1. Exploration of the Lessons Learned by Students Attending Peer-led Workshops
Fahmida Akhter, Faculty Mentor: Nadia Kennedy, Armando Cosme
Mathematics Department, New York City College of Technology, CUNY
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Abstract
Research Questions
Questions 5-8:
5.Peer-led workshops have helped me to learn how other students approach math problems.
6.Peer-led workshops have helped me to learn more methods for solving problems.
7.Peer-led workshops have helped me to realize that math problem solving can be enjoyable.
8.Peer-led workshops have helped me to become better at working on math problems at home.
Overall, peer led workshop has helped the students become better at problem solving and they can use the listening skill, articulating ideas and working with groups to use for their future courses. Although they got better at problem solving but not enough to do it by themselves. 48% of the students got better at asking questions in general so they can use it in their other courses. Regarding the challenges that the students faced during their peer-leading workshop, the greatest ones were related to discussing math problems with other students.
The study is conducted with students attending an additional one-hour a week peer-led workshop associated with their Pre-Calculus class. The study focuses on the following research questions: Do peer-led workshops help students become better at problem solving? What are the lessons learned from peer-led workshops that can be useful and applicable in future courses? Data will be collected through administrating surveys to the students in the peer-led workshop. The data will be organized, analyzed and presented at the poster session.
1) Do peer-led workshops help students become better at problem solving?
2)What are the lessons learned from peer-led workshops that can be useful and applicable in future courses?
Data Collection
The data was collected from students in MAT 1375 in the middle of the semester. The survey was created and distributed to all students from MAT 1375, each of whom worked with groups with a peer leader.
Conclusions
Introduction
Data Analysis
The wide range of data collected yielded many positive implications for the PLTLW for MAT Overall students reported that they did become better at problem solving since they started the course. They also feel that the lessons learned in the peer leading workshop, the skills to listen and articulate ideas could benefit them in their future courses. In addition, they are still not too fond of doing problem solving by themselves. That might be because in the workshop there are peer leader to help them with the steps and give them a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for their answers. Whereas if they are doing it alone they are on their own. A way to solve that would be to do more problem solving and not just the class works that’s given to them. Lastly, Peer leading workshop for MAT 1375 has shown to e effective according to our data and consistent process of monitoring and adjusting.
Peer-leading workshop began in City College, when students were having trouble with certain mathematics class. When you have a large class with students that are from different backgrounds, it gets difficult to have everyone’s attention. Having an extra set of time and a person to guide you, to develop and understand with problems, is when peer-leading workshops come in.
Based on the individual survey for the students, we found that after participating in peer-led workshops most students report that they:
* Are more persistent when working on mathematics problem.
* Still need some more help to solve problem by themselves.
* Became better at asking questions.
* Became better listeners.
* Became better at articulating ideas to others although there are still few students that can work on it.
Questions 9-12:
9.Per-led workshops have helped me to become better at asking questions in general.
10.Peer-led workshops have helped me to become better at listening.
11.Peer-led workshops have helped me to become better at articulating my ideas to others.
12.Peer-led workshops have helped me to become confident to ask question in other classes.
Literature Review
The practice of PLTL is diverse enough to be applied to various fields throughout STEM. Results showed the PLTL is highly effective for first-year underrepresented minority STEM students Liou-Mark, Ghosh-Dastidar, Samaroo, Diana; and Villatoro (2018). Role of peer leading is to help students with problem soldin without giving them the solution right away. According to Tien, Roth, and Kampmeier (2002), the student-student interaction plays a major role in critical-thinking skill development. Hooker (2006), he kept a weekly journal that showed how the sessions increased students confidence in doing assessments, which increased students motivation to prepare for each assessment.
Questions 1 - 4:
1. Peer-led workshops have helped me to become more persistent when working on mathematics problems.
2.Peer-led workshops have helped me to become more confident to discuss math problems with others.
3.Peer-led workshops have helped me to understand that other students struggle with math as well.
4.Peer-led workshops have helped me to realize that successful math problem solving depends on study and efforts put in it.
Results
References
The questionnaire consisted of twelve statement that students were asked to check off whether to agree, strongly agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree. Questions # 1, 6, and 8 were in response to the research question “Do peer-led workshop help students become better at problem solving?”. Questions 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 are questions leading to getting the answer to the first research question. Questions 9, 10, 11, and 12 were in response to the second research question “What are the lessons learned from peer-led workshops that can be useful and applicable in future courses?”
Liou-Mark, J., Ghosh-Dastidar, U., Samaroo, D.; and Villatoro, M. (2018). The peer-led team learning leadership program for first year minority science, technology, engineering, and mathematics students. Journal of Peer Learning, 11,
Tien, L.T., Roth, V., & Kampmeier, J.A (2004). A course to prepare peer leaders to implement a student-assisted learning method. Journal of Chemical Education, 81(9),
Hooker, Stacy Marie, "The Effectiveness of Peer-Led Team Learning Workshops: An Action Research Approach" (2006). Education and Human Development Master's Theses. 377.
Acknowledgment
The project is supported by the Emerging Scholars Program at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY.