This summer, several faculty members participated in CDIL’s working group, “Unlocking the Potential of Peer Feedback.” We asked them to share their thoughts on the group and their experiences developing their projects. I had a conversation with Anne Pluto, Part-Time Faculty at Woods College in English Theatre and Professor of Literature and Theatre at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has been condensed and slightly edited.

Why did you want to join this working group?

 We’ve done peer review at Leslie for the past couple of years, although I struggle with it, and I think students sometimes do, I wanted to see what it would be like at Boston College. Would it be a different experience? How are we going to do it?

What did you ultimately decide to do for your project? Why? 

 Initially, I had two different courses in mind that had assignments I thought could be improved upon with peer review. One of them was the course I teach in the spring, Intro to Theater, which is a hybrid course. It’s not an acting class. We meet in person one week, and then the next week is completed asynchronously. There’s a big discussion board, and then that leads into a paper. Students have a hard time bonding due to the hybrid setup, so I thought peer review would help them connect with someone else. The students from Woods would meet with people from Morrissey or Connell School of Management and get to know each other through peer reviewing each other’s papers. 

However, I ultimately implemented peer review into my Intro to Acting class. They have to write papers in response to chapters of the course textbook and connect them to their in-class work. Then they offered me a second section of it. So this gives me a litmus test for the peer review. The classes also have students from across a wide range of colleges, so the students still get to meet new people.”

 What’s something that you learned from the group that you didn’t expect?

“Just how varied everybody’s assignments were. And I was really impressed by the professors who teach graduate-level courses.  

I think our group all really wanted to have a sense of community in the working group this summer. It’s not always easy because we’re all from different venues and teach at various colleges within the university, so it was a good challenge to share ideas and brainstorm together across disciplines and colleges.

I like being a student, let me put it that way, after being a teacher. I like it when I learn something new, and I can struggle with it or succeed. And we saw many people stepping out of their comfort zones, across various disciplines, discussing how to encourage students to think critically.”

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

 “That they learn to give feedback to a classmate, and that they realize that their opinion or what they see in something is valid. That they’re validated and that they can have a conversation about a theory. I want to challenge and positively encourage them through conversations with their peers.”

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

“ Start small. If you’re up for the challenge of a big piece, go for it, but please run it by somebody. And reiterate that their opinion is valid and important, right? I would also say to my colleagues, you don’t have to impress the students.  You just have to come up with something that will make it richer, rather than flashy. Keep it simple.”

CDIL will be sharing more experiences from the working group members in the coming weeks. Stay up-to-date by following our blog, connecting with us on LinkedIn, or sending us a message at cdil-inbox@bc.edu.