Experiental Peer
education day in Pietarsaari Upper Secondary School
One of the teaching- and learning experiments agreed in InTIMe21 -project was
the Peer education day. According to American pedagog, Edgar Dale, and his
learning pyramid we learn only 5% by listening to a lecture, 10 % by reading,
50% by discussing but 90% by teaching ourselves. Based on these results we
organized a peer education day when the students were able to teach each other
and also learn new things themselves.
The basis for this experiment was set in Århus,
Denmark last autumn when four students from Pietarsaari Upper Secondary School
were able to test this method in practice and teach the lower comprehensive
pupils there.
On Wednesday 22nd April the whole school participated
in the event in Pietarsaari.
The students who were willing to teach planned the
session themselves. All of them had an assisting teacher who was there to help
if needed and who checked the final lesson plan. But the students took care of
the actual teaching session all by themselves.
- The experience was awesome! It´s great to teach
things you yourself are interested in. At the same time you feel joy and
satisfaction to be able to teach things that mean a lot to you, says the French
teacher, Aleksi Heikkilä, the first grader in Pietarsaari Upper Secondary
School.
The students were also satisfied. – When your peers
are teaching, they know how to approach the students, says the second grader,
Laura Lepistö.
During the day the students taught all kinds of
skills: All the students created a Europass, the document where you can collect
all your language skills, studies and diplomas, which may be helpful in
applying to a school or for a job.
In additional 15 workshops the students had the possibility to learn eg. Japanese, programming, baking, playing the piano, acting and volleyball.
-It´s great to see so many potential future teachers
who were able to take teaching seriously enough but also humouristically. I
believe that many of the novices will end up becoming real teachers in the
future, Martikainen predicts.
At the end of the day the whole school gathered in the
sports hall where Sofia Kujala, Markus Ojajärvi, Jenna Tuomaala and Vivi
Wideman taught the Happy dance for the rest of the school. These students had
themselves learned the choreography and taught it to the pupils in Denmark. The
hips were moving, hands were clapping and faces were glowing as both teachers
and students were learning as equals.
The whole school had an opportunity to experience a
new kind of day and feel the power and joy of peer education. With this day in
our heads and hearts we are eager to continue towards new, creative teaching-
and learning methods.
Text: Tiina Stara
Translation: Teija Kauppinen
