Teach ourselves: A peer-to-peer learning community linking in- and out-of-class activity

Teach Ourselves is an online collaborative learning environment designed to engage middle school students with math and science through the inclusion of peer-to-peer activities and gamelike components. Students learn from and teach each other as they solve and create math and science word problems, and earn points and badges. An exploratory study with 132 students in six classrooms indicated that much of the activity occurred during out-of-school hours, suggesting that the social elements helped to attract students to continue the activity outside of the formal classroom setting. Qualitative feedback from students and teachers was strongly positive.