Navigating the Zone: The Impact of Small Teaching Tactics

This research delves into the impact of small teaching tactics, which represent subtle adjustments in course design and teaching methods. Employing a randomized experimental approach, we explored the efficacy of the small teaching tactic of introducing peer examples within a structured query learning activity. Over five semesters, 163 students participated in the study. Leveraging Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development, we introduced varying levels of peer examples (basic and advanced) and a control group to assess their effects on performance. Students assigned to the advanced-examples group outperformed their basic-example counterparts in code complexity performance. The control group did not exhibit statistically significant differences in performance compared to the advanced and basic groups. These findings suggest that small teaching tactics via peer examples may only be effective when they push students to be within their Zone of Proximal Development.