e-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates

Essential Update #4: Recursive Feedback

The part of Recursive Feedback (Affordance #4) which I would like to address is peer review. Dr. Ellen Turner of Lund University defines peer review as the process of evaluating the work of your peers. Dr. Turner contends that the reviewers can help authors see “the big picture” as well as the mistakes the authors are blind to. In addition to giving the authors the audience perspective, the process can be motivating. According to Dr. Bill Pope, the practice of peer review is both the evidence and the artifact of knowledge because it is dialogical--the peer evaluating the peer shows a "speaker" and a "listener," during which each is transformed with new knowledge. In the real world, outside of academia, an example of this dialogue is the YouTube video which is followed by comments from viewers. Socrates would be delighted to see dialogue everywhere because he would recognize the incremental improvements of the artifacts of knowledge. (He would also be dismayed by the vitriol in public discourse.)

In the Canvas LMS of an English Composition class I have experience with peer review is accomplished in a discussion forum like the one here in Coursera. First, the student gives feedback using a reader guide on the writing assignments of at least two peers. The reader guide relies on the criteria the teacher is seeking. In my class I regard the reader guide to be invaluable because it gives the student the metacognitive language for evaluating each other’s work. It gives the students clear directions about the expectations of the assignment. After the peer review activity, each author completes a separate assignment--a self-assessment, and many students smartly utilize the feedback the peers have given. The opportunity to reflect on and write about the feedback provides the authors with a tangible, concrete way to make improvements. Lastly, upon submitting the assignment, the students receive feedback following the reader guide questions and the corresponding rubric. This process is continuous in that muliple voices are engaged, and feedback is distribute widely--peers, self, and teacher. However, this process could be more continuous, and so now the question is how, reflecting on Dr. Bill Pope's ideas. Would it be helpful for students to write responses to the teacher's feedback in a draft phrase? Would it be helpful if the teacher highlighted peer feedback that was super important? Would the teacher's feedback be more useful in the early phase of writing, perhaps in a multimodal way, using the audio tool or Snagit? Is the teacher’s feedback even necessary if the peer review exchange is so vital? How can peer review assignments have more color, interaction, and flair--to attract the eyes of the 21st century multi-modal learner?

https://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-snagit-how-to-capture-your-screen.html

More authentic, collaborative learning spaces (digital spaces) outside of the classroom are known as affinity spaces (Valerie). Students giving feedback in an affinity space "geek out," which is to say, they really get into it. What affinity spaces does the Gen Z student prefer? What does it look like on the screen? In affinity spaces students are “connecting their individual knowledge to the available pool of knowledge in the space.” What is “equitable, relevant, and motivating” to youth are affinity spaces and if we teachers want to motivate the students I question how can educators move those affinity spaces into the traditional classroom in order to maximize recursive feedback. In conclusion, how can educators bridge their feedback style with their students to meet them in the space that is preferred?

Feedback and Peer Review. Narrated by Dr. Ellen Turner, 2016. You Tube www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1PJRIQrqTo.

Valerie, Marsh L. "Portal and Gatekeeper: How Peer Feedback Functions in a High School Writing Class." Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 53, no. 2, Nov. 2018, pp. 149-72.

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