{"id":5012,"date":"2019-09-29T15:01:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-29T20:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=5012"},"modified":"2019-09-19T15:32:14","modified_gmt":"2019-09-19T20:32:14","slug":"exploring-the-nuances-of-peer-feedback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/exploring-the-nuances-of-peer-feedback\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring the Nuances of Peer Feedback"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over at the Learning Scientists, Katie Marquardt digs into peer feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the one hand<\/strong>, we can see many reasons that peer feedback would be beneficial.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It means that students are doing more of the work than we are–and, as we know, “the one who does the work does the learning.”<\/p>\n

And, the opportunity to give peer feedback provides students with the responsibility and autonomy we want to be teaching.<\/p>\n

On the other hand<\/strong>, those benefits don’t always materialize.<\/p>\n

As Marquandt writes:<\/p>\n

my colleagues express skepticism about peer review, because of the poor quality of feedback students sometimes give each other, and the challenges of managing peer review activities in the lessons.<\/p>\n

This is valid criticism, and I have seen these shortcomings in my own lessons, particularly when working with English language learners who may lack the writing skills to give their classmates good feedback.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If we can imagine good and bad sides to peer feedback, what does the research say?<\/p>\n

What The Research Says…<\/h2>\n

If you read this blog often, you can predict what I’m about to say: we need a narrower question.<\/p>\n

Surely the effects of peer feedback depend substantially on the peers, and the feedback<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Marquandt’s post does a great job exploring lots of specific research examples. For that reason, I encourage you to read it<\/a>. You should be asking: which of the studies she describes best matches your students, and your methodology for fostering peer feedback.<\/p>\n

To take a compelling example: one study found that students who\u00a0gave feedback<\/em> improved their own second drafts of an assignment more than those who\u00a0received feedback.<\/em><\/p>\n

Crucially, this finding held true for the students who\u00a0“commented more on the strength of macro-meaning and the weakness of micro-meaning” of the drafts they reviewed.<\/p>\n

To decide whether or not this study applies to you, you’ll need to know what “micro-meaning” and “macro-meaning” actually mean.<\/p>\n

And, you’ll have to decide if research done with college physics students writing up lab reports might reasonably apply to your students.<\/p>\n

In other words: this topic is a great example of a broader principle. When we look for research to guide our teaching, we should be sure that the people<\/em> and the specific methods<\/em> in the research helpfully match our teaching work and our teaching world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent article offers a helpful summary of research into peer feedback.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,95],"class_list":["post-5012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-classroom-advice","tag-grades"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5012"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5016,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5012\/revisions\/5016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}