Students teaching students

During my internship I was having a discussion with one of the teachers in the math department and she described a situation that she had with her grade nine math class. Basically they took the students from one class into another class (same grade and subject) and basically they had the students from one room be the teachers to the students in the other class. So peers were teaching each other. Below is the description from the teacher involved.

"My grade 9's had already completed sections on adding/subtracting with polynomials. I had introduced them to alge-tiles as an aid to do this. I made sure all my students were comfortable using the alge-tiles. The other gr. 9 class we went into had not started this section, so I matched my students in pairs making sure the pairs complemented each other as far as ability. Stronger with weaker etc. I prepared a teaching guide sheet for my students to make sure they taught all the concepts to their group. The learners(Gr. 9's who had not covered the material) had worksheets they had to complete to show their understanding of the lesson. Each group had 2 teachers to 3-4 learners. Some of my teachers were not ready to take on this role as they had not completed their assignments so they worked on those in the same time period. Alge-tiles were given to each learner. It was most impressive how on task 50-55 Gr. 9 students could be all in the same classroom. We had used a science lab so there was lots of room to spread out. I had numbered all the work spaces so I assigned my teachers to an area and the other teacher assigned his students. We had agreed to place my strongest teachers at stations were they would be matched up with his weaker students. I used 8 stations. The students enjoyed the activity and accomplished the objectives. We hope to reverse this process at another point in time where the teacher/learner roles will be reversed between the two classes."

From the responses that the students had and the excitement that the teachers showed from this activity makes me hope that I might get to try this idea out for myself someday. As we all know, teaching something is the best way to learn it and I think that the students that get a chance to experience this for themselves is very powerful for their understanding and long term storage of the material.