Problems with your peers

There’s an interesting article in the latest edition of Distance Education (Vol 29, No 2 August 2008), entitled Effective peer interaction in a problem-centred instructional strategy, by David Merrill & Clark G. Gilbert.

In this article the authors argue that learning is more effective when peer interactions are incorporated in a structured, scaffolded and problem-centred “progression of whole real world tasks”.

They begin by comparing communities of learners, often composed of novices, with communities of practice, more frequently experts in the relevant area(s). This means that more guidance and/or scaffolding can be required in peer-learning situations.

The approach described in the article is informed by the following “first principles of instruction”:
*      task-centred principle
*      activation principle
*      demonstration principle
*      application principle
*      integration principle

Problem-centred instruction is compared with problem-based instruction. The latter often has “minimal guidance”, whereas the former “provides a carefully sequenced progression of problems”.

Problem or task-based instructional strategy is recommended as it is more effective at facilitating creation or adaptation of learners’ mental models. This is contrasted with a more topic-centred approach which can cause fragmentation of components of a whole task meaning that learners are “forced to rely on associative memory for a period of time before the skills are required for the whole problem or task.”

Peer interaction at different stages helps learners to tune their mental models “making them more flexible and adaptable to new situations”. The authors give examples of types of peer interaction at different stages
of the learning process. During the activation stage learners can share relevant experience whilst during the demonstration stage they might be involved in structured questioning and/or discussion which helps them
examine and deconstruct a worked example of a problem. During the application stage learners could collaborate in groups to solve problems. Lastly during the integration stage learners might constructively critique each other’s work or collaborate to “extend the problem solution to situations they are likely to encounter in their everyday life”.