Perusall Exchange®

Moderated by Pablo Valdivia, Professor at the University of Groningen, Netherlands, instructors participated in a live discussion about how to promote equity and inclusivity in the classroom using the Perusall platform.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Manuela Francisco and Cristina Amado Universidade Aberta, Distance Education and E-Learning 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.

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.

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.

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. "

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"

Co-moderated by Derek Bruff, Assistant Provost and Executive Director of the Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University and Eric Mazur, Co-founder of Perusall, the final live session of the Perusall Exchange 2021 focused on the return to in-person teaching and how Perusall can help with the transition.

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.

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.

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.

Alan Cheville, Matt Lamparter Bucknell University, Electrical and 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.

Sharon Lauricella Ontario Tech University, Faculty of Social Sciences 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.

Despite the call for change, passive teaching methods are common in medical education. Active learning can decrease cognitive load and positively impact long-term retention. Perusall was selected to support active learning activities and deliver preparatory materials to first-year medical students (n=125) in a basic science course. This strategy was compared to providing students with a pre-recorded lecture. The findings demonstrated that Perusall was effective in increasing engagement, motivating reading through social annotation and shared understanding, and ultimately enhancing academic performance in midterm and final exams.