You Teach Us: Peer Teaching in the Engineering Classroom

Abstract Peer teaching, an instructional technique which promotes both student interaction and active learning, is explored in this evidence-based practice paper. Both in-person and virtual classrooms necessitate that instructors carefully consider mechanisms of content delivery in order to retain student engagement. The You Teach Us, a peer teaching method described in this paper, enables students to learn from one another through structured activities and can be utilized in courses of varying sizes. In the engineering course in which this method originates, students prepare a 15-minute lesson to teach a small group of their peers. These lessons are not one-sided student presentations. Students must apply the creative process to an educational context and develop lessons that include pertinent content in an engaging activity and a mechanism for summative assessment (e.g., discussion, individual or group quiz, quality of activity outcome). To further understand the effectiveness of this instructional activity in terms of student engagement and outcomes, student self- and peer-assessments are qualitatively analyzed. Findings indicate that students were reflective, consistent, and fair graders who reported high levels of student engagement both in their own, and in their peers', lessons.