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A common problem stemming from large class sizes is that of assessing a large amount of student writing (which you may already know too well!). We offer here tools and solutions for dealing with this workload.
TOOL: Distribute the labor with a calibrated peer review system like Eli Review or CPR (http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu/Home.aspx). Setting your students up to give feedback to each other can get tricky in larger classroom because there are so many logistical steps that may leave you facing more challenge. If you are a Michigan State affiliate, Eli is free when you use it for Michigan State courses. Currently, Eli is integrated with D2L, so you can activate your account through your course’s D2L site.
1) Design a writing assessment document, or rubric, with clear learning goals that you can scaffold.
Before students ever sit down to review one another, make sure you have made clear the writing practices a given assignment is designed to foster. We have found we are most successful as writing teachers when we make the learning goals or criteria for writing assignments as transparent and explicit as possible. This allows you and students to save time by staying on track and using a common measuring standard.
2) Introduce the concept of review early and model how students can review their colleagues’ work.
Review doesn’t need to wait on a completed draft. Instead, Eli is designed to help instructors review early, and review frequently. When we have taught writing, we have found that developing a culture of review early on in a course has helped our students’ overall learning because it front loads assignments and tasks with the learning goals in mind. However, we have also found that students frequently ask us what it is we are “looking for.” And indeed, it’s helpful to show students how to engage in a review process that leads towards your (or your program’s) course goals. Show students what kinds of feedback can be helpful toward working toward those outcomes and how to practice that kind of feedback so that students can begin to effectively respond to each other.
3) Start small and review more frequently.
Review doesn’t need to happen all at once. Instead, we have found it helpful to isolate learning goals in review activities, and to center reviews around a limited set of criteria, rather than around a holistic evaluation of writing quality. If a goal of your writing assignment, for example, is to make a convincing argument, then it may be helpful to have separate reviews that focus respectively on the quality of students’ claims and the quality of their evidence. Because you are breaking down larger assignments, students would be able to do small review assignments for each other quickly and efficiently in a low stakes way.
4) Use the rubric throughout the entire project, not just for final assessment.
There is plenty of research about the value of using rubrics as instructional tools. In the case of peer review, however, using the rubric as a common document for understanding the nature and purpose of a writing assignment can ensure that peer review provides a large quantity of feedback without sacrificing the quality or richness of that feedback.
5) Check in with your students to see how well it is working.
Despite all the positive benefits of the feedback we’re describing, it’s not going to work without strong pedagogical direction, and at times, intervention. Talk to your students — learn what feedback has been helpful, what hasn’t, and ask for suggestions about what can improve their experience of the process and help your feedback system become more effective.
