Perusall Exchange 2021
Thank you to everyone who participated in the Perusall Exchange 2021!
By popular demand, the conference will remain open so that the presentations, annotations, and recorded live sessions continue to be a resource and serve as a learning community. Watch the presentations and recorded sessions, then engage in the comments with fellow participants to keep the conversations going!
To watch sessions from Perusall Exchange 2021, create or log in to your Perusall account and join the course EXCHANGE-2021.
Watch Recorded Roundtable Discussions
Roundtable Discussion with Perusall Students
Moderated by Eric Mazur, Co-founder of Perusall
Maximizing Student Engagement with Perusall
Moderated by Lauren Barbeau, Assistant Director for Faculty Development and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), University of Georgia
Promoting Equity and Inclusivity with Perusall
Moderated by Pablo Valdivia, Professor, University of Groningen, Netherlands
Transitioning Back to Campus with Perusall
Moderated by Derek Bruff, Assistant Provost and Executive Director of the Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University and Eric Mazur, Co-founder of Perusall
Program Highlights
From Novice to Expert: Developing Students’ Metacognitive Reading Practices with Perusall
University of Georgia, Center for Teaching and Learning
Improve the Quality of your Students’ Annotations on Perusall with an Adaptable Scaffolding Tool
SALTISE (www.saltise.ca) & John Abbott College, Physics
Perusall Pedagogy for Inclusivity and Active Learning
George Mason University, Psychology
Perusall Pedagogy for Inclusivity and Active Learning
The University of Texas at Austin, College of Fine Arts
Party on Perusall: How to Make Reading Together More Fun
Columbus State University, English
Conference Program
Perusall: Facilitating SOFLA in Second Language Pre-service and In-service Teacher Education.
Angélica Meza
Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas and Instituto Caro y Cuervo, Education
Bogotá, Colombia
Synchronous Online Flipped Learning Approach (SOFLA) arises as an opportunity to engage and empower students who are enrolled in ESL and SSL teaching education programs. SOFLA outlines a cycle that requires interaction to develop in-class and out-of-class activities and this interactive component is facilitated and maximized through Perusall. Currently, my students benefit from learning together by posting reflections, questions and comments that make my lessons student-centered classes and make me a facilitator in their learning process.
Student Reactions to Perusall
Matthew Bergbower
Indiana State University, Political Science
Terre Haute, IN, United States
My research examines classroom experiences with Perusall, with specific attention given to student reactions to using Perusall. Survey responses are captured from students on whether their course grade was higher or lower because of Perusall, if they read more or less because of Perusall, if the overall workload in the course was high or low, among others. The results suggest a vast majority of students have positive reactions to using Perusall.
Perusall: a "Swiss Knife" Tool for Active Learning in Blended Environments
Nuria Hernandez Nanclares
Universidad de Oviedo (Spain), Applied Economics department
Oviedo, Spain
With so many remote classes, the challenge of having students engaging in the learning process has become even more urgent. Perusall reveals itself as a "Swiss knife" tool that supports student engagement and active learning. A reflection framework is proposed, combining two dimensions: where students and teachers are and when and with whom students work.
Improve the Quality of your Students’ Annotations on Perusall with an Adaptable Scaffolding Tool
Phoebe Jackson
SALTISE (www.saltise.ca) & John Abbott College, Physics
Montreal, Canada
This session showcases a scaffolding tool that helps address three challenges teachers face when using Perusall: low annotation quality, the tendency to use Perusall for Q&A rather than a critical exploration of the text; and a decrease in engagement over time. This session encourages a discussion of best practices for scaffolding students’ use of Perusall and offers a free tool that attendees can download and use as is, or modify to their needs (www.saltise.ca).
Embedding a Communication Backchannel within a Course using Perusall
Justin C. Medina
Lycoming College, Criminal Justice-Criminology
Williamsport, PA, United States
Student buy-in and engagement are perennial classroom issues. Perusall reading assignments help address these obstacles by providing an asynchronous backchannel of communication between students, peers, and the instructor. Students who rarely engage in class discussions can actively participate in low-stakes writing that enhances the learning process. Implementing this assignment to assess critical thinking and managing the volume of student annotations is challenging.
