This workshop focuses on exploring strategies and technologies to consider when embedding peer review in your course. Participants will learn about best practices for integrating peer review into a course and discuss strategies to avoid potential pitfalls. Specifically, we’ll discuss the development of effective rubrics to maximize the value of peer review and we’ll consider the relationship between peer review and evaluation. Participants will have opportunities to consider how these strategies would fit into their own courses. We’ll also look at technologies that can facilitate peer review, including those embedded in Canvas.

Why Peer Review? When implemented thoughtfully, the process of peer review affords a range of benefits to both students and instructors. For example, by reviewing the work of their peers and offering constructive feedback, students become more adept at seeing the strengths and weaknesses of their own work. In addition, students benefit from feedback from peers whose understanding of the course content is close to their own and offers a different perspective than that of an expert instructor. For instructors, peer review can make more frequent feedback and opportunities for revision possible, especially in large courses where it would be impossible to provide extensive feedback on multiple revisions to all students. Instructors also report that peer review motivates students to turn in high quality work.

What Should I Bring? We encourage all participants to bring an assignment from one of their courses that might benefit from peer review, and if possible, a laptop for hands-on exploration of the peer review features of Canvas.