Learning Moment between Grade 8 and Grade 9

"To teach is to learn twice" is an adage at work in a growing number of classrooms at Houssam Hariri High School. We, teachers, are finding allies among our students, as the effectiveness and possibilities of students teaching their peers and younger students is becoming increasingly evident in research and in practice. After sharing with 9th graders my concerns about how 8th graders are having a problem in the factorization of algebraic expressions, we collaboratively arranged a study group where six students from Grade 9 B clarified mathematical concepts Grade 8 students might have been confused about.

During the activity, Grade 8 was divided into six groups of four. In each group, a student of grade 9 acted as the group leader who was responsible not only for the learning outcome and the academic achievement of each one in his group, but also for assessing and evaluating their understanding through a quiz that was prepared and corrected by them. Besides, the performance of both grade levels was evaluated following a rubric after which they were asked to write reflections evaluating their performance.

Some of my students' reflections are:

“Because of an interesting activity I worked on lately in Math, I was very proud and satisfied where I felt that I can really depend on myself. It was somehow a kind of responsible task where I was supposed to do an assessment to evaluate other students. In other words, I took the role of a teacher and figured out how responsible I should be. When the students got satisfactory results, deep inside I had a feeling of a very high self confidence and pride with what I did”. Ziad Arkadan.

“I think that the peer work was very beneficial for all of us, because this cooperative work led to a deeper understanding of the lesson’s concepts for me and my younger peers. In all, it was a very creative way to attain a more fun educational session that made the students loosen up and enjoy the learning process”. Natalia El Sayyed.

“I am very happy that Miss Karen believed in my abilities and gave me this opportunity to depend on myself. The results achieved by my group were great, and gave me a great push into achieving more and more. I hope that Miss Karen would give me the opportunity to go through this experience again.” Hasan El Araby.

“I think that this activity was very effective since we shared our knowledge with students about our age. I think that we were able to deliver the lesson to them in a clear and simple way. I also believe that this activity developed some essential skills within us such as those of leadership and self-expression. In short, it was a very challenging experience that I would like to try again”. Soumaya Joubaie

“I believe that the teaching process that I experienced was a very challenging exercise because I learnt how to deal with students and be on the other side of the equation”. Faysal Antar

“In my opinion, it was a great idea to teach others, and help them in understanding a Mathematical concept. I enjoyed the activity since I was teaching and learning at the same time”. Ranya Sayyad

Karen Zein