Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Peer Tutoring Strategies For All Students

Peer Tutoring Strategies For All Students

By Jocelyn Davidson


There are many learning models that students and their teachers employ to ensure that students master academic content. One of these is where students are paired up and become study partners which is also known as peer tutoring strategies. Models are flexible to accommodate the learning needs of students.

Peer tutoring has been around for many years. However, it is currently gaining more popularity in many schools across the world. Initially, it was focused on reading skills but now it has expanded to include study areas such as science, spelling, writing and social studies. The principle behind the effectiveness of this model is that tutors have to grasp the content before they can teach. The reversal of roles ensures that both student partners have the chance to tutor.

Peer tutoring is not adult volunteers or teachers teaching students. It is the students teaching each other. Moreover, it should not be confused with student discussion groups. It is a unique learning model which may contain other models. All of these models differ in how students are paired, the academic content and the extent of tutoring. Nevertheless, its main aim is increasing motivation, the achievement and student practice.

CWPT also known as Class Wide Peer tutoring involves the division of the class into small groups of two to five students. Some of them can act as tutees, others tutors and can also take both roles at different times. Cross age pairing is where older students are paired with younger students. The objective here is a bit different since the older students here do not have much to learn from the younger students academically. However, the students learn so much from the older students.

Pairing students of the same age is called same age pairing. The students have an opportunity to learn from one another and also teach each other. In addition, students may be paired according to their abilities. When pairing is made considering differences in abilities, it ensures that those with stronger set of skills are able to respond first and accurately which the less strong students can emulate.

When the student pair is of equal ability, they can take turns in assuming the tutor role. This way both of them learn and become experts in that particular topic of study. The students can be ranked according to their abilities and the list then used to pair them. Students with different personalities, needs and preferences should be paired to increase diversity.

This tutoring strategy involves developing instructional material that favors this type of learning model. The material should first teach the students how to be experts in tutoring and how to be good partners. In addition, the course content should be well prepared to accommodate feedback from tutors to tutees. Moreover, there should be capacity for the experts to reverse their roles and also the class teacher to monitor the learning.

This type of tutoring model has been observed to increase class engagement of students and also their opportunities to respond. This is in contrast to other models where all content is delivered by the teacher. It is also advantageous to classrooms with learning challenges such as disabilities and where English is not the first language. The limitations include incompetence by some of the students and lack of accountability.




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