Student peer review in the classroom: A teaching and grading tool

It is helpful for instructors to provide students with critique, not only upon completion of a writing assignment but also during the writing process. However, due to time constraints, instructors may not be able to read writing assignments more than once during a particular course, especially in large classes. Students may gain only limited feedback from a single source (the instructor). This paper discusses the use of student peer review to provide students with feedback early in the process of writing a term paper, and to give students experience in reviewing scientific material. Students were assigned a term paper that was then reviewed by classmates. The term paper consisted of the student’s laboratory report summarizing the experiments performed uring the course, and integrating both lecture and laboratory materials. The review process was double-blind to provide anonymity for both authors and reviewers, but was otherwise handled in a fashion similar to that used by scientific journals. Students were accountable for the quality of their reviews as well as their term papers. Peer review provided students with feedback early in the writing process, and required little additional time investment by the instructor. It also gave students important experience in critical thinking. The qualit)’ of the final product (the finished term paper) was improved a result of the experiences of reviewing classmates’ work, and receiving and implementing comments from peers. Peer review may be a valuable teaching and grading tool for the instructor who wishes to focus course activities on writing, but has limited resources or time for reviewing writing assignments. WRITING ASSIGNMENTS the most imporare among tant components of the educational experience. They are useful not only for developing students’ writing skill, but also for teaching subject matter (Berkenkotter, 1982; Brumback et al., 1985; Emig, 1981; Fulwiler, 1982; Parrish et al., 1985; Rubin, 1988). Writing assignments may take many forms, and require various degrees of effort for students to write them and for instructors to administer and grade them. Often, in order to maximize effectiveness of a particular writing assignment, instructors must invest heavily in grading and reviewing students’ work. For example, it is usually helpful to give students feedback early in the writing process, as well as during various stages of completion. This obviously requires the instructor to read the assignment more than once, which consumes the instructor’s time, and may also interfere with timely processing of other paperwork, such as exams and homework. Also, the instructor has only his/her own point of view to offer, regardless of how many times the writing assignment is reviewed. A possible alternative to traditional approaches for handling term papers is to ask students to review their classmates’ work. There are several advantages associated with giving students responsibility for at least one stage of the review process. Student reviews add additional perspective to the review. When feedback is provided only by the instructor, students are passively involved in the evaluation process. Student passivity has been linked to ineffective learning in classroom teaching situations (Kraft, 1985). External judgement or review of creative writing provides an environment in which two minds may assume adversarial roles, a situation that facilitates critical thinking (Furedy and Furedy, 1979). Peer-initaited suggestions may be perceived as less authoritative in some ways than those offered by the instructor, thus encouraging students to challenge comments they disagree with. The peer-reviewed term paper may not only accomplish teaching objectives, such as delivery of subject matter, practice in critical thinking, and polishing writing skills, but also provides the student author with feedback he/she might not get otherwise. If managed carefully, the peer-reviewed term paper may provide these advantages with a reasonable commitment of faculty time. The use of a term paper combined with peer review as a tool for both teaching and grading is