Discussion

This project was an ambitious undertaking, consisting of both curriculum development and education research components. From the start of the project, there was one overarching goal: create a writing unit that could be implemented at minimal instructor load that would utilize a peer review process to improve scientific writing and understanding of concepts learned in class. The tools and stages used in this research were modeled around the materials and processes of Calibrated Peer Review, specifically refined for use in a junior-level physics course.

It was found that the guiding questions themselves positively impacted the writing of many students in many of the rubric criteria. Simply outlining exactly what is important to include in a scientific paper resulted in decent attempts by the students to produce a well written paper. Over the course of the research, as students familiarized themselves with the rubric through review of both instructor created examples and their peers' work, student writing continued to improve. While this seems to attest to the fact that the rubric and peer evaluation themselves positively impacted the students' writing, other factors may have been at play. The simple task of having students write iteratively may have been a cause for improvement, as addressed by some of the students in their reflections. Also, students may have improved by virtue of the fact that they were engaging in a process that was new to them, not that there was anything inherently beneficial in the specific new process.

One goal of both our project and traditional Calibrated Peer Review is to be able to assign writing tasks without having direct instructor feedback. In this project, students received no feedback whatsoever from either the instructor or project collaborators. This was an issue of concern for at least two of the students, and poses an interesting dilemma for future implementation and research of a similar unit. It would probably be most appropriate to combine the process of guiding questions, rubrics and peer evaluation with some level of direct instructor feedback. One suggestion is to have the students engage in the peer review process and have the instructor provide detailed feedback on the student writing in the final stage. This means that students have had a chance to grow in their ability to communicate, producing a more refined paper, before the instructor reads their work. It is important to note, however, that even without instructor feedback, there was improvement in the students' writing capabilities.

One interesting question to address in future research would be to examine separate groups, one where students use a rubric, guiding questions and peer review, one where students simply write iteratively with no instructor feedback, one where students write iteratively with instructor feedback, and one where students use the rubric, guiding questions, and peer review with instructor feedback during some point in the process. Such a research project could more accurately ascertain the impact of guiding questions, rubrics, and peer review.