Tonight we watched the Lilly Conference session entitled “Students-Teaching-Students: How social sciences students leading classes can create greater engagement and enjoyment in the course.” Ethan Engelhardt and Andrew Reynolds were the presenters. Engelhardt is from Asbury University and Reynolds is from Malone University. They began by describing the “dead” classroom with students not engaged, fatigued… and as a professor, it can feel defeating, explained Reynolds. Engelhardt then introduced students-teaching-students (STS): “the STS method includes the 3-step process of Seek, Appraise, and Lead” citing Brown et al. 2017 and Handelsman et al. 2005. They chose the students-teaching-students method because of some evidence that it increases student autonomy and ownership, could liven up the class, and provides experiential learning opportunities. Reynolds and Engelhardt both teach social work and explained that practicums are common in this area. Students need practice, and this pedagogy offers this. They said something that resonated with me: “students are given freedom to learn content and to teach it in a way that will help classmates.” Reynolds and Engelhardt mentioned that they have done this (STS) online! They said it works really well in synchronous sessions… and that makes sense. The presenters have smaller classes and over three different semesters found that 24 out of 32 respondents expressed increased engagement when students lead the discussion. In their courses, they use the Furman textbook from 2016 and allow students to pick content to teach. Toward the end of the twenty-minute session, they mentioned this approach has been used in medical courses and labs. After students create a portfolio, I wonder if they can teach it to others. The timing is tricky though. The STS technique is worth considering!