Party on Perusall: How to Make Reading Together More Fun
Susan E. Hrach
Columbus State University, English
Columbus, Georgia, United States
Setting an inviting tone through your course materials and annotations can keep students motivated to persist in dense, difficult subjects. Instructors can model enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity by using Perusall's annotation tools, making the course welcoming and fun. In this session, we'll experience the visual impact of a wide variety of learning materials, as well as the difference it makes to encourage students to connect material to their own knowledge and experiences.
Perusall in a Graduate Student TA-training & Professional Development Course
Brokk K. Toggerson
University of Massachusetts Amherst, Physics, Amherst, MA, United States
Graduate students face several important transitions: becoming a researcher, a teacher, and a colleague. These transitions require specific skills: reading research, giving presentations, and navigating issues of diversity in the workplace. At UMass-Amherst incoming physics Ph.D. students begin developing these skills in a dedicated seminar through the lens of TA training. Students read journal articles about physics education in Perusall: simultaneously honing students’ ability to read research articles and introducing them to teaching best-practices.
Keeping ESL Learners Engaged in Online Reading Activities on Perusall
Lama Masri
Frederick Community College, Adult Education and ESOL, Frederick, MD, United States
Creating activities for ESL learners on Perusall allows learners to apply strategies needed to develop and improve their reading skill. Learners are able to interact with the reading passage, respond to prompts, and engage in discussions with other learners. Instructors are able to customize activities to meet the reading goals for their classes, and track, view, and respond to students’ posts. Reading in online ESL classes can be as engaging as in physical classes.
Stop Sweating the Small Stuff: Saving Time for What is Most Important with Perusall
Bro. Thomas M. Terrill, S.M.
Chaminade High School, Religion Department, Mineola, NY, United States
As educators, we know that time is precious. Time spent in-person with our students is even more valuable. So why squander that limited time on humdrum reading assignments tempting them to mine the text for simple answers. Perusall helps us ensure that our students read the entire passage while saving us time to focus on what’s most important: our students!
Using PhET Sims in Perusall
Ted Clark
The Ohio State University, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Columbus, OH, United States
PhET sims have been an essential part of my in-person general chemistry class for years. When forced to transition to online learning, I made sure to take PhET sims with me by including them in videos delivered with Perusall. I will discuss how Perusall provided me with insights into how students interact with instructor-led demonstrations and share suggestions for using PhET sims asynchronously.
When Skimming is More Important than Reading
Matt Lamparter, Alan Cheville
Bucknell University, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Lewsiburg, PA, United States
In a second-year design course for engineers, Perusall enables us to better use class time to focus on tacit knowledge. To address tacit knowledge the course is heavily scaffolded, taking students on a week-by-week journey that leads from idea to instantiation. We want to start a conversation about how Perusall can be used to: find particular information within rather than read the whole document, organize and archive sources, and how to archive comments so Perusall can be used as a Wiki or FAQ.
“It’s actually kind of fun”: Implementing Ludic Pedagogy and Perusall
Sharon Lauricella
Ontario Tech University, Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, Oshawa, ON, Canada
This session will introduce the Ludic Pedagogy model, which consists of fun, play, playfulness, and humour in the undergraduate classroom. The session will address results of a student survey regarding their satisfaction with Perusall, and how students identified and appreciated the social nature of Perusall. We will discuss student reports that Perusall is “actually kind of fun” because it made reading less isolating and more interactive.
Participatory Technology and Community Building in a Public Economics Asynchronous Class
Veronika Dolar
SUNY Old Westbury, Politics, Economics and Law, Old Westbury, NY, United States
I use Persuall for two separate sets of readings - together worth 40% of students’ final grade. The first one is for actively engaging with the textbook material. The second one is for Weekly Read and Annotate Assignments where we carefully read one or two newspaper articles related to the topic covered in class. These assignments are intended to cultivate a collaborative reading experience that allows us all to engage one another and the materials in a thoughtful, social, and dynamic way. Annotating in detail and in this collaborative form is a step towards developing larger analyses and strategic reading skills. This helps builds a community that promotes peer-to-peer learning and diverse cultural expression.
Perusall Brings Learning Activities to Life
Edythe P. Wakevainen
Macomb Community College, Psychology, Warren, MI, United States
Based on three true-or-false questions regarding Perusall, this interactive presentation addresses the use of Perusall in various activities designed to help students achieve learning outcomes. These activities are used in diverse subject areas and could easily be adapted across the curriculum. The presentation provides evidence that students react positively to their Perusall-based work.
