What is Peer-Assisted Learning, and does it work?
The following is excerpted from the What Works Clearinghouse: www.whatworks.ed.gov. – a federal website which “provides educators, policymakers, researchers, and the public with a central and trusted source of scientific evidence of what works in education.” Peer-assisted practices are designed to improve academic outcomes by using students to teach one another in pairs or small groups. Interventions that use pairs or small groups of students to teach one another in schools (PALs) have been developed to engage children in learning and increase their academic achievement. PAL is widely used; in fact, two-thirds of classroom teachers engage students in work with their peers on a weekly basis, and as many as 50 percent of teachers receive training on PAL interventions annually. To date, 300 studies have been found on Peer-Assisted Learning.
