Why use Peer Review?

In the next set of steps, you will use the peer-review activity to get your design of an activity or a lesson plan reviewed and to review the work of others. As educators and science communicators, you will probably have experience of giving feedback to colleagues and using their input to enhance your teaching.

Peer review activity is an opportunity for you to share your design for an activity or a lesson plan with your peers within the learning community on this course and use their feedback to develop your idea further. Because this is a massive open course, we educators won’t be able to give feedback on all of your designs individually. Feedback and reflection are an important part of applying what you have learned, so we are using the peer review system to help you.

Research shows that peer review is “related to the enhancement of student learning by means of reflection, analysis and diplomatic criticism.” Falchikov, 2006

Have you used peer review before? Comment in the discussion area to share your experiences or views of this approach.