Framing Perusall Annotations within Indigenous Principles of Learning and Teaching
Tomiko, B., Yoneda
University of Victoria, Psychology, Victoria, Canada
While there is extensive and nuanced diversity across Indigenous Peoples, there are some overarching commonalities across Indigenous approaches to learning and teaching. This presentation will focus on the extent to which weekly Perusall annotations contribute to Indigenous Ways of Knowing, Being and Doing by promoting critical thinking and shared analysis, interconnection and reflection, and bidirectional relationships. In this presentation, I will further elucidate these Indigenous Principles of Learning and Teaching with accompanying Perusall examples.
Perusall Pedagogy for Inclusivity and Active Learning
Alison H Melley
George Mason University, Psychology, Gaithersburg, VA, United States
In this interactive presentation, I will describe an interteaching approach taken in large enrollment courses. Students work together to solve problems on an instructor-created pdf in Perusall, then identify their most pressing questions. They come to class to find out the answers to these questions and are then responsible for submitting their own answers to the questions posed in Perusall. This approach has been applied in face-to-face classes as well as synchronous and asynchronous online courses.
Ginormous Textbooks: How to use Perusall When your Textbook is Just Too Long
Steve Yalisove
University of Michigan, Materials Science and Engineering, Ann Arbor, MI, United States
Sadly, textbooks tend to become really thick as they approach the 5th or higher editions. They become more like encyclopedias instead of easy to read books. Yet, either your department demands you use it or it is simply the best book. How can you assign 80 pages of dense technical text for thoughtful reading before every class? Your students will revolt. This talk will offer a way to solve this problem by creating reading problems with links to the parts of the text or recorded lecture in Perusall, that can be used as reference. This taps into our student's well honed hunter-gatherer skills. Keeping everything in Perusall allows your class to interact and reap the benefits of Perusall's team-based social platform.
Gamification in Learning using Perusall
Mahalingam P R
Muthoot Institute of Technology and Science, Computer Science and Engineering
Ernakulam, India
When learning goes online, learner engagement becomes a top priority. Perusall’s annotation tools promote learner engagement through gamification in the classroom. In order to implement gamification, three major metrics can be used - auto grading score, active reading time percentage, and upvotes. The end result will be a consolidated set of points that have been decided based on the time spent on learning the content, quality of annotations, and helpfulness of annotations. In principle, this is a good measure of how well the content has been consumed by each student. This concept was tested in one course during Fall 2020, and was found to correlate well with ground truth.
Just in Time Chemistry in Perusall
Kristen D. Fulfer
Centre College, Chemistry
Danville, KY, United States
In my general chemistry courses, I implement Just in Time Teaching (JiTT) where students are asked to respond to content before class. Recently, I started using Perusall for JiTT. I give students prompts either through assignment instructions or comments that I post throughout the text or video. Students respond as well as post their own comments and questions throughout. I am able to tailor our class time to focus on common areas of confusion.
Strategy inspired by Inquiry-based Learning
Manuela Francisco, Cristina Amado
Universidade Aberta, Distance education and elearrning
Lisboa, Portugal
Perusall was integrated with the LMS of Universidade Aberta (Portugal) and it will be used this semester as a pilot in one Curricular Unit. Two classes are involved with 68 students each. We´ve designed an activity in Perusall, where students have to read a document about the techniques to create accessible digital content, elaborate questions about it and vote on the 3 questions they consider to have aroused the most interest on the topic.
Ambient Literacy: Using Perusall to Eavesdrop on Discipline-Specific Development
Mickey S Schafer
University of Florida, University Writing Program
Gainesville, FL, United States
As a teacher of discipline-specific prose, I believe that writing as a practitioner powers the process of becoming that practitioner. But what do students think about this belief? Like “showing your work” in math, Perusall annotations reveal student stances, reactions, and postures rarely glimpsed during class discussion, a scrying tool into the developing student mind. In this presentation, we’ll examine the joy of eavesdropping and how entering this ongoing conversation impacts lesson-making.
