Online Peer Learning Groups
We have developed advice and resources for online peer learning activities to support students in creating and running their own groups for learning and socialising via Microsoft Teams. Through the University’s academic peer learning programme ‘Peer Assisted Study Sessions’ (PASS) we are suggesting to our trained student PASS Leaders from 2nd and 3rd year that they can create groups for their allocated 1st year students on their course. This could be purely for social support, or for facilitating small group learning activities and drop-ins. We have advice and ideas for online small group learning activities on the PASS website.
If you don’t have PASS set up on your course, peer learning groups can still be established as described above and these activities could be useful for your students. Here are some further thoughts on developing peer learning online.
Online Study Buddies
To encourage students to stay motivated and supported in their studying, another approach could be to organise students into smaller groups of two or three for regular study-focused discussion, mutual goal-setting, staying motivated, sharing resources and adjusting to the challenges of this particular time.
For further tips on discussion forums, netiquette, webinars and peer learning in this blog post from Pearson.