Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) is a variation of

peer-mediated instruction Peer-mediated instruction (PMI) is an approach in special education where peers of the target students are trained to provide necessary tutoring in educational, behavioral, and/or social concerns.(Chan et al., 2009). In PMI, peers may mediate by m ...

that has been used in elementary, middle school, and high school classrooms. In CWPT students form pairs and take turns in the roles of tutor and student. Students earn points for their teams by participating in the tutoring and the winning team is recognized. Researchers have investigated CWPT's effectiveness in several different academic areas.

Description

Classwide Peer Tutoring (CWPT) is a form of

where the teacher creates pairs of students that alternately fill the roles of tutor and student. The tutor asks questions, records points, and provides feedback on whether the student's response matches the correct response designated by the teacher. The student responds orally and/or in writing to the questions and practices the correct answer three times when errors are made. The teacher supervises the tutoring and awards points for good tutoring. A classroom's student pairs are divided into two teams, and they earn points for their respective teams by answering questions correctly, correcting their incorrect answers, and tutoring appropriately. At the end of a week, the team that has earned the most points is recognized as the winning team. CWPT has been used to help students learn

spelling Spelling is a set of conventions that regulate the way of using graphemes (writing system) to represent a language in its written form. In other words, spelling is the rendering of speech sound (phoneme) into writing (grapheme). Spelling is one ...

, math facts, basic word reading, reading fluency,

vocabulary A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...

, and facts related to an area of study. There appear to be more published studies of CWPT with positive outcomes in the area of spelling than in other areas. The CWPT technique has been used with several different age levels: pre-school, elementary, middle school, and high school. CWPT was initially developed and researched in the early 1980s at the Juniper Gardens Children's Project at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

Rationale

The developers of CWPT suggest that this technique provides students more opportunities to practice content or skills, encourages them to engage in

active learning Active learning is "a method of learning in which students are actively or experientially involved in the learning process and where there are different levels of active learning, depending on student involvement." states that "students partici ...

, and lets them receive immediate feedback. CWPT is also thought to provide students with practice using

social skills A social skill is any competence facilitating interaction and communication with others where social rules and relations are created, communicated, and changed in verbal and nonverbal ways. The process of learning these skills is called sociali ...

Evaluation of effectiveness

Research findings

CWPT has been effective for teaching spelling to both students in

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and students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ( ADHD), mild

intellectual disabilities Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation, Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signifi ...

, and

learning disabilities Learning disability, learning disorder, or learning difficulty (British English) is a condition in the brain that causes difficulties comprehending or processing information and can be caused by several different factors. Given the "difficult ...

. CWPT has helped improve the sight word retention and reading fluency of students with average school achievement, low school achievement, and learning disabilities. CWPT has also been shown to improve math fact fluency among students with and without disabilities, and it has increased the math achievement scores of middle school students with ADHD. There is also evidence that CWPT helps students of different ages learn facts, such as health and safety information, history material, and social studies concepts. CWPT has also been documented as having positive effects on the social skills and number of social interactions of students with mild disabilities and

high functioning autism High-functioning autism (HFA) is an autism classification where a person exhibits no intellectual disability, but may exhibit deficits in communication, emotion recognition and expression, and social interaction. HFA is not included in eithe ...

. There is also research demonstrating CWPT's effectiveness for teaching students of different ages and ability levels physical skills such as catching, striking a ball with a paddle, and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation skills.

Evaluation as an evidence-based practice

What Works Clearinghouse rating

The

United States Department of Education The United States Department of Education is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Departme ...

What Works Clearinghouse What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is a digital library of educational research which focuses on evidence-based education. A 2006 report described that many researchers perceived the WWC to be passive cataloger of available research. In contrast to ...

has evaluated CWPT for effectiveness in the areas of General Reading Achievement and English Language Learning (ELL). These evaluations resulted in a "potentially positive" effectiveness rating in the area of General Reading Achievement for elementary school students, and no rating for ELL due to the fact that no existing studies met What Works Clearinghouse criteria for evaluation. What Works Clearinghouse does not currently provide reports for CWPT's effectiveness in any other areas.

Promising Practices Network rating

Promising Practices Network considers CWPT a "Proven Program". The website states that CWPT meets full criteria for a "Proven Program" by having research outcomes that fall in the category of the website's target areas, having at least one outcome that is changed by at least 20% or .25 standard deviations, having at least one outcome with a statistically significant and meaningful

effect size In statistics, an effect size is a value measuring the strength of the relationship between two variables in a population, or a sample-based estimate of that quantity. It can refer to the value of a statistic calculated from a sample of data, the ...

, having studies that use comparison groups, having studies with sample sizes of 30 or more, and by having research findings publicly available.

Criticisms

A few studies have shown CWPT to have few advantages over more traditional methods of classroom instruction with middle or high school students, such as teacher-centered instruction or independent practice. Researchers have also found that while CWPT may increase the positive social interactions of students with ADHD during the tutoring, it does not necessarily affect their social behavior in other settings.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Classwide Peer Tutoring Education by method Peer learning Teaching Special education