On 18 July, with help from Graham McElearney, I interviewed Eric Mazur when Eric was in Sheffield. The interview concentrates on: Eric's research into peer-based instruction; large group teaching; closing the gender gap in STEM; and "learning analytics". It ends with some observations for people running institutions. Some of the questions I used were provided by members of ALT.
Here is the transcript of the interview [14 pages, 100 kB PDF]. You can also download the interview as an MP3 file [1 hour, 20 MB MP3]. Eventually both will be published on the ALT web site, with the transcript appearing as an article in ALT News Online.
Eric Mazur will be a keynote speaker at the 2012 ALT conference in Manchester, UK, in September.
Great interview! I was fortunately enough to work with Prof Jim Boyle many years ago at University of Strathclyde. Jim started using peer instruction well over a decade ago having seen the impact Eric's work.
At the time I became very familiar with the theory (and technology) used. Maybe I'm in different circles now but I sense the enthusiasm for this technique is on the wane (perhaps a result of lots of people implementing badly and then finding something different to do instead). What this interview highlights is through continued research new opportunities are emerging. So if you tried voting system/peer instruction before but gave up have a listen to this interview and decide if it might just be worth revisiting
Martin
Posted by: Martin Hawksey | 03/08/2012 at 14:58
Very good interview. Well worth doing. I'm attending ALT-C and hope he might relate this a bit more to online distance learning, particularly to how these techniques might be used to enhance MOOCs.
Posted by: Brian Mulligan | 03/08/2012 at 17:33
Excellent. Thanks! Apart from anything else it bodes well for ALT-C 2012.
Posted by: Kevin Donovan | 07/08/2012 at 14:28