Students as Feedback Providers: Building Student Capacity Through Feedback

• In Event: 14.038 - Preparing Leaders to Work for Educational Equality: Effective Feedback to Students on Leadership and Scholarship

Abstract

A key way to actively involve students in the feedback process is to cultivate students’ ability to provide peer feedback (Ertmer, et al, 2007). Caffarella and Barnett (2000), in their study of a doctoral program’s Scholarly Writing Project, found that giving and receiving peer critique, while anxiety-producing and frustrating at times – helped students grow as producers and reviewers of scholarly writing. They exhort faculty to “listen to the voices of their students and incorporate into their teaching and mentoring of students though their doctoral programs advice on how to both provide and receive feedback in an effective and helpful manner” (p. 50).
In one of the first courses that doctoral students take at her institution, Participant D uses a mock journal experience to socialize students to the value of the blind peer review process. Through the experience, students both provide and receive scholarly critique on their work. The mock journal has been so successful that the students have created their own student-run journal. In what ways can faculty actively involve students in the feedback process? What does this look like in educational leadership programs? What are the outcomes, in terms of student learning, student writing quality, and student efficacy?

Author

• Megan Tschannen-Moran, College of William and Mary