Good morning,
Students can learn a lot from their classmates, which is why peer tutoring can be so impactful. The same can be said of peer feedback. Today, we’ll look at an option to enable peer reviews on assignments.
When you set up an assignment, on the options screen, first make sure that you’ve enabled online submissions and have checked the box by “File Uploads.” This ensures that there will be papers to review on Canvas, rather than ones shared on an outside platform (such as Google Docs or Word).
Keep scrolling down the page until you see a section labeled “Peer Reviews.” Check the box beside “Require Peer Reviews” to enable peer reviews for the assignment.
Once you’ve enabled peer reviews, you’ll see some additional options. One option controls how the peer reviews will be assigned, either manually or randomly. The other option designates whether peer reviews will be anonymous.
If you opt to “Automatically Assign Peer Reviews,” you’ll see a box pop up where you’ll need to type in how many peer reviews each student is required to complete:
Once you save the assignment, you’ll see a new menu item right about where you’d normally find the link to SpeedGrader on the assignment details page:
On the Peer Reviews page, you’ll find a list of students as well as the students’ names that they’ve been assigned to peer review for. If you hover over a student’s name, you’ll even find a bell icon where you can remind them of their peer review assignment:
Since peer reviews can be enabled for assignments that don’t count towards the final grade, this can be a way to get students discussing work and engaging in peer-to-peer learning without penalty, or as something you can note for an external participation grade. It provides a hands-on way of learning about the peer review process as it relates to scholarship, such as what a “single-blind peer review” really is. If peer reviews are anonymous, this also offers a chance to bring up digital citizenship, such as the “online disinhibition effect” that can arise from anonymity online.
It’s important to note that peer reviewing is likely a new skill for students. It’s a good idea to share information on not just best practices of peer reviewing from a scholarly standpoint, but also in the sense of classroom community-building. Give students an idea of what constitutes helpful, kind feedback. It might be worth doing mock peer reviews in class to allow them to better understand their role as peer reviewers.
For further information on setting peer reviews up in Canvas, check out this faculty guide. You can share this guide with students on how to use the peer review tools.
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