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Peer Review in the Online Writing Course: Giving Instructors and Students What They Need to Succeed

Laura Vernon

Radford University

October 28, 2024

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My Purpose

  • Share survey results on peer review strategies used by writing instructors

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My Hope

  • Improve your peer review teaching practice
  • Help your students succeed as peer reviewers
  • Give you hope that peer review can be a positive teaching and learning experience

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How Do You Teach Peer Review?

  1. Have students watch videos on teamwork and interpersonal relationships
  2. Assign Richard Straub’s “Responding, Really Responding to Other Students’ Writing”
  3. Teach students the benefits of peer review
  4. Go over a fake draft with students so that they see what is helpful and what is not
  5. Review with students what a peer review looks like, including using the review mode in Word

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Cont.: How Do You Teach Peer Review?

  1. Have students focus on strengths, weaknesses, and improvements
  2. Have students focus on substantive edits
  3. Use the discussion board to list things a student should answer about the other student’s draft
  4. Use the grading rubric
  5. Give worksheets with questions to answer

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How Do You Facilitate Peer Review?

  • Give students four to seven days to complete peer review
  • Use LMS discussion forum, Discord, SharePoint, or Teams to exchange drafts
  • Put students in groups and assign them roles
  • Assign each student two peer reviewers
  • Let students choose two peers to review
  • Pair students

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Cont.: How Do You Facilitate Peer Review?

  • Use track changes and comments in Word
  • Monitor groups to make sure peer reviews are coming in on time
  • Post announcements, send email reminders
  • Use a labor-based evaluation system where students volunteer for peer review, but a peer review is required for “A” level work
  • Assign different peer reviewers each time

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How Do You Supervise Peer Review?

  • Read comments to make sure students are “doing it right”
  • Provide feedback on what students did well on the review and how they might improve next time
  • Delete incorrect comments
  • Add own comments

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Cont.: How Do You Supervise Peer Review?

  • Have students create a revision plan based on peer review comments
  • Identify “experts” who can help other students (e.g., refer Student X to Student Y who is good at writing conclusions)

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The Good News!

  • Did you see similarities in your own practice?
  • Did you come away with new ideas to try?

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THANK YOU!

lvernon@radford.edu