A Research On Roles Of Peer Leaders Who Led Team Learning

Peer leader is a tutoring resource during instruction, who is in double harness to team members. In one hand, he/she is a student belonging to the same generation in the real world, on the other hand, he/she is also an assistant who help teacher tutor the student team. To students who to be tutored, peer leader may be more advanced or be fairly well matched in skill level. Introducing peer leader during instruction can efficiently lead team members learning by imparting oneself's learning experiences, which not only help to make up the lack of tutoring teachers but also help to create new type relationship between teachers and students so as to exert students' principal part better.The role of peer leaders who lead team learning is studied in the paper. Above all the main roles of peer leader are summarized during leading team learning on BBS by content Analysis. Then adopting questionnaire investigating method to study the following three aspects: first the peer leaders' characteristic behaviors on/off line are studied and the main roles represented by peer leaders are also analyzed; second the characteristic behaviors and roles between undergraduate peer leaders and graduate ones are compared; third the self-identity content of peer leaders and the effect of team learning are investigated.It can be found that peer leader mainly plays four kinds of roles on BBS -learning supervisor, experience initiator, resource provider and the motivator. And further summarizing the peer leader's characteristic behaviors on/off net, it can befound that peer leader can play six more kinds of roles - listener-detector,information transfer, learning guider, activity organizer, learning tutor, activity participant. Hence the main roles represented by peer leader include participating behaviors and tutoring behaviors, and present characteristic of diversification during leading team learning. There is not notable difference between undergraduate peer leader and graduate ones in leading behaviors. And team members affirm the role of peer leaders in leading effect. It is a successful teaching strategy for peer leader to lead student team learning, which can better improve individual development for both peer leader and team member.