A case study in student peer review
Active, collaborative and engaged pedagogies are a goal of the ANU Teaching and Learning Strategy. To provide a practical example of what this can look like, Daniel Casey from the School of Politics & International Relations met with CLT to share his experience in facilitating an authentic peer learning approach in policy education.
In the video interview above, Daniel explains how as part of an assessment each student exchanges their own work with a peer, who reads and responds to it with particular focus on asking questions and getting clarifications as an educated layperson. As this exchange takes place in a capstone course where students can choose their own topic to work on, the level of existing knowledge the peer reviewer brings to a topic will resemble an authentic peer review scenario in the workplace.
“Intheactualworkforce,veryrarelydoyoujustwriteyourproduct,giveittoyourboss,endofstory.[There’s]usuallyaprocessofinteraction,iteration[…]whetheritbewithyourpeeroryourboss,”Danielnotes.Headdsthatthisprocessnotonlyhelpsstudentstoimprovetheirwritingskills,butalsotodevelopskillsinpeerreviewing.“Peopleintheofficeoftenstruggletoknow[…]howtoreceivefeedbackinanhonest,positiveway[…]butalsohowtogivefeedbackinawaythatisconstructive.”
![Daniel in class with students](https://learningandteaching.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Daniel-2-1-edited-2048x1163-1.png)
Daniel in class with students
Using peer review is not without its challenges. “It only works if the students do actually read the other person’s essay,” Daniel explains. But while a student stands to lose if their peer reviewer doesn’t participate, Daniel believes that this can actually help to encourage attendance. “There is a collective action thing going on.”
“I’drecommendthatyoutryoutthistypeofapproachwhereyouhaveasmallishclassofcommitted,engaged,enthusiasticstudents.”
For another practical example of what active, collaborative and engaged pedagogies can look like, CLT chatted to Dr Thomas Nulley-Valdes from to the School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics to share his experience in facilitating an inquiry-based learning approach to language education – learn about that here.
We invite ANU educators to contact us at clt@anu.edu.au to share their approach to facilitating active learning with the ANU community.
![Behind the scenes filming daniel](https://learningandteaching.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Daniel-BTS-5-edited.png)
Hannah Simpson, Angela Stoddard and Rhys Fenwick education designers, Rafael Florez and Tangyao Zhang multimedia and communications officers from the Centre for Learning and Teaching.