Peer review is a common practice in offices and work places. It helps organizations improve performance quality and uphold standards. However, peer review in education is not very common. Implementing this concept in education, where the students review each other’s work, can elevate the level of education and bring a sense of community to the class. With the class sizes increasing, peer review would definitely provide a better overall learning experience.
For example, art and design courses are difficult to grade because the student’s individual perspective is important, and the answers are not generally binary in nature. There are just so many ways that an assignment can be done. This aspect of art and design courses makes them very suitable for peer reviewing.
When students review the work of their peers, they can get a better understanding of the assignment or project. They will also have the opportunity to look into the approach and perspective of other students. This innovation in the education system will prove extremely beneficial to the students as well as the instructors.
Peer reviewing, sometimes referred to as the critique system, has already been included in some courses at ASU, and the outcomes have been very positive. The peer reviewing system at ASU, CritViz, is led by professors David Tinnaple and Loren Olson. There are a total of 21 courses with active peer reviewing in fall 2014 and around 500 users of CritViz. This revolutionary idea of introducing peer review in education has led to an increase in student satisfaction. The CritViz team has come up with the “bigger is better” concept where large classes can participate in an exciting and engaging learning environment.
The methodology of the system is very simple. An assignment is provided to the students with a deadline. Then, a critique assignment is made with another deadline, where every student has to review and rank five randomly selected submissions created by other students. This makes students aware of the standard of personal learning, as well as overall learning in the class.
After the critique assignment deadline is over, the students will be able to see the grades, critiques and suggestions that they have received. This system fosters personally relevant learning as it focuses on improving skills and processes rather than just securing grades. This constructive feedback is also important for the instructor as it provides valuable feedback on the reception of the class content and if any modification is required.
Courses in every department can easily implement the peer review program. From engineering to media and arts, every course contains some practical design projects or programming assignments. The assignments where there is no definite solution to a given problem can be associated to this critiquing system.
Using peer review will allow students to share their creations and ideas, which will generate a healthy learning environment and reduce the sense competition for higher grades. Finally, through critiques students can improve their communication skills by learning to give and receive constructive criticism, a very useful and valuable skill personally and professionally.
Reach the columnist at asahu4@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @anima_sahu
Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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