{"id":476,"date":"2022-02-09T15:42:35","date_gmt":"2022-02-09T21:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/cital-blog\/?p=476"},"modified":"2022-02-09T15:42:35","modified_gmt":"2022-02-09T21:42:35","slug":"getting-students-to-read-for-class-by-using-perusall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/getting-students-to-read-for-class-by-using-perusall\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Students to Read for Class by Using Perusall"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like many of you, I have struggled to get my students to read for class.\u00a0 I have tried daily reading quizzes, group presentations, even assigning questions for each reading. But nothing has worked as well as the free and easy to use app Perusall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perusall is a free online collective reading and learning community where you can place some of your class readings. \u00a0 Students can comment directly on the text, interacting and engaging with one another in ways that mirror social media platforms (such as liking, boosting, or tagging others). It was co-founded by Eric Mazur, Dean of Applied Physics at Harvard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instructor benefits include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0\u201cconfusion reports\u201d (frequent student questions and unclear concepts)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">automatic scoring of the quality of students\u2019 posts and level of engagement<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0the ability to create small \u201cdiscussion\u201d groups for larger classes<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0the ability to link Perusall scoring to the grade book in Blackboard<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this article, two of your VU colleagues share their experiences with Perusall. Economics Professor Sara Gundersen talks about why she uses it, and Detra Becker (Library) provides the student&#8217;s point of view.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><b>The Professor\u2019s Perspective: Sara Gundersen\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I learned about Perusall from Amy Atchison (Political Science) who learned about it from Sara Gundersen (Economics), who learned about it at the <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bestteachersinstitute.org\/home\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Best Teachers Institute<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Sara likes best about Perusall is that students come to class prepared to discuss the reading, because the discussion has already begun online.\u00a0 In fact, Sara noticed that even students who are quiet in class are active in Perusall\u2019s online discussions.\u00a0 One quiet student regularly responded to other students\u2019 posts with links to other articles.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sometimes students ask questions that other students can answer based on their own experience or knowledge.\u00a0 But Sara posts comments too, which she considers is the fun part.\u00a0 She may respond to student queries, add to a discussion, recommend an article for further reading, or tell students \u201cthis topic is exactly what we will be discussing in class on Friday.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One downside that Sara notes is that a few students may just skim the text and respond to other students\u2019 comments. But compared to some students not even opening the text before class, she thinks this is progress.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">She learned from former VU professor Allannah Karas about the option of allowing anonymous posts for readings on divisive topics. She finds that students are more willing to post what they really believe if they can be anonymous.\u00a0 As the professor, she can still see exactly who posted what. She hopes to use this technique in an upcoming class on race and gender.\u00a0 We both agreed, however, that for introductory courses like Core, it is better not to use anonymous posts, since we are building community.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are many grading options with Perusall, Sara has chosen low stakes grading. So, for example, if one of her student posts anywhere from 1 to 3 remarks for 9 out of 10 readings, they get a collective grade of 90%.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In general, Sara thinks Perusall is a great low cost, high benefit way to get students to engage with texts. She does not consider herself as great with technology, but she claims that it took her only three minutes to set up her first class.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><b>The Student\u2019s Perspective: Detra Becker\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Detra Becker, Administrative Assistant to the Library Dean, has been taking graduate courses at VU for several years. Her Counseling 635 course with former VU professor Amanda Zelechoski, was her introduction to Perusall. During the COVID crisis, she felt that Perusall helped her to maintain interaction with the other students in the class\u200b.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her first assignment in Perusall was to read and comment on the syllabus. (This is a great way to get students to read your syllabus.) The professor read their comments and questions online so that when they discussed the syllabus for the first time in class, she could address students\u2019 common concerns.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Detra liked how she and her fellow students would share information, give examples from their personal lives, ask questions, or look up unfamiliar terms. Every time another student commented on one of her posts, she would\u00a0 receive an email\u00a0 notification.\u00a0 This reassured her that her comments were taken seriously and also encouraged her to jump back into the conversation to respond.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In addition to journal articles and book chapters, the professor also posted student assignments for other students to provide feedback or to keep the conversation going.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One downside\u00a0 Detra noted is that both the professor and students got tired of posting by the end of the semester. She suggested that either limiting the number of assignments or the number of posts required could help. She very much enjoyed having the professor post comments or respond to questions, as it tended to elevate the level of discussion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Both Detra and Sara would be happy to talk to any of you about their experience with Perusall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><b>Additional Resources\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n<ol>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here is the link to the Perusall website. From here you can set up a free class space in less than 15 minutes: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/perusall.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perusall<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here is a short introductory video (8 minutes) narrated by one of Perusall\u2019s co-founders, Gary King, Director of Harvard\u2019s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He explains why they created Perusall to be the \u201conly truly social e-reader\u201d and how it works. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/perusall.com\/about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">About Perusall<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Finally, here are the instructions for linking Perusall to your Blackboard course. NOTE: VU has already set up Perusall as an LTI Tool Provider in Blackboard. So you can skip the first few steps and go directly to \u201cAdd a Perusall link to your Blackboard course.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/support.perusall.com\/hc\/en-us\/articles\/360033994014\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Linking Perusall to Blackboard<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL &nbsp; Like many of you, I have struggled to get my students to read for class.\u00a0 I have tried daily reading quizzes, group presentations, even assigning questions for each reading. But nothing has worked as well as the free and easy to use app Perusall. Perusall is&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[102,122,132,143],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-37","tag-instructional-design","tag-reading","tag-student-engagement","tag-technology"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"kim.pomeroy@valpo.edu","author_link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/author\/kim-pomeroyvalpo-edu\/"},"featured_img":null,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"Profile":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"kim.pomeroy@valpo.edu","author_link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/author\/kim-pomeroyvalpo-edu\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL &nbsp; Like many of you, I have struggled to get my students to read for class.\u00a0 I have tried daily reading quizzes, group presentations, even assigning questions for each reading. But nothing has worked as well as the free and easy to use app Perusall. Perusall is&hellip;","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/2022\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">2022<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">2022<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/2022\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">instructional design<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/2022\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">reading<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/2022\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">student engagement<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/2022\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">technology<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">instructional design<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">reading<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">student engagement<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">technology<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on February 9, 2022","modified":"Updated on February 9, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on February 9, 2022 3:42 pm","modified":"Updated on February 9, 2022 3:42 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}