
width of coverage students were able to give to the treatment of each sub-topic researched.
Given that there are many strategies, tips and methods to learn, the depth which each aspect is given (in the way each group is given an aspect to deal with) is far better than the broad sweep the instructors’ set of teaching slides gives. Not only are the slides comprehensive, the presentation is usually ver y creative, incorporating multimedia such as video clips and YouTube snippets illustrating the aspect ‘taught’.

d. Students gain confidence about self-learning from the exercise, which makes them realise
that they are capable of learning the topic themselves, from the responsibility given them and from doing it in a group.

e. Students apply what they learn—they practise the very skills they ‘teach’ their peers, in this case presentation skills, including the use of visual aids, non-verbal language (body language) and team presentation strategies. Additionally, this is an ideal opportunity for them to practice for their next assignment, which requires them to present a proposal plan orally.

f. The group work empowers them—it gives them a sense of mutual accountability and is an important stepping stone to the group work they do more extensively later in the course.

g. The exercise gives them the opportunity to practise time management, resolve conf licts,
and deliver a presentation, given constraints like limited time to do research and deliver
their presentation (15–20 minutes), which are all important skills for the working world.

To obtain feedback on the exercise, a survey was administered to students and instructors.
The results (responses from 161 students and six instructors) are as follows:

• The benefit most valued by students is the opportunity to work in a group.

• The benefit most valued by instructors is the opportunity for independent learning.

• The most prominent difficulty pointed out by students is coming together to complete the
assignment.

• Instructors do not feel they are letting go of the ‘sage-on-stage’ role.

• Instructors’ responses on other topics that might be peer taught show that some topics clearly lend themselves to this method of learning (e.g. conflict resolution) while others simply do not (e.g. reports and interpretation of data). When we empower students to learn, we equip and raise their confidence so they learn better. They value being involved, being a ‘shareholder’ (Freiberg & Driscoll, 1996) and they practice independent learning. Empowerment is key to allowing students to take charge of what they learn and motivates them to discover facts on their own.

References
Allen, R.H. (2002). Impact Teaching—Ideas and Strategies for Teachers to Maximise Student Learning. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Freiberg, H.J. & Driscoll, A. (1996). Universal Teaching Strategies. Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon.

Saha, L.J. (Ed.) (1997). International Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Education. New York: Elsevier.