Student pair work as a tool to promote active learning among students in Kosovo

VOCA, Shpend. Student pair work as a tool to promote active learning among students in Kosovo. Online. In Gabriela Pleschová, Agnes Simon. Early career academics' reflections on learning to teach in Central Europe. London: SEDA, 2018, p. 112-120. ISBN 978-1-902435-63-3.

Basic information

• Original name: Student pair work as a tool to promote active learning among students in Kosovo
• Authors: VOCA, Shpend (95 Republic of Kosovo, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: London, Early career academics' reflections on learning to teach in Central Europe, p. 112-120, 9 pp. 2018.
• Publisher: SEDA

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Chapter(s) of a specialized book
• Field of Study: 50301 Education, general; including training, pedagogy, didactics [and education systems]
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Publication form: electronic version available online
• WWW: chapter book
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14230/18:00111094
• Organization unit: Faculty of Social Studies
• ISBN: 978-1-902435-63-3
• Keywords in English: active learning; Bloom’s taxonomy; classroom observation; interactive lecture; pair work; psychology; quasi-experiment; teaching large groups
• Tags: rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

In this chapter, I present the outcomes of a teaching innovation project that was designed for the Cultural Psychology course offered at AAB College in Kosovo. Cultural Psychology is a mandatory course for students in the psychology degree programme and is attended by forty to seventy students. The aims of this course are (1) to introduce students to the main concepts and theories of cultural psychology and their applications and (2) to enhance students’ capacity to understand and analyze cultural influences on human behaviour. The course consists of fifteen lectures offered on a weekly basis. My responsibilities for the course were to design and teach the course, including assessing students. Students usually remain passive in this course, which could be due to the preferred teaching method in our college. Teaching large groups is mainly done using the traditional lecturing format. The instructor is expected to transmit information to students though lectures using PowerPoint slides. Instructors most often use multiple choice or some other form of written tests to assess students. These neither require nor encourage students to become actively involved in the learning process. To address the challenge of the low level of student activity, I used pair work and asked students to engage with the material presented during the lecture to stimulate their participation and learning. I expected that pair work would have a positive impact on both the quantity and quality of students’ participation in the classroom. I also assumed that students engaged in pair work would acquire more knowledge of the course material than students who learnt via the traditional lecturing format. I found that pair work had a positive impact on the quantity of students’ participation in the classroom and that students who participated in pair work learnt more than their peers who were exposed to lecturing only. Pair work had a positive, although limited, impact on the quality of students’ participation in the classroom because most student questions and comments focused on the clarification, understanding and application of concepts rather than on analysis, synthesis or evaluation.