Students as Perusall Managers – MANning discussions, MANAGing their own learning and GenERating new understanding

Abstract

This discussion on students as ‘Perusall Managers’ (PM) is situated within the context of undergraduate and postgraduate courses in a faculty of education at a university in Hong Kong. PM is an initiative developed to address a key challenge encountered in an initial Perusall trial where students were observed relying heavily on instructors to pose questions which they answered for task completion – with limited attempts at connecting ideas between posts and model answers expected from instructors. PM is inspired by the ‘students as partners’ model in which the instructor and students collaborate in achieving a common goal. Before a course begins, students are all assigned PM roles, with each pair/trio responsible for weekly readings. Their main duties include… • reading the texts at least a week ahead of the designated session, • bookmarking intriguing areas for peers’ attention, • kicking-start and facilitating discussions during the week, • bringing to class an unresolved issue for further exploration. Despite this practice being non-assessed, the outcome has been highly positive. Not only does it engage students in closer reading of texts but it also cultivates a collegial spirit of joint enquiry and eventually stronger bonding among students. Compared to a loose structure of everyone simply reading the same texts ‘together’, students are recorded taking greater ownership of their own learning as their PMs demonstrate leadership in initiating professional dialogues, inviting comments from peers and encouraging more voices to be heard instead of viewing the instructor as the ‘prompter’ and ‘answer person’. This recent post is a telling one: “I’m not too sure… Can my classmates help me…?” Even more uplifting is it to note higher-order questions emerging, being discussed and effectively tackled with the PMs’ concerted effort. Significant differences in the nature of posts are found: from lengthy, formally-worded and often disconnected ‘essay-type answers’ to less wordy, more personal and conversational exchanges, which interestingly provoke more in-depth discussions. What has evolved from the PM practice shows how Perusall may be used not only as a social platform that fosters reading and pre-class preparation but a learner-centred, learning-driven and empowering environment that promotes active co-construction of knowledge as well as community-building. I look forward to sharing this pedagogic practice of PMs MANing Perusall interactions, MANAGing their own learning and genERating (re)new(ed) understanding of theoretical concepts with educators, practitioners and researchers, and being stimulated to think of creative ways of enhancing the effectiveness of this approach.