National Summit on Teaching

Building an agenda for cooperative learning and peer teaching

in American schools and communities.

June 6-8, 2012 - Minneapolis, Minnesota

The Hoenny Center, in collaboration with the Cooperative Learning Institute, Edina, Minnesota, invited twenty experts on K12 peer teaching and cooperative learning research, policy, and practice to plan some next steps to move these two related classroom practices closer together and toward the front of the American education agenda.

Left to right:

Front row: Wendy Troxel, Marcella Wine-Snyder, Kira Hamann, Anni Krummel, Jerri Davenport

Second row: Josalynn Agnew, Lori Myers, Mary E. Bickel, Barbara Varnell, Ingrid Caldwell

Third row: Roger Johnson, David Johnson, Sara Fabick, Edye Holubec, Jennifer Hope, Steve Brandick

Fourth row: Gerald Sroufe, Terry Gates, Peter Hodne, Scott Hagin

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Why Peer Teaching?

PreK-12 students help each other learn every day. They teach each other.  Why wait until college to develop their teaching skills?

The success of collaborative learning, in and out of schools, depends on how well peers teach each other. Our purpose is to understand and improve this process in order to enhance learning in elementary and secondary schools. At the same time, we can strengthen students whose interest and effectiveness as peer teachers can lead them to consider teaching as a career.

Learning to teach well is good for learning and good for living. At the Hoenny Center, we seek to understand, improve, and support the teaching abilities of elementary and secondary school students. We review and do research, consult with students and professional teachers, and disseminate information. We believe that developing teaching abilities in k12 students will improve the field of candidates for teacher certification programs and, thus, strengthen the teachers who graduate from them.

21 Benefits of Celebrating K-12 Students' Peer-Teaching

We nurture all kinds of abilities in kids, why not teaching?

Here are some academic and behavioral benefits for ALL K-12 students when teachers encourage students to help each other learn, a list developed as we listened to teachers and others talk about peer teaching.

1. Improves students' subject matter achievement.
2. Increases student motivation for learning.
3. Provides opportunities for students to practice and improve teaching skills.
4. Increases students' engagement in and responsibility for learning.
5. Gives students a service model for helping others.
6. Supports the inclusion of those with disabilities.
7. Adds healthy options for students' time.
8. Provides before and after school opportunities—a way to extend the school day.
9. Supports improved Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for schools.
10. Motivates improved school attendance.
11. Acts as a drop-out prevention program and contributes to a higher graduation rate.
12. Encourages cooperative, rather than competitive, classroom behavior.
13. Acts as a learning tool for tutors and an effective support for peers.
14. Offers leadership opportunities for tutors and a model for peers.
15. Allows tutors to deepen their learning by breaking down content in order to share.
16. Leads to tutor's greater self esteem.
17. Gives struggling students an additional life line for success.
18. Provides an additional valuable teacher-directed classroom learning strategy.
19. Supports teachers' program to remediate needs of their students.
20. Helps high school students decide about teaching careers.
21. Provides a K-12 foundation for college teacher education preparation.

Each student excels in something. Peer teaching provides a framework for sharing their knowledge.

"To teach is to learn twice." Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)

Call 314.567.5111 or e-mail teachers@hoennycenter.org for a brochure on research-verified benefits of peer teaching.