The definition of a Peer review – for this experiment - is the evaluation of BTEC: National Diploma in Business level 3 student’s work by other students in the same field at Ealing, Hammersmith & West London College in order to maintain or enhance the quality of the work or performance in that field.
It is based on the concept that a larger and more diverse group of students will usually find more weaknesses and errors in a work and will be able to make a more impartial evaluation of it than will just the person or group responsible for creating the work.
Raison d’être for choosing this experiment?
A Peer Review Turn-It-In based assignment has been chosen because it allows a student to:
- Read
- Review
- Score or
- Evaluate one or many papers submitted by their classmates.
At the end of the peer review assignment, the papers will be distributed so that all the students are able to read the comments left on their work.
Peer review was also chosen because, it utilizes the independence, and in some cases the anonymity (non-threatening environment), of the reviewers in order to discourage cronyism and obtain an unbiased evaluation. Typically, the reviewers are not selected from among the close colleagues, or students of the creator of the work, and potential reviewers are required to disclose of any conflicts of interest.
The follow-up assignment to be Peer Reveiwed will be Unit 37: Starting a small business. Section 3: Skills required to run and develop your business i.e. Unit 37: Task 4: P3.
Outcomes and benefits for the students?
The principal outcomes and benefits for the students, are to helps maintain and enhance quality both directly by detecting weaknesses and errors in specific works and indirectly by providing a basis for making decisions about rewards and punishment that can provide a powerful incentive to achieve excellence. These rewards and punishments are related to prestige i.e. Final grades: Pass, Merit or Distinction level.
How will the project be measured?
The project will be measured by the number of students engaging in the online Peer Review exercises and the amount of Merit and Distinction grades achieved in this area. Furthermore, by the quality of the comments feedback to this web-log.
What do I hope to learn through this experiment?
One key feature of Turn-It-In's Peer Review based assignment facility, is its capacity to allow an Instructor to choose questions for the review. Consequently, I expect that the application of Peer Review, which afford me the opportunity of posing assertive questions to the students. The corollary to this approach would hopefully be to help students focus their feedback and offer more substantive comments to their reviews.
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