The flipped-classroom model, which has students do
their classwork at home, works best when students come prepared. Eric Mazur, a
Harvard university physics professor, has created a social tool to help that
happen.
Perusall is a social learning platform that allows students to interact with others
working on an assignment, pose questions, and receive email notifications when
their question is answered so they can come to class ready to talk about the
subject.
The platform also includes an assessment tool for
instructors based on the quality of the responses posted, how often students
comment, and whether those comments are posted before the next class. To keep
extra work for teachers to a minimum, the app uses an automated assessment
engine to analyze the postings.
In classroom tests of Perusall, Mazur found that 70% of
his students read every assignment during the semester and 95% missed no more
than a chapter or two. He is also working with publishers to make textbooks
available through the platform, which can be integrated with most learning
management systems.
“Education
is not just about transferring information,” Mazur said in an article for eSchool News. “It’s not about getting students to learn what we know. I
want my students to stand on my shoulders to solve the problems I cannot solve.
To do that, active participation and social interaction are a must.”
