Peers Educating Peers Handbook

Part 1: Peers Educating Peers Program Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Mission Statement

The Peers Educating Peers Program (PEP), supported by the Qatar Foundation International, is part of the global movement to develop educational systems that foster lifelong learning and community engagement. In order to achieve this mission, PEP works with educators around the world to infuse specific practices and philosophies into their teaching. These include:

• Connecting Cultures for Global Good: PEP uses peer education, online collaboration, videoconferencing, and student exchanges to connect cultures and advance global citizenship skills.
•  Project Based Learning: PEP promotes Project Based Learning (PBL) methods that empower students to take ownership of their learning, and engage them in authentic performance based assessments that utilize skills and habits of mind that they will use in the real world. 
• Peer Education and Leadership: PEP is predicated on the idea that students often learn best from each other, and that student-teaching is among the most effective ways for students to demonstrate their understanding and share their passion with their peers. Peer education develops student leadership skills and may even provoke interest in a teaching career.
• 21st Century Learning Skills: In a traditional classroom, students primarily receive content. PEP students actively choose content based on their passions and interests. Subsequently, students use the arts and technology to create, teach, and exhibit their content knowledge and comprehension by collaborating with their peers on authentic media projects.
• Developing Curiosity: PEP seeks to make the familiar strange—to provide students with the capacity to reexamine their environment and community with fresh eyes and begin to ask questions about the world we live in. To facilitate this process, PEP uses expeditionary learning techniques to break the bounds of the traditional classroom so that teachers and students see their entire world as a place for learning and discovery.
• Teacher Leadership: PEP aims to identify master teachers in PEP partner schools and support them as they build capacity to help their colleagues adopt these new practices. Master teachers are the conduits to forge strong professional learning communities within their schools and districts.

Handbook Overview

This handbook provides an overview of the PEP program, as well as curriculum guides and detailed lesson plans for three projects: peer education, collaborative documentary filmmaking and an online Socratic Seminar. Following the program overview below, there is advice on how to integrate projects from the PEP program into pre-existing curricula and assessments.

Program Overview

At the start of a PEP program students study local and global issues and discuss them online and in videoconferences with their peers in other PEP network schools. They then develop lessons on these issues to teach their peers both at their own school and when they host visiting students and teachers from across town or around the world. In addition to teaching, PEP students also team up with their peers to create media projects on global issues that touch their lives. The level of participation varies from school to school. A PEP program can function as a stand-alone elective class or can be incorporated en masse or piecemeal into a pre-existing curriculum. While some classes may be involved in all of the projects described above, some may choose one or two to join in on.

Students Pointing

The PEP Institute is the culminating experience of the program. Students from participating PEP schools gather to teach each other—and their teachers—about the issues that matter to them, and engage in student led seminars on global issues. Participating teachers have the opportunity to experiment with PEP, refine their practice and connect with educators from around the world to plan future collaborations. 

The Online Experience

Interacting with their peers in other schools and other nations is a key component of the PEP experience. This occurs throughout all phases of a PEP project, and takes place in a number of formats, depending upon time constraints, available technology, and funding. The primary means of communication are secure online educational platforms such as Edmodo, Blackboard or C2C (c2c.qfi.org), a program developed by the Qatar Foundation International for schools in its network. These interactions range from the casual to formal. Both teachers and students can start discussions or post projects and invite others to participate. PEP Students use these online communication platforms to exhibit their work, post comments on subjects that both classes are examining, and exchange feedback on ongoing projects. The flexibility of these online spaces makes them a great place both for students to simply get to know each other or to collaborate on in depth projects. At the same time, teachers have full capability to invite and remove students, edit or remove comments, discussions, and work that could be disruptive or offensive. 

Videoconferencing

Videoconferences—set up using Google Hangout, Skype, or other platforms—also play a major role in PEP. Initially, videoconferences may be used as a simple but exciting way for student in the network to get to know each other and break through any stereotypes or cultural barriers that might otherwise separate them. This is something that can only be done thoroughly with live face-to-face interaction. Once these initial bonds have been made students are ready to use videoconferencing both as a platform for collaboration and for online Socratic Seminars. When, for example, students in two locations collaborate on a film project, they will need to videoconference several times to brainstorm, plan, and exchange feedback on each other’s work. The online Socratic Seminars can be used to go into greater depth a particular subject, or to gather information as a precursor to beginning a PEP project. Whereas a live Socratic Seminar usually involves a whole class in one discussion, the online versions work best when students talk in groups of three to six, with one or two students joining in from each school. Please see the chapter on online Socratic Seminars for details (Part 2, Section 1A).

Section 2: How Does PEP Work?

A school’s involvement in PEP can take many forms. Though many of the examples included in this handbook are taken from secondary level social studies, civics, and English language classes, PEP projects and methods can be integrated into almost any subject area, curriculum, or grade level. Some schools have had great success with a semester long PEP elective, while others have integrated PEP units into an existing curriculum, an afterschool global studies club, or the International Baccalaureate’s CAS (Community, Action, Service) diploma requirement. A school seeking to engage its students in the Project-Based learning aspects of PEP—the peer education and/or film making projects—will need to budget two to four weeks of class time, depending upon the students’ prior experience, the number involved, and the parameters of the project. A school wishing only to do the online Socratic Seminar unit may only need four to six hours of class time. 

