In the Classroom
Student-Taught Review Sessions: Fostering Communication Skills and Reinforcing Concepts Melanie R. Nilsson Department of Chemistry, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3400;
[email protected] The Basic Concept There is an obvious correlation between the number of days before a midterm or final examination and the number of student requests for a review session. Review sessions help reacquaint students with previously covered material, highlight important points, and sometimes provide new material to those students who may have missed a lecture or two. Attendance is usually good, as is the attention of the students present. When I was a teaching assistant for General Chemistry, my students often asked for exam review sessions. I finally agreed to set aside recitation time for a review session on the condition that the students taught the review material to each other. To my surprise, my students readily agreed. I assigned each pair of students a topic that they would have to present to the class. In their review of the topic they had to present key concepts and principles, provide relevant examples, and field questions from the class. Students were given a grade on the quality of their oral presentation and mastery of the material. What the Students Learn—What the Instructor Learns The student-taught review sessions were extremely successful. The students got a review of the exam material as was the initial intent, but the benefits were more far-reaching than a simple review. Each student mastered at least one concept in depth and experienced what it was like to teach a class. In addition, the students had the opportunity to practice giving an oral presentation—an essential skill for any discipline. This program was also beneficial to me, the instructor, for two reasons. First, I had the opportunity to see how my students presented concepts to each other, which provided insight into how students learn and retain different concepts. Second, this program provided a productive, relevant exercise prior to the exam. Often I am presenting new material before an exam that will not be covered on the exam. The students are not interested in learning the new concepts because they are still struggling to master the topics to be covered on the exam. This can be particularly detrimental because the first couple of lectures often set the stage and provide important background for the new material. Why This Program Is Successful It has been suggested that high audience interest and responsiveness will have a positive effect on the willingness to speak and expected speech quality of an oral presentation (1). This review format satisfies these variables. The class wanted to learn the material for the exam and were, consequently,
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both attentive and responsive. In addition, the students wanted to participate because it satisfied their desire to have a review session. The oral presentations were graded to ensure that the students were reasonably well prepared, but it is possible that the degree of preparation was due more to other factors. The overwhelming consensus, however, among the students and me, was that the program was very successful. There are many examples of programs in which students help teach concepts or skills to other students (cooperative learning [2], peer-led team learning [3, 4], checksheets with peer mentors [5], etc.). Therefore, the uniqueness of this program is not the peer teaching component but rather the timing of the program and the emphasis on developing oral presentation skills. This program was implemented in a cooperative learning workshop class that utilized peer mentors (6 ). This format, however, does not generally address the development of oral presentation skills because most interactions among students are conversational and in the context of small groups. Conclusion Student-taught review sessions provide an ideal forum for students to practice giving an oral presentation to an attentive audience. The concepts are reinforced by the student presentation both for the individual giving the presentation and for the class as a whole. The timing of the review exercise permits postponement of presentation of new material until after the exam while providing a valuable exercise in oral skills before the exam. Student-taught review sessions could be implemented in virtually any discipline, in large or small classes, and in a formal lecture class or a recitation section. Acknowledgment I would like to thank Marjorie Kandel for encouraging me to submit this idea to JCE and for a critical review of the manuscript. Literature Cited 1. MacIntyre, P. D.; Thivierge, K. A. Commun. Res. Rep. 1997, 14, 157–168. 2. Jacob, E. Cooperative Learning in Context; State University of New York Press: Albany, NY, 1999. 3. Gosser, D. K.; Roth, V. J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 185–187. 4. Glenn, K. J. Chem. Educ. 1998, 75, 147. 5. Kilner, C. J. Chem. Educ. 1984, 61, 473–474. 6. Hanson, D. M.; Wolfskill, T. J. Chem. Educ. 2000, 77, 120–130.
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 78 No. 5 May 2001 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
