Peer Learning With Small Means: A Case Study Of Implementing Peer Learning In A Laboratory Exercise

Peer learning in teaching is a common method which makes students share their problems and learn from each other. It is often used to increase students´ understanding and level of deep learning. In this study, the peer learning concept has been applied to a laboratory exercise and a comparative study has been performed. The study consists of two cases, a reference group, which performed the exercise in a traditional way, and a peer learning group, which performed the exercise in a modified way. In the peer learning group, the students were encouraged to ask each other for help and an additional presentation was added in order to further increase the interaction between students. The outcome was evaluated through classroom observations, a questionnaire, and a short knowledge test. The results show that the peer learning approach had different positive effects. When the students were instructed to ask each other for help, there was an apparent change in the students´ behaviour. The students in the peer learning group were more active and more creative compared to the reference group. They also had better results on the knowledge test and were more satisfied with the exercise. This demonstrates that small changes to an existing laboratory exercise can increase the understanding, involvement and creativity of the students. In this case, this was also achieved without an extended workload on the teacher.