{"id":254,"date":"2017-06-20T17:48:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T00:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/donofrio\/?page_id=254"},"modified":"2018-10-01T10:51:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T17:51:08","slug":"student-peer-review","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/donofrio\/student-peer-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Peer Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Activating Online Social Habits to Cultivate Academic Collegiality
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Artistic practice and creative thinking thrive in a community of collegiality, critique, and peer review.\u00a0\u00a0With the rise of the digital in art making, the social component of the studio artist has been sacrificed in the virtual setting. Visual Arts 110 went through a\u00a0renewed structure of curriculum delivery by way of a \u201cblended\u201d classroom for skill based learning, which further emphasized the digital environment\u2019s contribution to the act of making.\u00a0\u00a0I wondered, how could virtual engagement also set the scene for cultivating collegiality? In an aim to transform social media habits, the class used ComPAIR to activate online communication tools into a generative focus on the learning benefits that a community can bring to one\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n

The digital, of which this class focus\u2019 on, is social and personable in very different spaces than those of the course material.\u00a0 In order to facilitate student collegiality and community in the digital medium, the second phase of converting the class into a blended environment, I\u00a0 introduced a Peer Review component to the course on ComPAIR, a UBC-created software.<\/p>\n

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Class Structure:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

VISA 110 consists of a weekly one-hour lecture and two-hour lab which you must be enrolled in, and as it is a \u201cflipped\u201d classroom there is also approximately an hour of online weekly tutorials.\u00a0 There are approximately 480 students enrolled in the course per year in three sections.<\/p>\n

Motivation for Peer Review:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Top three reasons why I was motivated to incorporate Peer Review\/Critique:<\/p>\n

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  1. In the Visual Arts, collegial feedback, and a belonging social atmosphere is very important to the growth of a practice. The digital medium cultivated a vacuous mind-set, where students were looking at their screens rather than each other, and missing an integral component of studio practice. How could digital mediums used in the course be used to cultivate social behaviours towards critical collegiality?<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Over the years, certain students would have revelatory experiences during critiques, as they looked at and evaluated each other\u2019s finished works in a gallery style class critique. I wanted to have this revelation happen before the project was due.
    \nHow could students go through the experience of viewing their peer\u2019s work before it is due?<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Students are prone to insecurity, feeling it was \u201cnot enough\u201d and therefore adding in irrelevant elements that distracted rather than supported, their concept. This was obvious to them during a critique, as distractions took over the real point of the project was overlooked.\u00a0 How could students receive thoughtful feedback about the way their work is communicating, before it is due?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Cultivating Collegiality:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    My main goal was to use peer review\/critique as a process aimed at cultivating rigorous collegiality. I knew I had to defend myself from the conventional structures of allocating numbers on a rubric to grade each other; I had to find another way.\u00a0 I needed to offer a process that would give students an opportunity to discuss work as they are making it, give, receive and consider helpful advice as the exchange, and see their peers as colleagues towards common growth.\u00a0 After thoughtfully reading two works as comparisons, the feedback text box in ComPAIR facilitates this approach.\u00a0 The process needed to encourage constructive criticism to be seen as a way to influence the revisions and evolution of the potential of work, instead of a final appraisal of what\u2019s been done, which also emphasized the importance of revisions. As well, engaging in peer review as an active learning technique of \u201cteaching others\u201d is a proven teaching methodology.<\/p>\n

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    Methods:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

    The way in which I activated peer reviews\/critiques as a collegiality building exercise was by the decisions in my execution.<\/p>\n