Teaching Students to Give and To Receive: Improving Disciplinary Writing Through Peer Review

The context for this study is a multi-disciplinary collaboration of six faculty members using peer review in their respective disciplines with the goal of improved student writing. Faculty members developed their own assignments and methods for implementing peer review, but each followed the same guidelines. Students submitted drafts to peers who made comments and used a rubric to provide formative feedback. The instructors used a variety of tools to support peer review, including Google Drive, Blackboard, and Expertiza, a dedicated peer-review system. Students reflected on the peer review process in an online survey after each round of peer review. The survey results varied considerably between the classes, suggesting the importance of the instructor, assignment, and peer review process. There were also common themes that emerged across courses, such as the common value of giving reviews. This paper examines one participating faculty member’s fall 2015 and spring 2016 education course and how students’ perceptions of peer review evolved positively across the two semesters.