A presentation from the STEM Annual Conference 2014.
It has long been recognised that encouraging students to write their own multiple-choice questions is a valuable academic exercise placing high cognitive demands on the learner.
Students must be able to synthesise course materials to construct a question provide plausible distractors (wrong answers) and explain their answers. One online widely-used application to facilitate question generation is PeerWise which is freely available to teaching staff. PeerWise provides a space where students can create questions; rate their peers’ submissions; follow their favourite question authors; and engage in discussion about each question.
We present research into some of the ways in which student interactions within PeerWise may help promote deep learning and develop high quality problem solving skills. Detailed knowledge of the relationships that develop between students within PeerWise can be obtained by analysing responses and comments associated with each question. Mapping these exchanges using social network analysis tools enables the creation of a picture of student interactions. PeerWise enables students to interact and engage with a much wider peer group than would be encountered through face to face lectures and tutorials alone.
We present evidence from across a range of STEM subjects which indicates that engaging with the PeerWise system through writing high quality comments is associated with increased performance in end of course assessment.
