Thanks Penny for sharing an interesting topic: error correction.
Thanks Penny for sharing an interesting topic: error correction. Allow me to share with you what my students and I have done with the error correction practices in our essay writing class.
1. I have encouraged my students to do peer-review as a part of writing cycle before submitting their final drafts. We did that using Google doc.
I see this peer-review activities worth doing at least based on the following considerations:
a. Learn how to read carefully, with attention to the details of a piece of writing (whether their own or another writer’s);
b. Learn how to strengthen their writing by taking into account the responses of actual and anticipated readers;
c.Learn how to formulate and communicate constructive feedback on a peer’s work;
d. Learn how to gather and respond to feedback on their own work.
2. Before the peer-review session, I taught some techniques of correcting their peer's to them: make the errors explicit so that the writers knew about what and how to improve the errors.
3. I also told them the peer-review activities were graded. The students with good qualities review deserved to get extra points.
Yes, I think this sounds great. Working together to improve each other's writing can be very helpful, particularly at the high level your students are obviously at, and particularly for adults. It raises students' own awareness of accuracy and, eventually, saves the teacher unnecessary work doing things which the students can do themselves. It also, if done supportively (which is obviously is, in this case), can reinforce friendship between students. The general preference of students for teacher correction (remember, it was a substantial majority in my survey, but by no means unanimous) I think applies mainly to public oral error correction in the classroom. Anyhow, it might be useful to ask your students frankly how they feel about this, where they prefer to be corrected by each other and where they prefer to be corrected by the teacher? And let us know the results on this discussion?
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot Penny for your valuable feedback. I am trying to do a survey. I will get back to you with the results soon.
ReplyDeleteI just did my little research about peer's correction using monkey survey. Twenty-two students attending Essay Writing course took this survey.
ReplyDeleteQuestion 1: I feel comfortable when giving feedback or correction to my friends' essays. The result is as follows:
Result:
Strongly agree (12.50%)
Agree 50.00%
Disagree (37.50%)
Strongly disagree (0.00%)
>> The students did not feel "very much" comfortable. They just felt comfortable.
Question 2: My friends' feedback (correction) to my essay is trustworthy.
Result:
Strongly agree (0.00%)
Agree (62.50%)
Disagree (37.50%)
Strongly disagree (
>> As previously mentioned, they thought their peer's feedback was "quite" trustworthy. Theirs was not very much trustworthy.
Question 3: My friends' feedback is as important as my teacher's.
Result:
Yes (50%)
No (50%)
>> Both the teacher's and peers' were equally important.
Again I was curious to know how they perceived mine and their friends'
Question 4: My friend's feedback is more important than my teacher's.
Result:
Yes (12.50%)
No (87.50%)
>> They still viewed their teacher's feedback worth considering.
This small research indicates how important teachers' feedback is. Yes, I admit that Penny. However, I still encourage my students to do so due to valuable benefits of peer review.
In practice, I still keep checking their feedback. I will interfere and help them to clarify the correction if their peers give wrong explanation or correction.
Yes, basically the conclusion is that there's a place for both. The question is how best to combine them ... I'll be suggesting one possibility in next week's session.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else asked their students about how they like to be corrected?
Thanks for sharing all that, from the rationale for your approach to the results of the survey.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the reasons/benefits you listed for peer-review, I would add:
...
e. The more one reviews, the more you learn from and about your peers, which leads to personal and academic/professional growth, as well as developing good working skills and relations;
f. The more one reviews and has one's own work critiqued, the more one becomes better at self-review (quicker, more knowledgeable and adept); and
g. It has real world validity (I always try to get peer review and feedback before submitting a paper to an editor, and do in kind for friends, colleagues, students, etc).
Phil Brown thanks a lot Phil for your encouraging feedback. I will keep that as my guidance. Thanks
ReplyDeleteThank you all for the interesting discussion.
ReplyDeleteI think that the teacher's role , mentoring , and remedial strategies should vary from a session to another , anf from time to time in the same session .
We should also consider how far Ss' teamwork can helpful with correcting different categories of errors not just writing ones.
Warm regards..
Thank you very much Daniel. I like that you conducted a survey to figure out students' attitudes about peer correction. I have a question . Do you think that this is the case with speaking? because I don't think so.
ReplyDeleteI am wondering if peer review under this context can be treated as being the same as described in the lecture on Sunday. In the situation outlined by danielmachung above, and amplified by Phil Brown's comments, it feels like it is more a part of the process of making the final output which is then corrected only by the teacher.
ReplyDeleteI liked both your activity danielmachung and the ensuing discussion. Thank you all for the contributions.
Yes, there's certainly a substantial difference between the peer-review process described by Daniel and the standard on-going error correction that goes on in the course of doing an exercise in class, as Scott says. What works for one may not work so well for the other.
ReplyDeleteYes, you are definitely right, Scott. Thanks for the feedback. :-)
ReplyDelete