Why did you want to join this working group?

One of the things I’ve learned, even when I conduct information sessions, is that people ask questions that you may not think to ask. That’s why I like being in a group like that; people ask questions I wouldn’t have thought of myself. I also get ideas that I would never have thought of if I were working by myself or even in a one-on-one session with a learning designer. That’s what’s really cool about working with a group–you get really neat ideas from people who are coming from all over the university. 

What did you think you were going to do as your project at the beginning of this experience?

Initially, I was trying to take one of my pre-existing assignments and make it more engaging for the students while also reducing the amount of time the faculty member who teaches the course would need to spend grading and providing feedback.  The original version of the assignment required students to respond to a chapter almost every week, and their responses had to be approximately three to four pages in length. This meant the faculty member sometimes had to provide feedback for up to 80 pages a week. The professor would then attempt to return it to the students within a week, allowing them to receive feedback and incorporate it into their following chapter response. I wanted the students to receive timely feedback from the professor, as well as from their peers. I also wanted them to see examples from other students. 

What did you ultimately decide to do? Why? 

We decided to use learning trees, which involve students submitting their work for peer review. The reviewer must leave one comment per section of the paper and one holistic comment for the paper (think of the holistic comment as a tree trunk and the smaller comments as branches). The professor then leaves his own feedback as well, expanding the “tree.” 

With the learning trees, students receive more microfeedback from their classmates and learn from one another. I think some students don’t know what a good example of work is. So, what I have done in the past is ask students who did an amazing job on an assignment, “Do you mind letting me show it as exemplary work?” I think that for some students, they need to see what an A-grade paper or project looks like. 

What’s something you learned that you didn’t expect to at the beginning of this experience?

 I manage 27 faculty members who work in the sports industry, and they’re super busy. So I have to jump in to cover classes a lot. Some of the things that the working group members discussed, I’m actually trying to incorporate next week with a class I’m covering. Another faculty member was using a Jamboard (please note that Jamboard is now FigJam), and I thought, ‘Oh, we can do that in class with the cards.’ But I would never have had this idea if I hadn’t seen how a Jamboard worked.

What do you hope the impact of your work will be on students? Particularly for online students?

 Online learning is sometimes isolating.  I’ve tried organizing groups for online learning, but it’s really hard because people are so busy. The learning trees were a really good collaborative approach, where students are still working in groups and helping each other, but they can do it on their own time. I think this allows online students to develop a sense of community, but without adding the stress of coordinating schedules.

What’s one piece of advice you would give to colleagues who want to incorporate more peer feedback into their classrooms?

I’d tell my colleagues to preemptively discuss the peer feedback process with your students. The onus is on them, the students, to engage; if they want to receive reciprocal, helpful feedback, they must give it in return.  We tell the students to be nice in their criticism. However, we also advise them to try to give everyone grace when providing critical feedback – they’re doing it to be helpful, not mean. I related it to coaching with them. We’ve all played on teams, and we’ve been corrected so we can be better. That’s something we all have to learn sometimes — how to take that critical feedback and use it to improve.