Peerwise (Staff Guide)
PeerWise is an online repository of multiple-choice questions that are created, answered, rated and discussed by students.
Typically, at the beginning of a term, a course using PeerWise begins with an empty repository. This grows gradually as the course progresses and students author and contribute relevant questions. All activity remains anonymous to students, however instructors are able to view the identity of question and comment authors and have the ability to delete inappropriate questions. In practice, instructor moderation is rarely necessary and PeerWise is often used with little staff involvement. An course for which it makes sense for students to author their own multiple-choice questions and to explain their understanding of a topic in their own words could benefit from using PeerWise.
Students use PeerWise to create and to explain their understanding of course related assessment questions, and to answer and discuss questions created by their peers.
Students create questions by reflecting on what theyare learning in a course. They add explanations to their /span> answer helping to reinforce their understanding. Their peers then attempt the questions and see how everyone else has answered. The feedback is immediate, as they have access to explanations and they can participate in discussions. They then rank the question for accuracy and suggest improvements. There are 3 leader boards, the top rated questions, the most popular contributors and the highest scorers.
Guides
- Staff Guide: Getting Started with Peerwise
- What does a typical PeerWise course look like?
- Using PeerWise to assign homework
- Sample Coursework Instructions & Marking Regime
- Moderate, monitor or leave well alone?
- MCQ writing: a tricky business for students?
- Scoring: for fun and extra credit!
- Use of PeerWise in a not-so-common context
- If at first you don’t succeed, answer again!
- And if in doubt.... guess 'D'
- Introducing the "answer score"
- PeerWise – Experiences at University College London
- Do badges work?
- A student's point of view
- Students learn by generating study questions - but the content matters!
Faq Items
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Advantages
- It is very simple to use.
- Its quick to set up repository, accessible by your students, can be created in less than a minute.
- It complements existing teaching materials and course organisation, and can help to establish a learning community in your class incorporating collaborative learning and peer tutoring
- You can see how students are answering individual questions in real-time, and can identify and address common misunderstandings in a timely fashion.
- Analysing student comments can reveal further insight into the student perception of topics within the course.
- The development of MCQ test banks is a very time consuming activity and placing this in the hands of the students is a fast, low cost way for instructors to have access to a large body of MCQ test items designed specifically to test the course content.
- By evaluating the topic areas that students have created questions for, you can get a sense of which topics students are more confident with and which topics students are not engaged with.
- PeerWise performs well in large classes.
- The number of high-quality questions is greater and students therefore have access to a higher number of effective questions.
Support
The teaching and learning Academy strongly recommend using this system and will support you as much as possible and using it effectively, you can raise a helpdesk ticket. The system is developed and managed by Auckland University in New Zealand. They do not run their own helpdesk system but do provide extensive guides.
Training Sessions
You may be interested in attending one of our training sessions. The Teaching and Learning Academy provide a wide range of Technology Enhanced Learning training. Take a look at our Training Page for further information. You may also be interested in:
