This promising book, from Australia, begins with a sensible, and compelling, premise: "In our everyday life we continually learn from each other. For most of the things we need in our working and personal lives we find enough information and guidance from friends and colleagues." If this is true--and it seems unarguable--then why should the practice of learning from each other not be incorporated, in a more purposeful way, into instruction in higher eduation? As the authors also point out, students already learn from each other "in all courses at all levels." That is, they converse, they study together, they consult on solving problems. The logical next step is for instructors to build these kinds of peer learning into curriculum design. Thus this book.

There are several chapters of preliminary consideration of peer learning before the editors turn to case studies. These preliminary chapters are disappointingly vague, for too much of the time. There is an effort to distinguish peer learning from cooperative and collaborative learning, but it ends without making sharp distinctions. Chapters on strategies and implementation address perennial questions such as size of groups and whether groups should be faculty-assigned, random, or student-chosen. Among the strategies discussed are learning partnerships, study groups, student-led workshops, and student exchanges. None of this strikes me as very radical or new; and some of the discussion (of outcomes, for instance) is not far from educational boilerplate.

More usefully, the editors contribute a chapter on "Peer learning and Assessment," which faces the tough questions instructors often face about group work. Are individuals assessed, or the group? How does one grade a group project justly if some of the students have refused to participate?

The best part of the book arrives with the chapters on real applications. These are historical, candid and detailed. They describe peer learning activities in management education, law, instructional technology and other subjects, and include discussion of electronic applications. All these chapters are well worth pondering.

Among the interesting insights are some on student difference and its effect on groups, as well as other causes of failure:

One tutor recounted the story of an Indonesian students who was in a group with all Hong Kong Chinese--the group only ever communicated in Cantonese, throughout the semester and she was totally excluded. Other tutors were frustrated by groups that collapsed during the course of the semester--some students disappeared or refused to work with others. Such situations caused problems for assessment and marking. Tutors were also concerned about complaints from highly motivated students, who felt they were carrying the group and their marks were suffering. Most groups refused to give differentiated marks to students {in this situation group members were invited to help mark each other, in the interest of fairness] because of concerns about hurting others and feelings of group solidarity. The group presentation of seminar questions often broke down to individual students preparing a question each and hoping it would be all right on the day.

None of these problems will be surprising to faculty members who have experimented with group work. They arise from human nature--one is tempted to say, from original sin.

The one that is of most concern is the refusal of students to work with each other. Probably some students are committed isolatoes. But beyond them, this cause for group collapse points to a philosophical issue at the heart of the peer learning project: although it is true that students voluntarily learn from each other all the time, building that voluntary activity into course requirements--that is, making it mandatory--changes the nature of it radically. The authors are worried about "oppression" in classes (by which they seem to mean students who dominate or ignore others), and they say, quite correctly, "the use of peer learning assumes a learner-centred perspective." And yet . . . and yet . . . when it is the instructor who insists on it, who assesses it, who decides if it is or is not serving student needs, its student-centeredness has been diluted and an element of coercion if not oppression has appeared.

To observe this is not to undermine claims for peer learning, which has much to recommend it. But (comparable to the paradox of mandatory student volunteerism) we need to be aware of the ironies of our practice when we move from ad hoc, voluntary, selective peer learning (in which the learner both elects to do it and selects her peer[s]) to peer learning as a required and graded component of the curriculum.

Merritt Moseley
UNC Asheville