Peer Learning
Research
Harnessing the Power of Peer Review
According to Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Innovation ……
Peer assessment or peer review provides a structured learning process for students to critique and provide feedback to each other on their work. It helps students develop lifelong skills in assessing and providing feedback to others, and also equips them with skills to self-assess and improve their own work.
Teaching students to evaluate each other
Peer assessment, or review, can improve overall learning by helping students become better readers, writers, and collaborators. A well-designed peer review program also develops students’ evaluation and assessment skills. The following are a few techniques that instructors have used to implement peer review.
Peer Review in the Classroom
Peer review or peer assessment is a process of evaluating work performance and products by peers. It is a vital part of professional life. For example, peer review is routinely used in two important phases of a research project: proposal evaluation and product assessment. Grant proposals are peer reviewed to ensure the quality, originality, and feasibility of the proposed work (Cole et al. 1982, Gaugler and Freckman 1990, Swift 1998).
Secondary Students Preceptions in Writing
Abstract Although multiple studies have found that peer review is an effective instructional practice for the teaching of academic writing in K–12 settings, little research exists that documents students' views of peer review and the features that make peer review tasks useful or challenging for writing development. In this study, we investigated high school students' perceptions of peer review through a questionnaire administered to 513 students from four schools who had used SWoRD, an online peer review system.
Benefits of Peer Review
Having students work in small groups to read one another’s papers and offer guided, substantive feedback is one of the most effective ways to foster writing knowledge in your classroom, and the benefits of peer review are well-documented. After speaking with faculty about peer review here at Southwestern, we’ve developed a list of six best practices to help you make the most of peer review in your classroom.
Please click through to read about:​
After reading through some ideas for ways you can make peer review more effective in your classroom, please check out our links to model peer reviews and further resources , teaching writing and our additional resources for faculty trying out peer review in the sciences .
For more ideas on supporting student revision, please see our page Teaching Writing in Your Classroom .