Modified Perusall Use to Focus on Engagement and Seminar Skills Within and Between Disciplines
Karen A. Aicher
Bridgewater State University, Communication Sciences and Disorders
Bridgewater, MA, United States
This session describes the process used for implementing Perusall as part of graduate coursework in allied health programs to foster increased engagement and develop asynchronous discussion skills regarding evidence-based practice. The goal of the interactive portion is to hold a brain-storming session with other workshop participants about how to gain interdisciplinary support and how to structure our assignments on Perusall in ways that are meaningful for our students, their faculty mentors, and our community partners.
Perusall: An Online Social Platform to Enhance Formative Assessment
Comfort M. Ateh
Providence College, Secondary Education
Providence, RI, United States
Instructors all around the world are excited about the benefits of Perusall in engaging students in reading prior to class. Another benefit of Perusall is enhancing formative assessment: A planned ongoing process to elicit and use evidence of student learning to improve student understanding of intended learning outcomes. On Perusall, students are more likely to share their authentic knowledge, which is at the core of effective formative assessment process.
Small Teaching: Building Community in the Online Classroom
Dr. Brent Scholar
Arizona State University, Leadership and Integrative Studies
Tempe, AZ, United States
In this session join me as we explore “small teaching” concepts, such as building community, creating a space for peer-to-peer interaction, and giving learners autonomy to choose the material they find most interesting and want to discuss with their peers. Participants will participate in an activity to experience what their engagement could look and feel like and learn what they can do to encourage participation within Perusall.
Are Perusall’s Scoring Analytics an Ethnocentric Form of Panopticism?
John Peacock
Maryland Institute College of Art, Humanistic Studies
Baltimore, MD, United States
I asked this question of international students from cultures where one doesn’t ask elders a lot of questions or compete with peers. The students, who had used Perusall to annotate the chapter “Panopticism” in Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, concluded that while Perusall is ethnocentrically panoptic, they enjoyed it as a peer-centered break from the filiopietistic ways in which they had traditionally been educated before coming to the United States.
Spacing, Engagement, and Self-Testing in Economics Courses
Gabriel Xavier Martinez
Ave Maria University, Economics
Ave Maria, FL, United States
To make sure students prepared for exams, three economics courses had a video, a Perusall reading, and a learning check in each chapter section. Better students solidified their As; middle students did better by a letter grade; both failures and Bs were more frequent among weaker students. Perusall grades predicted over-performance for middle students. Perusall made students put material in their own words, ask and answer questions, and identify the important parts of the reading.
Havin' a Jam: Synchronous Social Annotations with Perusall
Dagmar Scharold
University of Houston-Downtown, English (Dagmar Scharold) and Technology Learning Services (Manuel Fernandez)
Houston, TX, United States
We will focus on using Perusall to create a synchronous annotation jam where students and the instructor read and annotate the text together. In an annotation jam, the instructor becomes part of the class, introducing relevant Perusall functionalities and modeling annotation practices. Students can see all annotations in real time, thereby making reading as visible to students as writing.
Addressing the Wicked Problem of Feedback during the Teaching Practicum with Perusall
Carisma Nel, Elma Marais
North-West University, Education
Potchefstroom, South Africa
Student dissatisfaction with feedback during the teaching practicum presents a “wicked” problem that requires a strategic partnership approach between the teacher educator, mentor teacher and student teacher. The purpose of this exploratory case study is to provide an overview of student teachers’ perspectives on the use of Perusall, especially with regard to the practice-based pedagogy of video analysis, to ensure greater collaboration on the “wicked” problem of feedback by all partners during the teaching practicum.
Students as Perusall Managers - MANNing Discussions, MANAGing their own Learning and GenERating New Understanding
Nicole J. Tavares
The University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Education
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Students-as-Perusall-Managers (PM) is an initiative developed to address students’ over-reliance on instructors to pose and answer questions. Adopting a students-as-partners model, PMs are assigned to kick-start and MANAGE interactions. With PMs, significant differences in the nature of posts are noted: from formally-worded and often disconnected ‘essay-type answers’ to more personal and conversational exchanges which genERate deeper thinking and quality dialogues. This practice demonstrates the potential of Perusall not only as a social platform that fosters collaborative reading but a learner-centered, learning-driven and empowering environment that promotes joint inquiry and community-building.
