Giving and Receiving Feedback with Peer Review

Instructor: Jennifer Yessis

Class: HLTH 602B

Jennifer Yessis and Jahaira Aguila, a student in the Master of Public Health (MPH) program, discuss how PebblePad was used to support Group Projects in a Capstone Course in the Master of Public Health Program. Through PebblePad, students created a group portfolio, provided classmates with feedback, and received feedback from classmates to help improve their own project.

The Capstone Project is the final requirement for the Master of Public Health. In this project, students are divided into groups. Each group is required to complete a project for a client that addresses a particular public health issue. It can take the form of a program proposal, evaluation plan, policy brief or an in-depth analysis of a public health problem. The actual requirements for this project are listed in the Activities and Assignments section of the Syllabus.

To further enhance students’ readiness to practice in public health by:

• Improving the ability to collaborate with others from various backgrounds including differences in discipline or profession, language, culture, values, abilities, and more.
• Improving the ability to integrate lessons learned from a variety of sources and bring that knowledge into a concrete public health problem. These lessons could include analytical tools or information from your academic studies, practical skills gained from working in your practicum or in your own job experience, and insights gained from your own person experiences, civic involvement or reading.

There are two opportunities for peer review:

1. Project Overview and Group Contract
2. Group Presentation and Personal Reflection

Each group will complete an ePortfolio to document their learning journey.

Students will be assessed on the quality of the group project (oral presentation and written report), combined with a peer assessment of their participation and contribution to the project. Students are expected to contribute feedback to other groups’ work plans and presentations, including the evaluation of their presentations. They will also be assessed on a short personal reflective paper that describes their contribution to the group project (both process and substantive input), as well as their own professional development while enrolled in the MPH program.

1. Project Overview and Group Contract

Each group is required to complete a Project Overview, no more than 2 pages during the first week of the term using the Group Discussion Forum or any other medium chosen by their group. Groups will then share a Project Overview with the class for feedback to help improve their strategy towards completing the project. Students are also required to complete self and peer assessments for their group, such as discussing what is working well and what needs to be changed. Based on the group discussion, they revise the Group Contract that was developed at the beginning of the term, if needed, and add the updates to their group Portfolio noting the changes. Example of feedback form (PP)

2. Group Presentation and Personal Reflection

Students provide a peer review of each group's presentation to support learning of each group. The feedback form is on PebblePad as well.

The Personal Reflection is a “free-form” assignment that gives students the opportunity to look at their contribution to their group’s project and their development as a public health practitioner during their time as a student in the MPH program

After each of the students have filled out a feedback template to provide peer feedback to their classmates’ proposals, the instructor will compile the feedback by pulling a report through PebblePad ATLAS, saving it as a pdf, then upload it as an attachment to the respective group’s portfolio. Below is an example of a report.