11 Tips for Peer Feedback w/ eWorkbooks Engaging Screenagers
11 Tips for Peer Feedback w/ eWorkbooks Engaging Screenagers
When you were in school did you ever give or get peer feedback?
Have you ever been part of a given/received feedback on 360° review?
A major challenge for both of these is what I call the “revenge factor” where one person wants to “get back at another’ for less than favorable feedback. (junk engagement)
Tomorrow, I will describe how some of my SME (small and medium enterprise) clients have used eWorkbooks for inexpensive 360° review feedback.
When I worked in Human Resources we struggled with finding ways to have peers give feedback, way back then we tried several different methods didn’t have the results we wanted.
Moving into the classroom, again we tried several methods for peer feedback and struggled as the results were not what we would settle for with the learners.
In previous blogs I’ve mentioned using eWorkbooks (Google Forms with the teaching slides as well as interactive questions, curating links and tasks, example images and videos, etc. which students complete using their mobile devices) for students to interactively learn.
When students use eWorkbooks with their mobile devices as I taught, they would get their learning sent to their inbox so they could be reminded of their learning Moments of Growth. (optimal engagement)
One day, when my Engaging Screenagers were learning from their eWorkbooks on their phones, one of them jokingly asked, “Why don’t we use eWorkbooks so when we are absent we can still give each other feedback on what we have curated?”
That simple suggestion turned into a great idea, as they could give each other feedback and we could monitor the feedback.
Tip 1: Let students use eWorkbooks to give peer classmates feedback for their curations, and because eWorkbooks are on their phones or any connected device Engaging Screenagers could give feedback from anywhere.
Tip 2: They don’t know who was giving the feedback, but the teacher knows who gave it and what they wrote. (optimal engagement)
For poor feedback I just hold it back from the student to whom it was aimed, and show the class an example of inappropriate feedback.
In the first attempt we gave them curated samples from previous semesters and the students were all over the place with their feedback.
Tip 3: We realized we wanted to give them some training to make the feedback more valuable, so we developed a tiered training program where we started with simple tasks and moved on to more complex feedback tasks later.
Because we had few models to follow, we used a “Expert Rater” development model similar to the method we used to train expert raters for our academic research for our journals.
In the first week we gave them a few curated samples in their eWorkbook and described what areas were to focus on when giving feedback.
Also in the eWorkbook, we gave them a few M/C (multiple choice) and T/F (true/false) questions which were “auto graded” to give students instant feedback after they submitted their responses. (optimal engagement)
The second week we shared more specific feedback language and asked some open ended questions based on the curated samples. (optimal engagement)
Tip 4: After they gave their feedback on the curated samples, as a teacher I was able to show exemplar feedback by displaying the feedback submissions on the screen in front of the class.
Tip 5: Also, for the students who did not give appropriate responses, I would go talk to them individually and remind them of our class agreements.
In the third week, we gave them actual curated samples that were collected from the students’ eWorkbooks from previous classes.
For example, we asked students to do was evaluate how well (on a 1-10 scale where 10 is good) the curated sample (2 sentences) synthesized with the content.
The fourth week we asked them to describe what they liked best about the curated sample and what they thought the author could do better the next time.
Again, after students submitted their responses we would show exemplar responses on the screen there in class.
After the fourth week, we varied the focus for student feedback based on their learning topics (i.e. grammar, content, syntax, impact, etc.)
Tip 6: I’ve learned one of my colleagues has included these peer feedback steps for every teaching module in her courses, and she teaches Chinese Creative Writing,
Tip 7: We found it was best to ask them to give feedback on specific areas like, “Describe how this would make your feel emotions,” or “Would you be persuaded by this…” or Suggest grammar improvements for…”
Remember, as these were eWorkbooks, we could make changes right away for the next class because we didn’t need to make copies for each student.
Tip 8: To ensure each student did not give themselves feedback we grouped the students by Sir names (like A-E) and in the eWorkbooks they would select their group go to a section that had other classmates’ curated samples.
Yes, we had students click into different sections of the eWorkbook to find their own curated samples, and that was fine, although they were not getting credit for that.
Only 1 student mistakenly gave feedback to himself and it was quite critical feedback as he compared his wiring to his classmates.
I have a colleague who liked this idea and tried having the students compare and contrast their own writing with another classmate, but I haven’t seen the outcome and that seems like a lot of work.
Tip 9: We had the students curate content they will put into their final papers that peers would give feedback, as this teaches students the value of getting feedback when they write after they leave school.
When we did this guess what happened to their curating and critical thinking skills?
That’s right, the pilot class had the most creative and critical thinking as well as imaginative synthesizing samples into the learning content of any classes I’ve had before that time.
Tip 10: In the next term we tried this same process with a business writing course, and again, we found the students in the class had greatly improved writing quality and scores compared to other sections.
Again, by the end of the term the writing course students had the highest scores on their papers and exams of any class before that point.
Tip 11: This isn’t just for curating exercises or writing classes, as we’ve tested using peer feedback in eWorkbooks for exam preparation several courses like, physics, chemistry, accounting, mass communication, drama, etc.
In the end:
A supervisor asked me, “Who would have thought by adding a quick sample and some questions into an eWorkbookcould make such a big difference in results?”
I’ve heard the idea that students learn better from each other than they learn from teachers, and this is one example that supports this idea.
By using a free technology in a slightly different (add an example and some questions in an eWorkbook) way you can change the direction in a great way (awesome learning improvement).
It is a risk to try something new but if you really care to create wins for others isn’t it worth the risk?
How to Win Friends & Influence People
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Wouldn’t it be great to make small changes to our teaching to truly help our Engaging Screenagers learn more and faster?
Couldn’t we use these powerful techniques in most every class to improve results?
Don’t teachers penalize learners when they are not allowed to let students learn and give feedback with this highly effective tools?
Use eWorkbooks for peer feedback for powerful learning.
Remember, come join tomorrow to see more Improving Your Engagement with Screenagers and others inspirationalexperiences and ideas for Optimal Engagement in the ScreenAge.
Remember to engage tomorrow.
Following with you.
Keep it simple.
All the Best, Warren
SOCIAL
- TWITTER: @DrWarrenLINGER
- FACEBOOK: Dr Warren LINGER
- GOOGLE+: +WarrenLINGER
- LINKEDIN: www.linkedin.com/in/DrWarrenLINGER
- INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/warrenlinger/
- TUBE SUBSCRIBE: gg.gg/YouTubeDrWarren
Dr Warren LINGER © 2017
Comments
Post a Comment