Modeling Expert Reading Strategies: Induction into Communities of Practice
Carla Reyes
The College of Wooster, Academic Resource Center
Wooster, OH, United States
Many college undergraduates begin their intensive higher-level learning with underdeveloped reading strategies and struggle to cope with the large amount of texts they are assigned. A modeling approach can induct developing readers into a more efficient community of practice, but it requires a significant time investment. By using the collaborative highlighting and conversations features in Perusall, it may be possible to give developing readers an “insider’s view” of the metacognitive strategies applied in real time by expert readers.
A Novice's Experience in Perusall
Magda Lillalí Rendón García
UNAM, FCPyS
Ciudad de México, México
Perusall makes group work easier to manage. The objective is to analyze documents based on the students' depth of knowledge. The successes were: agility, interaction, integration, expansion of knowledge, collaborative work. The mistakes were: technical problems, extra time to handle the resource, the skills of the participants, the skills and previous knowledge that were very uneven.
Collaborative Peer Review
Robert,W,Wilson
The Juilliard School, Liberal Arts
New York, NY, United States
In this presentation, I describe how to use Perusall to collaboratively peer review essays, and the benefits of this approach. After comparing a traditional method of peer review, with that enabled by Perusall, I argue that Perusall is superior because it facilitates the process and leads to collective learning. This is because Perusall permits public conversations, allowing participants to discuss ideas in depth, as opposed to making singular, and perhaps, repetitive, contributions.
Virtual Team-Based Learning in Pharmacotherapy During the Pandemic
Vanessa E Millisor
Wayne State University and Henry Ford Hospital, Pharmacy Practice
Detroit, MI, United States
Team-based learning (TBL) is an interactive learning strategy which improves critical thinking and collaboration skills. Utilizing an innovative approach, we applied three online platforms to transform our TBL into a virtual experience: Perusall, Canvas, and Zoom. Perusall allowed students and instructors to collaboratively markup patient cases. It facilitated the achievement of different components of TBL including the application of in-class activities, simultaneous reporting on case questions, and immediate feedback on application of learning material.
Three Strategies to Build Community for the Hybrid Campus
Laurie Mook
Arizona State University, School of Community Resources and Development
Phoenix, AZ, United States
The hybrid campus emerged in a big way this last year and is not likely to disappear as higher education reimagines how it will operate in the future. Bringing students together from various geographic and functional communities requires careful thought. This session demonstrates how to use Perusall as a tool to build a learner-community. You will learn how to: • Use your syllabus to practice social annotation • Clarify assignment instructions in interactive ways • Stimulate student ideation
Boost Peer Feedback with the SHAC Technique - Share, Help, Ask, Comment
Helaine W. Marshall
Long Island University-Hudson, Teacher Education
White Plains, NY, United States
The Synchronous Online Flipped Learning Approach, or SOFLA®, (Marshall & Kostka, 2020) combines flipped learning with online learning in an eight-step learning cycle with structured, interactive, multimodal activities, both asynchronous and synchronous. Integral to SOFLA® is peer feedback, and students are trained in the SHAC Technique – Share, Help, Ask, and Comment (Fethi & Marshall, 2018). Perusall is an ideal tool for using SHAC to encourage peer feedback, engage students in social annotation, and increase interaction.
Comparing Online Student Engagement in Discussion vs. Annotation
Christopher L. Schedler
Central Washington University, English
Ellensburg, WA, United States
For a new online “Introduction to Literature” course developed with an open education textbook, I designed two types of assignments to foster student-to-student and student-to-content interaction: 1) online discussions in Canvas, and 2) online annotations in Perusall. Based on learning analytics and student surveys, I compare online student engagement with peers and digital texts in these two types of assignments. Participants will discuss best practices for creating and facilitating online assignments that foster student engagement.
No More Fake Reading: Benefits of Social Annotation in a Hybrid High School English Class
Charles E. Youngs
Bethel Park High School, English Language Arts
Pittsburgh, PA, United States
This session reports an English teacher’s experience in remote, concurrent teaching situations at a high school near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, using Perusall with students for the first time, and presents qualitative results suggesting the e-reader provides an effective means to improve study and discussion of complex literary texts. Where virtual class meetings often fell silent, Perusall's asynchronous small group discussions gained traction and promoted close reading, participation, and comprehension. Exemplars, assessment, and student response are presented.
