Getting Wise with PeerWise

Katherine Haxton & David McGarvey

Sharing Good Practice, January 2014

COPYRIGHT: Graham Fowell/The Hitman; taken from Bates and Galloway, Education in Chemistry January 2013.

Why?

Promote continued engagement with lecture

material.

2012/13: 10% of module ‘problem sheets’.

4 or 5 over semester, every 2 weeks.

Submit at 2pm, mark and return at 4pm with

whole class feedback.

Effort based mark – 0,1,2

A different approach: PeerWise

Student Authored Multiple Choice Question Bank

3 deadlines per semester to write, answer and comment on questions.

Marks purely for engagement (0,1,2 scheme).

Question Authoring

Create MC Question

Answer options:- Preferred answer (note not *correct*)- appropriate distractors

Explanation- explain theory- why are distractors wrong- don’t just give correct answer

Select appropriate topics

Add Pictures Add EquationsAdd Videos

Question Answering

Answer question

Confirm or change answer [rethink based on explanation, other classmates views]

View other answers and explanations.Told if answer agrees with the authors answer

Select a topic, and question

Write comments (and disagree with author answer!)

TopicsAcids and Bases Hydrogen Bonding Moles and molarity UV - Vis spectroscopyAtomic Orbitals HyperValence NMR UnitsAtomic Structure IR spectroscopy Naming organic molecules VESPRBeer-Lambert Law Infrared Newman Projections VSEPR theoryBond Order Ionic Character Orbitals Valence electronsConjugation Isomerism Organic acidsHybridisation Isomers Periodic Table Electron Pair Geometry Periodic Trends dipole moments Electron orbitals Lewis structuresPolarity electron configurationsElectrons In Atoms MO Energy Level DiagramsRepresenting Molecules Equations of Lightelectron quantum numbers Electrons in molecules MathsSolvents and Organic Acid-Base electronegativity ElementsMolecular Geometry polar solventsMolecular Orbital Theory radial nodes and nodal planesboundry surface repersentations Stereochemistry in chiral centresEffect of nuclear charge

Setup and Support

Account Creation

- admin account

- student identifiers (e.g. student number)

- students create accounts

General Support

- resetting passwords

- reminders of deadlines and expectations

How?

Intro Session

- introduce concept of multiple choice questions

- MCQ ‘Grunge Prowkers’ by Roger Lewis

- explain why writing questions benefits the students

(and why we’re not shirking our responsibility).

- introduction to constructivist model of learning

- computer classroom session to get accounts

created and help with using interface

Metrics

Competition element: student leader boards and badges

Access logs – no. Qs written, answered, no. comments written

Review questions and comments contributed by individual students

390 questions authored, 4090 questions answered

“Very useful learning tool, the badges thing encourage me and my friends to answer more and compete with what we got.”

-- a Keele first year student

Assignment Introduced

Deadlines

Exam Period

Deadlines strong motivation for question writing at the last minute!

Deadlines

Assignment Introduced

Exam Period

Evaluation

Emerging Themes

- useful revision tool

- tutor questions would be useful

- more tutor input desired

- deadlines adding to workload

“It’s a fantastic way to revise and goes hand in hand

with going over lecture notes, however it would be

useful if more people made questions.”

“I very much despise PeerWise.”

-- from two Keele first year students

Evaluation

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

I find the PeerWise website easy to use.

I find it very difficult to write multiple choice questions.

I prefer to answer questions than to

write them.

Writing questions on PeerWise helps me

learn.

% agree Neutral % disagree

Evaluation

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

I do not like writing feedback on questions.

I am frustrated by questions that are

unclear.

I found this task pointless.

I found this task very difficult.

% agree Neutral % disagree

PeerWise Resources

http://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/

http://www2.ph.ed.ac.uk/elearning/projects/peerwise/ [includes

information on scaffolding]

http://www.uwe.ac.uk/elearning/examples/mcq.pdf

[Grunge Prowkers Quiz online]

http://www.rsc.org/education/eic/issues/2013January/student-

generated-assessment.asp

[Bates and Galloway, Education in Chemistry January 2013]