The last year has been an intense experiment, with instructors trying new approaches to teaching, and re-thinking and re-envisioning tried and true strategies for a remote format. Lauren McCarthy, associate professor of legal studies and political science, is no exception. In fact, she's already looking ahead and thinking of ways to carry forward remote teaching innovations in her large (160-220 students) General Education course.  Professor McCarthy talked to us about one such innovation that she’ll keep regardless of whether her course is taught face-to-face or online in the future: asynchronous peer review of writing.

 

Why did you decide to move peer review of writing to an asynchronous format?

In the past, I’ve done peer review in 50-minute discussion sections where TAs supervise groups of 2-3 students who exchange papers, read, and give comments. Students really only have time to read and comment on one paper. The time constraint doesn’t allow them the time and space to engage deeply with what they’re reading, so it creates a bit of a high-pressure situation and interaction can be a bit awkward for students. Plus, I usually dedicate a whole section day to peer review, so that means that TAs don’t get to discuss that week’s materials.

When I switched to online teaching, I wanted to keep peer review, because I wanted them to be able to connect with one another and see other people’s papers to have a sense of where they stood with their own papers. I found the Moodle Workshop activity which structures each phase of the peer review process, including submitting drafts and matching students with other students to do the peer review, and submitting reviewer comments. All work is submitted online and done through Moodle over the course of a time period you set up; I set it up for one week. I can see what students submit, or don’t submit, at any phase of the process. It also forced me to develop a peer review worksheet.  I think one of the important innovations of this whole process was explaining why I was asking them to answer each question on the peer review sheet and how it would help the student.

Completed Workshop Activity
Screenshot of the completed Workshop activity for Professor McCarthy’s course

 

How does online peer review compare to face-to-face peer review you’ve done in the past?

One difference is that I did the online peer review among the whole class, not within discussion sections. At first this was just logistically easier for me to set up, but I realized that there were other benefits. It was nice to have complete uniformity in the process across all sections. It also makes it so the TA doesn’t have to figure things out on the fly, like what to do if someone doesn’t bring a draft or doesn’t bring a printed version of their draft, etc.  Does that student just sit there the whole time and not participate?  Now, if students don’t turn something in, I can contact them and figure out how to manage the situation without disadvantaging the peers assigned to their groups.

For students, it gave them a chance to meet people who were not in their discussion section, which rarely happens in a large class, especially online. I should mention that the peer review is low stakes—it’s 5% of their course grade, to go with the 15% for the paper. So, there’s an incentive to do it, and it’s an easy, low stakes way to get points for their grades.

 

What has been the impact on your students?

I have my own observations plus what I heard from the 143 students who gave feedback on the Forward FOCUS, which I customized to get feedback on this activity (and gave an extra point for completing). I saw that the weeklong period in which to read and comment on papers created a little distance and depressurized the whole situation, allowing for more thoughtful comments. Of course, I had a couple reviews that weren’t great but that happens in a face-to-face classroom, too. Students also got creative: one student was having tech issues so he did a voice memo of his feedback and sent me and the students the link.  So they were not only creative when they had trouble, but they were very generous with the time they spent and the comments they gave.

As far as student feedback on the Forward FOCUS—I thought it would be the worst! Instead, I couldn’t believe how much students liked it. I got a lot of comments that said things like, “I thought I was going to hate this, but it actually turned out to be really helpful.” They said that it helped them feel more connected to their peers, which is great considering this class is mostly first years. When I asked them to rate how different activities from the semester were for their learning, the mean score for peer review was 3.8 [out of 5]. That’s higher than their rating for the discussion sections and about the same as their rating of the readings. Some suggestions included meeting in real time to give feedback or to put them in groups of three where each were reading the other’s papers. This was such great feedback. I’m trying that out this semester, and we’ll see how it goes.

 

What tips or considerations do you have for faculty?

It’s really important to get the set up right. I watched a lot of Moodle videos to help me set it up on my own, and that took a lot of time. If you go to IDEAS (by emailing instruct@umass.edu), they can walk you through it pretty quickly. Your time investment is in the initial setup phase, so account for that.

Also, be prepared to do a little manual work. Some students won’t turn it in on time, as happens in face-to-face classrooms. What I did was email students who didn’t make the deadline, and check in if they still were planning on submitting. I waited until those submissions came in and assigned them to a group of three, usually with each other. By the way, I always email students who don’t submit an assignment after a deadline. This is a part of my teaching practice, my way of engaging students in a large class and making sure that I don’t lose students along the way. I have a set of template emails that I send students depending on what has happened. You have to decide if that’s your approach and how you will manage those that don’t turn in on time. It’s a bit of extra time and effort, but I find that students really appreciate the care and attention, especially this year.

To talk more with Professor McCarthy about her peer review process, email her at mccarthy@legal.umass.edu.

Blackboard users have similar tools for peer review:  

With any of these tools, you are encouraged to email instruct@umass.edu for assistance setting up the tool to meet your specific needs and goals.