A pair of students work together

Timing

The peer education curriculum provided in this handbook lays out an intensive 20-lesson project in which students first learn to teach, then choose and research a topic, and finally plan and deliver a 45 minute to one hour lessons. While this experience can be transformative for students, many teachers may feel that they do not have time to fit such a project into their already packed curriculum. It is important to keep in mind, however, that there are many ways to integrate peer education into any curriculum. First, once the initial time is committed for students to learn to teach in a student-centered way, peer-education projects can be executed in much less time. The First time through when students are learning how to teach might take 8-10 class hours of preparation—about two weeks—followed by another week or two of student teaching, depending upon class size and the number of students working on each lesson. But once students have learned the basics of student-centered instruction, the preparation time can be reduced to four to six hours, depending upon the complexity of the teaching topics. The time it takes for students to teach their lessons can also be dramatically reduced. Instead of planning full-length lessons that include activities and discussions, the students can be asked to prepare study questions and lead a 20-30 minute discussions on a homework assignment. In this way, time-pressed teachers can integrate student-teaching projects into their curriculum in half the time. While this method denies students the full teaching experience, it can be a good first step for teachers wishing to experiment with peer education projects.

Integrating Peer Education into a Pre-existing Curriculum

In recent years PEP peer education projects have most frequently been integrated into social studies electives, language classes, extra-curricular clubs, or the International Baccalaureate CAS program. 

In all of these formats the curriculum was flexible enough to allow students to teach virtually any subject that peaked their interest. But peer education projects have also worked well with state-mandated curricula. In these cases the topics students chose to teach were limited to those included in state standards. The key is to let students choose the content areas within those standards that they are most interested and confident in. In this way, significant portions of required content can be covered in an engaging and student-centered way.

Assessment

Peer education projects are usually set up as stand alone projects within a curriculum.  Students are graded on their teaching project, and this mark makes up a significant percentage of their overall class grade.  Peer education, however, can also be used as a means of in-depth review to prepare students for semester or year-end exams.  Teams of students can choose from a list of exam topics, and they will gain mastery both by learning from each other and by researching and preparing their review lessons. 

The Six Phases of a PEP PBL Project

Regardless of the subject area, grade level, specific topic or medium, a PEP PBL project follows six distinct phases:

• Phase 1: Developing Interest
• Phase 2: Identifying Project Topics 
• Phase 3: Research
• Phase 4: Production
• Phase 5: Presentation
• Phase 6: Revision

Figure 1 : The Six Phases of a PEP Project

Phases 1 and 2: Developing Interest and Choosing Topics

In the first phase of a PEP project, teachers work with students to identify content they are interested in. As discussed earlier, the degree of freedom that the students are allowed depends upon the particular curriculum into which PEP is integrated. If PEP is integrated into a pre-existing curriculum, the content area and relevant standards will guide students’ choices. The topics that students choose can also be framed by the partnerships that develop between schools in the PEP network—thus limiting students to more universal topics that can be explored in depth in a variety of locations. The topics that students have chosen in the past few years range widely, and include local and international issues in history, current events, visual arts, fashion, the environment, and much more. Please see Figure 2 for a list of some of the topics students have taught. 

Phase 3: Research

Once a topic or theme has been chosen, teachers then coach students through the research process. The parameters of this research must be set by teachers and are governed by accessibility of resources and information, students’ prior experience conducting research, and time constraints. The teacher’s ability to differentiate instruction is important at this point. With more advanced, driven students, the research may be entirely up to them, with the teacher only asking questions and making the occasional suggestion. With lower level or less motivated students, a greater degree of support and guidance may be necessary.  In such cases, teachers may need to motivate students by researching a reading they might use in their teaching, suggesting key words for their Google, database, or library searches, or finding people for students to interview about their topic. Students can also use online communication platforms to give each other research advice and share resources.

Phase 4: Production

In the next step, teachers coach students through the creation of their media product or lesson. Again, the scope of the project and the time spent will vary depending on prior experience and the resources available. The first step is modeling—showing professional and student-made examples of both excellence and mediocrity for students to critique. This sets targets to shoot for and pitfalls to avoid, as well as providing a common vocabulary to use when developing and editing work. 

In the case of student-teaching, student-centered teaching methods are not just shown, they must primarily be experienced. Before students attempt to design their own lessons, it is essential that they experience and reflect on a variety of in-class and expeditionary lesson formats taught by the teacher. This is especially important if students are to break out of the traditional format of student (and most teacher) instruction—lecture and PowerPoint. Students must be taught how to ask provocative questions, how to lead discussions, how to organize activities, games or performances, and how to use primary source materials or an outdoor location to teach content and provoke critical thinking. 

Phase 5: Presentation

Regardless of the format, the presentation phase of a PEP unit is divided into three parts—presentation, discussion, and reflection. First students present their work by either teaching their lessons to their peers or exhibiting their media projects. Their peers then discuss the works, giving the creators praise and constructive feedback. The creators then reflect on their experiences. It is important to note that the presentation phase can take place entirely in person, or it can be staged online.

Phase 6: Revision

In the final phase, students revise and re-exhibit their work. If it is a media project, they may show their work to the same audience again, or to another audience. If it is a lesson, they will revise it to teach to another group of their peers or visiting students during a PEP student exchange.

When planning a Project Based Learning (PBL) unit, it is critical not to underestimate the importance of the revision phase. In the world beyond school, revision is one of the most important aspects of work. Workers in most professions create a product, receive feedback from their peers and management, and continue to refine their work. Despite this, the revision phase is often absent from students’ academic experiences. Students get one chance to show their ability on a test, or the never-ending press to cover state-mandated content forces teachers to continue to advance through their tightly packed curriculum. Peers Educating Peers believes that the revision process is central to life-long learning, and that no PBL unit can be complete without it.

Figure 2: PEP Lessons Created by Students from Boston, Washington, D.C., and Qatar, 2011-2013

Lessons Based in Multiple Cities

Qatar Based Lessons

Washington, D.C. Based Lessons

Boston Based Lessons