Proposal Title
Write, review, revise: Peer review as a model to get students writing earlier
Session Type
Presentation
Room
FNB 2220
Start Date
4-7-2019 1:00 PM
Keywords
writing, critical thinking, peer review, large enrolment, undergraduate curriculum
Primary Threads
Teaching and Learning Science
Abstract
Students across all years of study in STEM disciplines can benefit from opportunities to develop better writing skills, and by upper years should have opportunities to partake in field-relevant peer review (or critical reading) activities. Even as students reach their final year, these critical reading skills are often poorly formed – let alone general writing skills – in many students. Peer review and an assignment model incorporating revision of written work can allow deeper writing experiences earlier in an undergraduate curriculum. This presentation overviews the implementation of such a model in a large (~300 student) first-year biology course with discussion of various software platforms available to make this feasible in a large-enrolment setting, and also describes a smaller scale implementation of a critical reading assignment in a fourth-year biology course. This model of write, review, revise is a scaffolded-approach to developing writing over multiple years, which begins with a focus on developing flow and readability in written work, offers students opportunities to develop critical reading skills, and has the potential to lead to much deeper, and field-relevant peer review activities in upper-years.
Elements of Engagement
Attendees will explore the stages of the peer review process using Google docs to view samples of student drafts and revisions; laptop access is recommended but not necessary.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Write, review, revise: Peer review as a model to get students writing earlier
FNB 2220
Students across all years of study in STEM disciplines can benefit from opportunities to develop better writing skills, and by upper years should have opportunities to partake in field-relevant peer review (or critical reading) activities. Even as students reach their final year, these critical reading skills are often poorly formed – let alone general writing skills – in many students. Peer review and an assignment model incorporating revision of written work can allow deeper writing experiences earlier in an undergraduate curriculum. This presentation overviews the implementation of such a model in a large (~300 student) first-year biology course with discussion of various software platforms available to make this feasible in a large-enrolment setting, and also describes a smaller scale implementation of a critical reading assignment in a fourth-year biology course. This model of write, review, revise is a scaffolded-approach to developing writing over multiple years, which begins with a focus on developing flow and readability in written work, offers students opportunities to develop critical reading skills, and has the potential to lead to much deeper, and field-relevant peer review activities in upper-years.