Peer Instruction

Peer instruction is a student centered method developed by Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur in the early 1990s that flips the traditional lecture by moving the transfer of information outside class time and reserving class time for students to apply and test their own understanding. In practice the instructor poses a conceptual question drawn from students' pre-class reading, students first commit to an individual answer, then discuss the question with classmates and commit again to a possibly revised answer, and the instructor reviews the results to decide whether more explanation is needed before moving on. Developed first in introductory undergraduate physics, the method has since spread into many other disciplines as a way to surface and correct misunderstandings during class rather than only after it.