Perusall-based Cognitive and Metacognitive Student Engagement Strategies in Asynchronous Classroom
Joanna Alcruz, PhD
Molloy College, School of Education and Human Services -Educational Leadership For Diverse Learning Communities Ed.D Program
Rockville Centre, NY, United States
In the context of an asynchronous course, Perusall was essential in building a community of learners in a non-threatening learning environment, where all become equal participants in forming individual and shared understanding. Cognitive and metacognitive strategies focused on the self-assessment of misconceptions, peer engagement with text, and the weekly reflections on conceptual change and applications of knowledge. The Perusall student exchanges were then synthesized by the professor to reinforce the main points learned in the lesson.
How we “Institutionalized” Perusall at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Erwin A. van Vliet
University of Amsterdam, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences, Center for Neuroscience
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
What started,at the University of Amsterdam in September 2019, as a pilot in which Perusall was used in one course with 60 users,evolved into a professional organization to support more than 400 courses with over 8000 users within the whole university, including a Perusall helpdesk and a website for support. We would like to share our key steps in this process.
Teaching Students to Analyze Primary Data Using CREATE and Perusall
Karen L. Myhr
Wayne State University, Department of Biological Sciences
Detroit, MI, United States
CREATE is a method to guide novices through reading and analyzing the primary literature. Adding CREATE-in-Perusall assignments before synchronous discussions added to the flexibility of asynchronous learning, created accountability, and enhanced preparation for the discussions. Students had time to gather their thoughts, which equalized contributions across communication styles and cleared up basic questions so synchronous discussions could focus on more complex issues. 1. Hoskins, Stevens and Nehm (2007) Genetics 176: 1381-1389.
Experience of Using the Perusall Tool in an Introductory Programming Course
Irene Hernández Ruiz
Universidad Nacional, Informatics
Heredia, Costa Rica
One of the most useful elements of Perusall is its algorithm that analyzes the students comments and produces a report on those areas of the reading material that have given the students the most problems. The Confusion Report provides the instructor with the information needed to prepare the class session to focus on content students have engaged with. The subject chosen to implement Perusall is Fundamentals of Computer Science, a first year course in the Information Systems Engineering program at the School of Computer Science of the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. The course is taught in Spanish and has 25 students enrolled.
Making it Personal with Perusall and TED Talks
Vickie T. Fedele
University of Delaware, Associate in Arts Program
Wilmington, DE, United States
In this session, I will discuss the power of combining TED Talks with Perusall annotations to make remote classes seem more personal. The evocative subject matter of TED Talks inspires students to connect with the speaker, and the annotation of the talks inspires them to connect with each other. If synchronous class discussion follows the Perusall exercise, it is particularly robust and lively, providing even more opportunity for students to feel engaged in the course.
Practical Architectural Support for Training the Discipline of Reading
W., Blake, Laing
Southern Adventist University, Physics and Engineering
Collegedale, TN, United States
When I challenge my students to develop the new discipline of reading their textbook before class, the Perusall social reading platform lets me construct an asynchronous supportive learning community in which students can articulate a question and expect an answer. Participation is rewarded with attention. Knowing that students need encouragement to dive into a difficult reading, I record short “chapter trailers." Perusall has enabled a workflow in Just-In-Time teaching that is more natural and efficient.
#SayMore: Using Perusall Out of Class to Focus Classroom Discussion
Jonathon E. Morgan
United States Military Academy, Behavioral Sciences and Leadership
West Point, NY, United States
I assigned 10 "extra credit" readings via Perusall - the assignment was for students to read an article, comment, and submit a one page reflection paper in the course LMS. After 5 iterations, I change the guidance, removing the reflection paper and instructing students to engage with the article using Perusall to comment, question, and share key learnings. I saw a >20% increase in student engagement and experienced livelier class discussion. Is Perusall to thank?
Increasing Team Engagement with Perusall
K. Chimène Gecewicz
University of South Alabama, Global USA
Mobile, AL, United States
I have been using Team-Based Learning in my classes for the past five years. Normally the preparation phase is an individual activity, but with Perusall, I saw the potential to turn this phase of the cycle into an additional opportunity for team engagement. I instructed students to work with their teammates to anticipate questions that might appear on the in-class readiness assurance test. Students are now engaging more deeply with the text and their teammates.
