Be clear to your students about why they are using Perusall
Getting buy-in from students is easier when they know why you’ve asked them to use this additional technology. Communicate to your students the course learning outcomes that Perusall supports (developing critical thinking skills, engaging with peers, building metacognition, etc). It’s best to do this in several places: in a synchronous first meeting, the syllabus, the course welcome module, or the Perusall course home welcome message.
Demonstrate features you want students to use
Knowing your goals for using Perusall will also help you determine what features you would like students to use the most. Perusall has many exciting bells and whistles when it comes to engaging with content and other students in the assignments. Student resources like the Perusall student support pages or the Perusall student page make it easy for students to learn features. Consider asking students to practice using these features in the first assignment, to focus your students on what’s most important to you based on your goals.
Tagging each other with @mentions
Do you want to promote student-student interaction? Teach students to use the @name, @conversation, and @everyone features to ensure they’re talking to each other. Students (and instructors!) will be notified by email and in the app whenever they @mention each other.
Identifying themes with #hashtags
Interested in fostering intertextual connections or identifying consistent themes or terms across the semester? Consider establishing and encouraging students to establish #hashtags. Students (and instructors!) can see in one place all comments that have a particular #hashtag.
Upvoting and question flags
Students can upvote each others’ comments and questions to indicate that they found a particular comment helpful, or that they have the same question. If students will be graded on their use of upvoting, be sure to have them practice using that feature. Students can also flag a comment of theirs as a question if Perusall doesn’t automatically detect it as such.
Provide a practice assignment
Once you’ve shown students what you want them to do, give them the opportunity to practice doing it. The first assignment should focus as much on using Perusall as it should on getting acquainted with content.
Perusall has a built-in assignment you can add (in the Library) called Making the most of Perusall (with versions for STEM, humanities, and social science courses) that interactively orients students towards productive social learning.
Alternatively or in addition, consider using your syllabus as a practice assignment. Not only will students have an opportunity to practice using the platform in a low-stakes manner, they may also surprise you with the questions they ask and the comments they leave—and they’ll read the syllabus!
Be sure to follow up with students on their initial experience in Perusall. Allow them to ask questions or clarify concerns during a synchronous discussion or in an open chat (like the General discussion group chat in Perusall). Ensuring that their questions and concerns are addressed helps students feel more comfortable using the technology and promotes a more positive user experience.
Be present (or not)
Depending on your course goals, you may want to help students get excited about participating in discussion by demonstrating your presence in the course.
Here are a few ways you can spark discussion within Perusall:
- Upvote helpful or insightful student comments
- Use @Name, @Conversation, and @Everyone to draw student attention to your response
- Star comments to easily return to them in class or in a weekly video
- Create your own highlights with instructor-driven prompts to get students to focus on specific pieces of the content
However, you may opt to not be present at all. By allowing Perusall to be a student-led resource, students can feel confident answering each other’s questions without worrying they will give the “wrong” answers. Students often find they enjoy interacting with each other on the platform. The more comfortable students feel expressing their thoughts and opinions, the better—so as to spark discussion and drive students towards deeper thinking and understanding.
Lean on us!
If you or your students run into technical difficulties when using Perusall, or if you have any questions or feature ideas, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. You and your students can reach Perusall Support by using the Get help button in the toolbar. There you'll also find an extensive knowledge base for both instructors and students.
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