August 31, 2010

Information Literacy:  Create assignments that encourage students to use feedback to improve their work

Faculty are often frustrated when they discover that the student papers from the previous term that they spent considerable time writing comments on are still languishing in the department office, unread by the students who wrote these papers and who might never come to retrieve them.  Feedback is useful only if it is received in a timely manner and the person who receives the feedback has an opportunity to act on the feedback and correct problems. 

How can faculty motivate students to read and use the feedback written on their work?  If you expect students to learn from formative feedback on their work, provide them an opportunity in your course to practice using feedback to improve their work.  You can do this in two ways:

• Provide feedback on an early draft of an assignment so students can make use of your feedback to improve the final submission.  You can save grading time by limiting your comments to only one or two pages of the text.
• Use a peer review activity in which students provide feedback to one another before a final assignment is submitted.  Usually students need guidance on how to provide effective feedback.  See the Get Engaged Archive for tips on how to structure a peer review (http://uwf.edu/cutla/topical_archive_teaching_tips.cfm).  A rubric will help peers focus on important aspects of the assignment.  You can find examples of peer review rubrics on the Rubric Development page (http://uwf.edu/cutla/rubricdevelopment.cfm).

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April 8, 2008

A peer review assignment is an effective way to engage students in the critical analysis of writing. Peer reviews also provide students with useful feedback to improve final drafts of a written assignment. Adding peer review as an interim assignment for a large project will deter procrastination. Students must prepare a first draft for the larger project in advance of the due date in order to complete the peer review assignment. This activity may also deter plagiarism because students must revise their work based on the comments and suggestions provided by peer reviewers. 

Each student submits two copies of the written assignment for peer review two weeks before the final draft is due. These are distributed to two peer reviewers. You can ensure that all students receive at least one competent peer review if you assign papers to peer reviewers based on an index of class performance (e.g., assign reviews so that each paper is reviewed by one student in the top half of the class and one student in the bottom half of the class based on average exam scores). Students are more likely to write peer reviews with good, constructive feedback if they are given specific guidelines and asked to support their comments with evidence. A peer review rubric can structure the peer review process. Contact Claudia Stanny at CUTLA for a sample rubric for peer reviewers. Schedule the due date for the peer reviews so that students receive their peer reviews one week before the due date for the written assignment.

Because students take assignments more seriously if they contribute meaningfully to their final grade, the peer review should be a graded assignment. A Pass/Fail grade that is based on submitting a draft and completing the peer review on time works well to ensure students complete peer reviews and return them to fellow students in time to allow students to revise their work.

Dr. Claudia Stanny, PSY6217
Peer Review: Draft of Research Proposal

 

06/17/09