Toward a second screen peer discussion derivative

Peer Instruction is a teaching concept conceived to increase students' success in STEM courses (science technology engineering, and mathematics). The concept has been successfully applied to non-STEM courses, however it is more or less limited to on-site courses. Extending courses into the online medium allows students to design their learning based on their interests and demand while maintaining structured presentation and/or discussion of learning material. Peer Instruction's `peer discussion' phase cannot be non-trivially transferred into the online medium. Such transfer would allow for added value to on-site classes, especially for GEMS (girls in engineering, mathematics, and science) as well as challenged students as barriers keeping them from participating in discussion can be significantly reduced. Potential solutions to facilitate the transfer lie in heavily investigated solutions like clickers, or audience response systems. However, these solutions primarily aim at large audiences, namely readings. Our research investigates transferability of concepts into smaller on-site classes, namely tutorials. It discusses experimental results and concepts for a tech-enhanced peer discussion derivative utilisable in tutorials while providing anonymity and barrier-free access to discussions. At the same time, cognisant incidental utilisation (CIU) is impelled in order to maintain a focus on the actual on-site activities, only providing added value. This added value of tutorials is presented to the students by means of a second screen experience.