What is Interteaching? SGISD’s Dr. James Soldner and Colleagues Publish a New Guide for Instructors & Researchers

UMass Boston’s Dr. James Soldner and colleagues Dr. Rocío Rosales (UMass Lowell), Dr. Catherine Gayman (Troy University), and Dr. Stephanie Jimenez (University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown) published an article in Behavior Analysis in Practice titled 20 Years of Interteaching Research and Practice: A Tutorial for its Use in the Classroom.

Interteaching is an evidence-based teaching method that emphasizes student engagement and cooperative peer learning. There are six main components of interteaching:

1. Preparation (Prep) Guide: Students receive a list of questions that help guide them through a reading before class.

2. Peer Discussion: Students spend time in pairs “interteaching” in the classroom. They discuss the prep guide questions and answers with each other while the teacher facilitates.

3. Record Sheets: Students fill out a “record sheet” after class where they rate the discussion and write about what they found difficult.

4. Clarifying Lecture: The teacher uses these record sheets to create a lecture to help clarify the parts of the reading that students found most difficult. Then, the teacher gives this lecture during the following class.

5. Evaluations (Probes): Over the course of the semester, the teacher evaluates progress by giving students frequent tests (“probes”) about the material. These probes make up the majority of the students’ grades.

6. Quality Points: In pairs, students earn additional points based on how well they do on the probes. If they score at least a “B” on a probe, they get additional “quality points”. This incentive to earn more points encourages cooperation between students in the working pairs. Some teachers use these points as “extra credit” rather than as part of a course grade.

Interteaching gives students several opportunities to interact with the same class material in different ways: through the prep guide, in the pair discussions, during the clarifying lecture, and finally, on the probes. Students in classrooms that use interteaching have shown improvement in critical thinking and communication skills.

Read the full article, 20 Years of Interteaching Research and Practice: A Tutorial for its Use in the Classroom, for examples and more detail about each component of interteaching.