Dr. Lana Whited, Professor of English & Williams Distinguished Teaching Chair (Ferrum College)

A recent study found that sixty-two percent of college students report spending an hour or less daily on reading assignments, and only six percent say they spend two hours or more. Another study found that almost ninety percent of respondents say they believe “they could receive a C or better without completing any of the assigned readings” (Baier et al). Most undergraduate faculty across institutional types would likely agree that getting students to arrive for class prepared for discussion is a major challenge in higher education. But despite a well-established body of traditional scholarship on this topic, motivating student reading is not an area of pedagogy that has seen much innovation–until recently.

The Perusall Interactive Reading platform was created by Harvard's engineering faculty in 2015 and facilitates access to texts of various types (written, video, image, etc.) in a collaborative format similar to social media, allowing all participants to see the comments and questions of other participants, including the instructor.  The platform’s algorithm scores student interaction with the texts based on four criteria (completing the full assignment, meeting deadlines, quality of student comments, and thoroughness, including pacing and distribution of comments throughout a text); additionally, it has some accessibility features and a relatively new peer workshop assignment capability. Webinar participants will hear about the platform’s features, its numerous benefits for both online and in-person instruction, and student response to using it.

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