Where to start?!
Peer Critique can already present itself with challenges in the classroom setting, so we took our focus of Universal Design Learning (UDL) with an emphasis on Multiple Means of Engagement in order to provide instruction during distance learning.
Research Question
How might we use group peer critique to improve students’ writing and give students ownership of their writing?
Theory of Action
If we implement peer-critique that builds multiple levels of support for practice and performance and allowing them to represent their critique in a variety of ways, then students will be able to leverage peer feedback as a tool to improve their writing ...resulting in students with improved writing competence and developed ability to evaluate writing.
Equity Goal
Give students the opportunity to implement peer-critique that builds multiple levels of support for practice and performance and allows them to represent their critique in a variety of ways.
Content Goal
9th & 11th grade students will be able to effectively use literary devices and dialogue to enhance a dramatic scene containing at least two characters. 9th grade students will be able to effectively use literary devices and a story arc to enhance an epic poem.
Peer Critique can already present itself with challenges in the classroom setting, so we took our focus of Universal Design Learning (UDL) with an emphasis on Multiple Means of Engagement in order to provide instruction during distance learning.
Research Question
How might we use group peer critique to improve students’ writing and give students ownership of their writing?
Theory of Action
If we implement peer-critique that builds multiple levels of support for practice and performance and allowing them to represent their critique in a variety of ways, then students will be able to leverage peer feedback as a tool to improve their writing ...resulting in students with improved writing competence and developed ability to evaluate writing.
Equity Goal
Give students the opportunity to implement peer-critique that builds multiple levels of support for practice and performance and allows them to represent their critique in a variety of ways.
Content Goal
9th & 11th grade students will be able to effectively use literary devices and dialogue to enhance a dramatic scene containing at least two characters. 9th grade students will be able to effectively use literary devices and a story arc to enhance an epic poem.
Student Thinking
We wanted to offer students the opportunity to continue a communal learning setting by offering peers feedback verbally and/or written for their writing assignment on epic poems. We provided students with rubrics in order for them to be able to independently assess their peers’ work and encourage them to give specific feedback based on their teachers’ expectations, as well as giving the student more ownership over their own writing process.
Reflection of the Lesson Study Process
It was helpful to read about educators who were expressing similar concerns with the change to distance learning and see that online platforms could be just as effective when creating Universal Learning Design lessons. Building on what we knew about effective peer feedback, we added extra components to build multiple means of engagement and variety of access points by giving choices for students to express themselves verbally or written. As well as, have all resources available by creating graphic organizers and video modeling lessons for asynchronous learning for students to be able to review content on their own time.
The results with the written products made us feel that we accomplished our goal for this lesson study. We noticed that students who participated in this activity did improve their writing by submitting writing that met the expectations on the rubric in order to answer the given prompt. The implementations of having UDL Multiple Means of Expression and purposefully crafted rubrics we noticed changes from the first drafts to the second drafts of our focus students. For example, my focus student was given peer feedback to make her epic poem sound more realistic of a teenager's experience living in 2020 and literary devices. The second draft that my focus student submitted had added elements of using an iPhone to call peers and an iPad to Facetime with her friend that she felt ignored by. When looking at the final written product, my focus student noted that she improved her writing by scoring higher on her self-assessment rubric, as well as including the elements that she was missing prior.
Teaching and Learning from this Lesson Cycle
I have learned that teacher modeling and heavily scaffolded peer feedback were the most successful accommodations we put in place for the students that participated in this activity. It took reflection and collaboration from all of our colleagues to not only be patience with ourselves during the development of this lesson, but also to keep us focused to support our students during this time of distance learning.
We wanted to offer students the opportunity to continue a communal learning setting by offering peers feedback verbally and/or written for their writing assignment on epic poems. We provided students with rubrics in order for them to be able to independently assess their peers’ work and encourage them to give specific feedback based on their teachers’ expectations, as well as giving the student more ownership over their own writing process.
Reflection of the Lesson Study Process
It was helpful to read about educators who were expressing similar concerns with the change to distance learning and see that online platforms could be just as effective when creating Universal Learning Design lessons. Building on what we knew about effective peer feedback, we added extra components to build multiple means of engagement and variety of access points by giving choices for students to express themselves verbally or written. As well as, have all resources available by creating graphic organizers and video modeling lessons for asynchronous learning for students to be able to review content on their own time.
The results with the written products made us feel that we accomplished our goal for this lesson study. We noticed that students who participated in this activity did improve their writing by submitting writing that met the expectations on the rubric in order to answer the given prompt. The implementations of having UDL Multiple Means of Expression and purposefully crafted rubrics we noticed changes from the first drafts to the second drafts of our focus students. For example, my focus student was given peer feedback to make her epic poem sound more realistic of a teenager's experience living in 2020 and literary devices. The second draft that my focus student submitted had added elements of using an iPhone to call peers and an iPad to Facetime with her friend that she felt ignored by. When looking at the final written product, my focus student noted that she improved her writing by scoring higher on her self-assessment rubric, as well as including the elements that she was missing prior.
Teaching and Learning from this Lesson Cycle
I have learned that teacher modeling and heavily scaffolded peer feedback were the most successful accommodations we put in place for the students that participated in this activity. It took reflection and collaboration from all of our colleagues to not only be patience with ourselves during the development of this lesson, but also to keep us focused to support our students during this time of distance learning.