Using Interteaching to Enhance Student Engagement and Learning

83 T he less than adequate characteristics of traditional lecture-based educational methods are well established. Research indicates that lecture alone leads to student passivity, does little to promote retention of learned material, discourages interaction between students and instructors, and makes it difficult for instructors to obtain timely feedback about student understanding. Research on educational outcomes shows that effective teaching typically accomplishes the opposite: promotes student engagement, furthers long-term retention via rehearsal, increases interaction among students and instructors, results in useful feedback from students, and is generally enjoyed by students and instructors (McKeachie, 2002). Interteaching is an educational method developed by Boyce & Hineline (2002) to adapt Keller’s (1968) Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) into a form more palatable to university course formats. Keller developed PSI to address what he perceived as undesirable characteristics of lecture-based teaching. To address these limitations, he applied operant conditioning principles in the university classroom. In PSI, course material is divided into units which are sequenced by order of difficulty. Students study one unit at a time until they demonstrate mastery of the material on an exam. Students, therefore, complete the units at their own pace. During a PSI course, optional lectures may be given, primarily to enhance student motivation. Proctors, typically graduates of the course, provide tutoring and mark assignments. The instructor’s primary roles are to structure the course, supervise proctors, and construct exams. 14