Perusall Exchange 2023 Highlights

Perusall recently held its 3rd annual research conference – The Perusall Exchange 2023…..

Suggest looking closer at each of these presentations [you will need a Persuall log in to access….easy to obtain]

1) First take-home point, annotation is not just for text!!!

Wei Zhao talk title
https://app.perusall.com/join/EXCHANGE-2023/2023-perusall-exchange-r/social-annotation-of-visual-materials-with-perusall-as-active-learning-activities-for-art-history-courses-by-wei-zhao-718957418

The entire Perusall Exchange conference is based on video annotation. Other flipped learning approaches have been recently published (also using video annotation….), and this Perusall Exchange 2023 talk came from an Art History scholar. She gets her students to annotate visual images with Perusall in order to drive engagement.

Consider the use a pin drop feature to be less obtrusive on field of the discussed image.

painting annotation prompt

2) Second take-home point, annotation isn’t just for students (it’s for faculty as well). The researchers in this talk are using Perusall in their professional development work with faculty.

Barbeau and Cornejo Happel
https://app.perusall.com/join/EXCHANGE-2023/2023-perusall-exchange-r/it-s-not-just-for-students-perusall-based-social-learning-for-faculty-by-lauren-barbeau-and-claudia-cornejo-happel-206572067

They prompt instructors to think about how to generate community and engagement in a course through……

  • Learner-Instructor interactions
  • Learner-Content interactions
  • Learner-Learner interactions

They encourage use of the @ callout, to direct a particular peer’s attention to a given annotation, and specific hashtags such as #resourcealert. This allows the creation a curated list of all the links to external materials shared in comments.

The authors also have a book (available on Amazon….) entitled: Critical Teaching Behaviors: Defining, Documenting, and Discussing Good Teaching

Critical Teaching Behaviors

available on Amazon. Their Perusall Exchange Video was excellent – surely their book is too!!!

3) Third take-home point, collaborative annotation can be a helpful type of formative feedback, and also presents opportunities for “negotiated curriculum” not only during syllabus annotation, but also for generation of rubrics for a course. It comes from Nicole Tavares at the University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Education

Tavares Perusall Exchange 2023
https://app.perusall.com/join/EXCHANGE-2023/2023-perusall-exchange-r/engineering-formative-feedback-practices-and-developing-assessment-literacy-in-teacher-education-via-instructor-modelling-on-perusall-by-nicole-tavares-181604518
Feedback as dialogue

Much has been written about the annotated syllabus. The point made by Dr. Tavares is that it is a great early step towards a co-constructed or negotiated curriculum.

potential benefits of a co-constructed curriculum

Students may feel more invested in a course if they have made suggestions to shape it, and this also quickly shows that an instructor is open-minded about course processes.

Here are the prompts she used for the syllabus annotation exercise……

annotated syllabus prompts

She ended her presentation with a list of “SMART” guidelines for Perusall usage…..excellent!!!

SMART guidelines Perusall

Highly recommend watching the full videos for each of these talks…..

Here are the links again --

Wei Zhao -- Social Annotation of Visual Materials with Perusall as Active Learning Activities for Art History Courses

Lauren Barbeau and Claudio Cornejo Happel -- It's Not Just for Students! Perusall-Based Social Learning for Faculty 

Nicole Tavares -- Engineering Formative Feedback Practices and Developing Assessment Literacy in Teacher Education via Instructor Modelling on Perusall

Looking forward to the next Perusall Exchange in 2024…..