Peer tutoring in undergraduate education can provide many benefits to students and instructors. However, the roles and responsibilities of peer tutors can be complex and varied, even within a single program. In particular, navigating between students and faculty can challenge peer tutors' sense of purpose and role clarity. In order to bring the…

High-stakes testing gets a lot of criticism, for good reason. But, when done right, assessment can be a valuable tool for educators and students. Kim Marshall describes how different types of assessments can improve learning by revealing learning problems in real time, improving student retention through the "retrieval effect," and…

Very few empirical studies have investigated programmes in which doctoral students act as peer facilitators in faculty writing groups. We report on the development of a centrally delivered doctoral student writing programme in which twenty student participants were mentored and provided with the resources to initiate their own faculty-based…

In this study we used an assessment tool evaluated in a previous study to identify students who were at-risk of not being successful in our introductory statistics course. We then required these students to attend peer tutoring, early in the semester, as an intervention. While we saw a significant increase in student success for all students in…

Background: Large introductory STEM courses historically have high failure rates, and failing such courses often leads students to change majors or even drop out of college. Instructional innovations such as the Learning Assistant model can influence this trend by changing institutional norms. In collaboration with faculty who teach…

The benefits and challenges of international fieldwork are well rehearsed. However, understanding of students' affective experiences during fieldwork is less well developed. Little examination has been given to how tutors respond to the affective and emotional geographies that arise during international fieldwork which also affect perceptions of…

This study investigated the effects of two different accountability scoring mechanisms (ASMs), which were used during the peer instruction (PI) process, on preservice middle school mathematics teachers' (PSTs) achievements in statistics and probability. In the spring semester of 2016-2017 academic year, 46 third-year PSTs, who had been attending a…

An evaluation was conducted on a university peer mentoring program for Latina/o college students (mostly freshmen and first generation) at a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Data were collected across 3 years from 458 Latina/o students with mentors and 86 Latina/o students without mentors (Year 3). Quantitative and qualitative data indicated mentees…

The purpose of this study was to determine if teacher self-efficacy is influenced by peer coaching in elementary mathematics. Survey, interview, and demographic data were collected from a purposeful sample of first year elementary mathematics teachers within a large, suburban school district located in southeast Texas. "The Teachers' Sense of…

The purpose of this study was to determine if retention of first-year college students was influenced by specific variables and programs at one Midwest community college. The study was focused on responses from the Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCSSE) (Center for Community College Student Engagement, 2013) and peer mentoring…

Active learning techniques, such as peer instruction and group work, have been gaining a lot of traction in universities. Taking a natural next step in re-evaluating current practices, many institutions recently started experimenting student-centred group exams. In order to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of collaborative assessments, we…

Effective professional learning communities are crucial for supporting and developing the practice and identity formation of beginning teachers. Professional networks facilitate collegial learning and continuous improvement of professional practice of all teachers, and are especially important for out of field teachers. Rural practice is…

In the context that it was scrutinized in the present study, peer instruction was initially developed by Eric Mazur, a physicist. The aim of the present study was to determine the impact of peer instruction method on academic achievements and creative thinking skills of the students. The study was conducted with the pre-test-posttest control group…

We describe three major challenges that teachers of STEM subjects face in their preparation and practice. Then, we discuss how technology could become a vehicle for providing timely and content-related support. To this end, we suggest a theoretical framework, which builds on the works of Vygotsky, Shulman, and Mishra and Koehler. Specifically, we…

Not many interventions are available to improve the school climate for lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth in prevocational secondary education. In four schools with different student populations, this study examined the impact of a newly designed peer-educator intervention on attitudes towards lesbian women and gay men and on the class climate…