Observation #4: Peer-Review
Peer-Review- The Ups and Downs of Letting Students Critique Each Other
My fourth and final observation occurred during my Narrative Unit. In this unit I was guiding students through writing one of three narrative options; Personal, Illness, or Fiction. I let the students have this choice in an effort to differentiate, and to alleviate any anxieties about being required to write about an actual experience they had lived through, or of having to be vulnerable in front of their peers/me. It worked wonderfully and I've read equal amounts of stories from each genre, and some which overlap in exciting ways! As part of this unit, I assigned a Peer Review to help students understand this unit was part of viewing writing as a process, and so they could compare their writing level to that of their peers. Shannon observed me on the peer review day.
This observation went very well for me, despite my nerves attempting to fool me into believing otherwise. Everything went according to plan, I guided the students in reading through their peers work and then offering feedback via Turnitin's PeerMark feature. On the surface, everything seemed to be going very well, if not perfectly, and I naively assumed everything that was going on on my kiddoes screens was aboveboard and what I had imagined.
I said multiple times to my kids, Be Kind and Be Sensitive to each other, but as Shannon rightfully observed, I didn't model what I meant by that statement. This lead to peer reviews like the above, where one of my students effectively lambasted another's work, with curt brutality and comments bordering on insults.
Seeing this upset me, and I called out the student once I noticed, halving her grade for the assignment and stopping her to explain why I made that decision after class one day. I think that in general, this has opened my eyes to the necessity of student models, and is part of the reason I've been making copies of my students work-- both the good and the bad of my assignments. I hope to use this unit again someday in the future, and I really hope I can do a better job of anticipating and avoiding issues such as these.
My fourth and final observation occurred during my Narrative Unit. In this unit I was guiding students through writing one of three narrative options; Personal, Illness, or Fiction. I let the students have this choice in an effort to differentiate, and to alleviate any anxieties about being required to write about an actual experience they had lived through, or of having to be vulnerable in front of their peers/me. It worked wonderfully and I've read equal amounts of stories from each genre, and some which overlap in exciting ways! As part of this unit, I assigned a Peer Review to help students understand this unit was part of viewing writing as a process, and so they could compare their writing level to that of their peers. Shannon observed me on the peer review day.
This observation went very well for me, despite my nerves attempting to fool me into believing otherwise. Everything went according to plan, I guided the students in reading through their peers work and then offering feedback via Turnitin's PeerMark feature. On the surface, everything seemed to be going very well, if not perfectly, and I naively assumed everything that was going on on my kiddoes screens was aboveboard and what I had imagined.
I said multiple times to my kids, Be Kind and Be Sensitive to each other, but as Shannon rightfully observed, I didn't model what I meant by that statement. This lead to peer reviews like the above, where one of my students effectively lambasted another's work, with curt brutality and comments bordering on insults.
Seeing this upset me, and I called out the student once I noticed, halving her grade for the assignment and stopping her to explain why I made that decision after class one day. I think that in general, this has opened my eyes to the necessity of student models, and is part of the reason I've been making copies of my students work-- both the good and the bad of my assignments. I hope to use this unit again someday in the future, and I really hope I can do a better job of anticipating and avoiding issues such as these.
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