The Power of Peer Feedback

In my experience, peer feedback is either incredibly useful or utterly useless. Rarely, if ever, have I encountered "okay" peer feedback. I've seen peer feedback used in formal and informal settings and the results are either positive or negative. For all the power the method has, it's difficult to use well, especially in a formalized educational setting.

1. How do you, as an instructor, measure the effectiveness of peer feedback? 
2. How do you, as a peer, offer constructive feedback? 
3. What do you do with the feedback once you have it?
4. What makes peer feedback so polarizing? 

I've spent countless hours trying to answer those questions to my own satisfaction. At a point, most people like to have their efforts acknowledge, to hear someone say they've done a good job. But, that's usually not enough. While getting the pat on the back is good, understanding where things can be improved is arguably more important. There is an inherent power in the position of "instructor" - even if the student doesn't personally buy in the the course, the material, or the instructor, there is a built in hierarchy that determines that feedback from the instructor is of value, at minimum in determining final grades. 

Peers don't have the built in power of the existing system behind them. In many situations, their feedback is considered somehow less valid than the teachers. Common ideas against peer review? They're students; they're here to learn not to teach. They don't know the content. They're not going to take it seriously. 

When I first introduce peer review to my students, I often hear them say:

And of course they don't. They've rarely been offered the opportunity to be part of that type of feedback cycle, that sort of community. The longer I teach, the more I realize how so many of my experiences differ from those of my students. I peer reviewed all the way through high school - it wasn't formalize, I just asked several of my friends to look at assignments; it made sense because we were all in the same classes. 

How do you implement peer review in your classes? I'm sure there are a million different ways to do it, and I'm sure many of them are good ways. When thinking about peer review for this pilot program, I kept thinking about trust - about people feeling comfortable having someone else come in a critique what they're doing in their classes. What we're asking is huge. For many of the individuals who will participate in this pilot, we're shoving them out of their comfort zone with the finesse of a Mack truck. Then we tell them their peers will be giving them feedback?! 

That's the trick though - establishing a community where everyone is uncomfortable, everyone is taking risks, everyone is doing something new, something a bit scary. This allows everyone to offer feedback in a way that is productive. No one in this peer review cycle is coming in as an expert, the pressure to perform competency just isn't there - the idea, the expectation is that the participants put effort and thought into the implementation of something new. 

Reinventing the Wheel & Juggling Hats

At a point, I feel I'm repeating myself in some of these posts, but at the same time, that indicates to me that they are areas in which I'm stilling working through the thinking and that space should be valued.

I keep thinking about my Encampment experience, my TEAC 259A course in the fall, and this 905 development - and I wonder about how much reinventing the wheel is necessary. We use buzz words like "best practices" and "industry standard", but really, what does that mean? In reality, not much. What I think is best practice can (and often does) vary wildly from others who can and do teach the same things - and often with equal levels of success. Even now, as I'm thinking about 259A, I'm looking at different readings because I know I'll have a different audience, a different group of learners with different needs - not necessarily because the technology changes, but because the group of learners they want to teach are much different. Secondary school and elementary school are vastly different - and each requires a different teaching approach. But, as I read through the new readings I'm considering, I begin thinking about which readings I would take out - then the vicious cycle begins. Then I think, do I even need to the reading, or can I create a content based lesson out of the information? That type of a lesson would be a different approach for me, but maybe it's needed? Maybe it will work. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Probably both.

When I switch to thinking about 905 and the Grab Bags I'm developing, I find it hard to switch hats.

When I do manage to at least get the hat on, I find myself staring at the blinking cursor. In my head, it's clear. I know exactly how I would teach the unit I'm trying to describe on paper. The translation from what's in my head to what needs to be on the paper is still stuck in Klingon. Develop a lesson, explain the Who, What, Where, When, Why and How of it: simple. Not simple. I'm stuck in the void of not knowing how to translate things that I would just do, things I have practiced and honed into second nature into something that I can pass on to someone else. Then, it's back to the gap between what I expect people know, or at least have a baseline of versus the reality. I'm constantly reminded by my family and even some of my friends that the gaps between what I know, specifically when it's related to things I've spent years studying, is wide. I also fall into the trap of snappish or overly sarcastic responses because of my assumption that people already know something, or with an example of making a PowerPoint, at least have an understanding of what a bad presentation looks like, even if they don't know exactly how to fix it.