Transcript Online Peer Workshop - Oregon State University

Hybrid and Online Peer Workshop
Some Ideas for Peer Workshop
For Campus, Hybrid, and Ecampus Classes
WIC Learning Lunch:
Friday April 25, 2014
Terminology
Workshop ≠ Scholarly Peer Review
To help students not confuse the term peer review
and the concept of Scholarly Peer Review (used like
American Idol) gatekeeping to determine the highly
competitive acceptance of articles for academic
publication with the supportive workshops we do in
class, I now refer to class work as workshop instead
of peer review.
Why workshop at all?
• Teaching students how to workshop
effectively works towards course outcomes
– For their own revision and skills as a writer
– For critical thinking – they can analyze each
other’s work and learn a lot from seeing other
work
• Learning to coach another writer can transfer to
revising their own work
– For strengthening their writing community
Aspects of Peer Workshop
• Using different models of workshop
– Quick Valentines, lengthier analysis, pairs, etc.
• Encouraging students to engage seriously in
workshop
• Helping English Language Learners get the
most from workshop
• Focusing first on Global or Higher Concerns
– Content and organization before grammar
Workshops in all writing classes
Onsite, hybrid, or online classes
• Nearly all assignments have some kind of workshop –
more or less formal, nearly all written
• On site get some in-class workshops, typically with
written follow-up
• Some workshop is in Discussion Board (esp. for PPTs)
• Feedback via letters or worksheets
• Worksheets are often variations on the scoring guide
• Earning points for workshop encourages participation
and provides an opportunity for instructors to explain
effective feedback
• Models of good feedback help students
Teaching Students to Workshop
• Discuss in class what they have liked and hated
about peer review workshop before
• Encourage students to be proactive and ask for
what they want feedback on
• Show students how the process helps them think
about what their own assignment does well and
needs help with
• Suggest the 3 + 3 guideline: list 3 aspects that are
working well + 3 suggestions for improvement
Provide guidelines for workshop
• Lisa Ede’s textbook Work in Progress: A Guide
to Academic Writing and Revising 6th ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. has
guidelines for working with responses from
– Peers
– Instructors
– Family and friends (“My mother loved it!”)
– Writing tutors
How specific?
• Depends on the assignment
– A resume workshop will be very specific on
format, grammar, and quantified content
– A technical report workshop will look at required
elements (abstract, keywords, headers, charts)
– An essay workshop may be more philosophical
about ideas and writing voice
Quality peer response earns more points
• Model a quality
response
• Give feedback on
the focus and
quality of the
workshop
• Get student
permission to
share excellent
workshop letters
Dear --------:
First off, I wanted to thank you for giving me the
chance to read your essay. I appreciated your
efforts to match the style and voice of the piece
with the subject and I think that the core idea,
that reading is more than an act of
consumption, but an active method we use to
interact with the world, is both fascinating and
uniquely builds on the prompt. Good work.
With that in mind, there are a few things that I
believe that you should consider when moving
forward with revisions. The first is your sentence
structure and word choice…….
Using Discussion Forums
Some
drafts get
more
response
from
peers
than
others
1st draft workshop
Students post drafts in
Discussion Board and read
as many drafts as they want
--Sometimes they are
assigned paired partners
--Sometimes it is “first
come, first served”
--They then review two
classmates’ drafts and offer
suggestions
--They get points for posting
on time and posting quality
responses
Sample online workshop
Adapting
the scoring
guide as a
worksheet
helps
students
focus on the
assignment
and the
outcomes
Even without worksheets
Give students
encouragement
and guidance
on their
responses
English Language Learners
• Written feedback is more helpful than just
discussion
– They can take time to read a peer’s work and
consider
– They can take time to write to the peer
– They can have written feedback to study while
they revise
– The discussion may go too quickly and
idiomatically to process effectively
Research shows the value of workshop
Workshop
in all
courses, not
just writing
courses