General Information
Instructor: Paul Wehr
Class: PSYCH 390
Assignment Description
Peer-review assignment: 2% of the final grade
Based on previous assignments and courses, Wehr identified a need for students to learn to give critical and constructive feedback. This assignment was created to help students practice the process of peer review on their peer’s research proposal by using the ‘Comment’ feature in PebblePad.
Wehr created a resource that introduced students to the process of peer review based on a workshop by the Writing Centre. This resource also included instructions to share their work on PebblePad, and instructions on giving peer review on PebblePad. As this peer-review assignment is very low-stakes, students can practice giving peer review without pressure.
Learning Objectives
To strengthen students’ peer review process in:
- Identifying specific elements of the paper when commenting
- Offering helpful suggestions for improvement
- Offering honest and respectful feedback
- Identifying strengths and areas for improvement – is constructive
- Receiving construction criticism from peers with the purpose of implementing useful feedback to improve their work
Assignment Instructions
- Using PebblePad, enter your name and the name of the student whose work you are reviewing.
- Communicate your experience as a reader. Summarize or paraphrase what you have read and any specific content that is clear/unclear.
- Assess the content. Comment on the quality of the ideas presented thus far and whether they sufficiently address the proposal requirements. Identify areas that need further development. Structure and formatting are less a concern for the proposal than they would be for the final paper.
Some example phrases can include:
- I'm not sure what your thesis is because…
- Your topic seems too broad (narrow) given that...
- The evidence for this argument seems weak since...
- This point seems to contradict your main thesis in light of...
- I (dis)agree with this point because...
- The instructions asked us to ..., but your paper seems to...
- Your paper exceeds the word limit identified in the instructions…
- There is no transition between this topic and the next...
- This section is redundant with this other section...
- Make Recommendations. What changes, deletions, additions, elaborations, clarifications would you suggest be made? Can you recommend any additional resources?
- Have you considered this perspective or that resource?
- I would expand this point and include greater detail…
- Perhaps consider reordering your paragraphs so that...
- I think you could delete this section altogether because...
- Perhaps you could strengthen your argument by...