Social Readings of Construction Documents for Interactive and Engaging Project-Based Learning
Hongtao Dang
Central Washington University, Engineering Technologies, Safety, and Construction
Ellensburg, WA, United States
Reading construction documents is a fundamental and essential skill for any architectural, civil engineering, or construction professionals to perform design, estimating, scheduling, and construction work. Perusall enables students to read construction documents, add annotations, and respond to questions while acting in different roles. Social reading stimulates student interests in studying construction documents and promotes an interactive and engaging learning environment in the classroom, helping assess and personalize education to the needs of students’ learning.
Academic Reading Circles for ESL Students
Charity D Davenport
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, English Language Institute
Knoxville, TN, United States
In this presentation, participants will learn how Academic Reading Circles, created by Tyson Seburn (2016), encourages close, active reading, improves reading comprehension, and promotes collaboration via annotations. ARC is a jigsaw group activity targeted to adult ESL students in EAP (English for Academic Purposes) courses. In ARCs, students have different roles, such as finding main ideas, explaining background information, finding images and video related to the reading, key vocabulary, and making connections to other readings.
Analyzing Art Speak in Perusall
Lara Allen
Pratt Institute, Intensive English Program
Brooklyn, NY, United States
This session illustrates the identification of lexical collocations for adoption within Perusall. Through collaborative analysis, we focus on recognizing language patterns and identifying potential pitfalls when reading a text from a specialized field. By dissecting an art related text through social annotation, the hope is for students to not only recognize common groups of words, but also to cultivate discernment when employing new language patterns.
From Novice to Expert: Developing Students’ Metacognitive Reading Practices with Perusall
Lauren M. W. Barbeau
University of Georgia, Center for Teaching and Learning
Athens, GA, United States
Critical thinking across disciplines depends on an ability to comprehend and respond to course readings, but students often lack reading strategies needed to make sense of material and avoid reading altogether. Educators forget that reading is a skill to be mastered within a discipline. This session introduces participants to the meta-reading skills they employ as expert readers in their disciplines with a focus on using Perusall to help students move from novice to expert readers.
Use of Perusall for Collaborative Self-Directed Learning Activities in a Cloud Computing Course
Qusay H. Mahmoud
Ontario Tech University, Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering
Oshawa, Canada
In this presentation I will report on my experience in implementing Perusall for collaborative self-directed learning activities as asynchronous elements of a Cloud Computing course I delivered in Winter 2021. I will present survey results and student feedback from the course, discuss lessons learned, and offer suggestions for improvement.
Setting the Stage for Student Engagement with a Syllabus Assignment in Perusall
Julie A. Schell, Nikki Rodelas
The University of Texas at Austin, College of Fine Arts
Austin, TX, United States
The syllabus, an emblem of higher education, is often one of the most dreaded course artifacts for students and faculty alike. Unlike the traditional lecture, the syllabus is also a perennial document that has gone through minimal improvements in style or delivery over time. We will provide participants with a precedent for using Perusall to make their syllabus come alive and drive student engagement from day one of online or in-person courses.
Perusall as Knowledge Democratizer and Active Social Learning Enhancer
Pablo Valdivia, Hans Beldhuis, Koos Winnips
University of Groningen, European Culture and Literature
Groningen, The Netherlands
In our presentation, we will share our educational innovation at the University of Groningen, where we transformed traditional passive culture and literature courses into 21st-century learning experiences that efficiently prepare students to develop the skills to not only successfully complete their academic studies but also excel in their future professional career paths: from team-based learning to effective written and oral communication.
Analyzing the Breaks: Teaching Hip Hop History with Perusall
Katherine Jewell
Fitchburg State University, History
Fitchburg, MA, United States
In Hip Hop History and Culture, I had to pivot my class to online because of Covid-19. In moving video and song discussions to Perusall, I discovered new ways to engage students with primary source analysis and multimedia engagement that exceed discussions in a traditional classroom setting.
Perusall in Blended Learning Designs (and scaffolding through instruction and feedback)
Vincent de Boer, Hans Beldhuis, Koos Winnips
University of Groningen, Educational Support and Innovation
Groningen, The Netherlands
Though the power of Perusall as a tool for student preparation is evident, collaborative and interactive learning is not always reached. In our presentation we will focus on (research on) how blended learning design, with a learning cycle of instruction and feedback on both content and approach strategies, can enhance interaction, collaboration and learning on higher cognitive levels. During the session we want to show participants ways to incorporate Perusall in a blended learning design.