As I was reading through Davidson's blog posts, a single objection to her proposal for a more peer-to-peer- oriented student evaluation system popped into my head (for the record, I think it's a great idea)... giving students the power to assess their peers' work and have their work assessed by peers is great and all, but what good does it do the student in terms of feedback and suggestions for growth? As we discussed in class, students tend to put a higher premium on being nice than on being critical. We simply do our best not to get in each others' ways. An instructor following Davidson's suggestions could do a number of things to override this tendency and get his or her students to actually start thinking/reading/responding critically -- they could get the students to sign a contract explaining what kind of evaluation is expected; they could actually grade the students on their grading (not sure if this would defeat the point, but as it turns out it's kind of hard to get away from the whole grades thing); they could even simply devote a good chunk of time to hammering out the importance of proper critical evaluation in class. But would any of these measures actually get the majority of students to care about the quality of their participation in the evaluative process?
It's hard to say, and I guess we won't really know until this method of evaluation starts to catch on. But I have faith that, if more instructors were to borrow from Davidson's approach and start looking for ways to incorporate students in assessments of quality of work, it would gradually lead to a shift in the way students' conceive of their roles vis-a-vis their peers. As Davidson says:
"[V]ery little in our society prepares us for responsible and responsive exchange. Typically, we learn how to please a figure in power. We do not practice or learn principles for helping one another through an iterative, interactive process."
When one person or a small group has exclusive, monopolistic control over what counts as good or acceptable (and, by extension, who gets more pie), then they are the only ones anyone need bother to please or appeal to. These are the rules of authority. And we live in a society where authority and its corresponding notions of the inviolability of expertise are hardwired into practically everything we do. But as Davidson and others have pointed out, the Internet has exposed the limits of expert authority -- and correspondingly, it has foregrounded the importance of sharing and collaboration for building quality bodies of knowledge.
The niceness and deference we regularly accord each other when asked to review our peers' work is simply our learned, conditioned response to the evaluative situation. But there is a difference between niceness and deference; and I think that, whereas we're going to continue needing the former (obviously), the latter simply needs to go. Automatically deferring to the quality of a piece for whatever reason is in reality a deference to the author and a cutting off of the critical impulse, which is simply to respond. The classroom would indeed be a great place to start tweaking these conditioned, deferential responses and adapting them to the current reality.
So what do y'all think? Would a method of collaborative grade evaluation like the one proposed by Davidson really get us to change the way we conceive of our roles as peer reviewers, or would it simply have the effect of reinforcing old hierarchies and modes of response?
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ReplyDeleteSu actually had the opposite concern because she was worried that people might be too harsh. My suggestion was to include our ability to give constructive feedback into the grading process. That way we can Goldilocks it and settle for just right. After all, I feel that this is a vital communication skill that the university settling can help us develop.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chinchin. We need to find a balance between grading too leniently and grading too harsh. I like that in this class our peer reviews aren't graded, and the feedback doesn't contribute to the grade. So, if someone hates your S/R but the professor thinks it's adequate, then we should still make the good grade. If someone loves an S/R that sucks, the professor at least gives us the ability to revise for credit. But people can still offer useful feedback.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to choose between a single authority maintaining a draconian rule over grades versus a mob of my peers having that control, I'd probably prefer the single authority. I know that's not a good thing in the workplace, and Davidson has a point. But maybe we need to reform the workplace and not the education system, then. Obviously such reform is unlikely because it would have to be initiated by those in control of the power, who would be reluctant to relinquish it.
Maybe, though, crowdsourcing in education would produce workers more able to crowdsource in the workplace, and as these workers climbed the ladders they could start bringing crowdsourcing into the corporate world. Maybe we just need the first generation of crowdsourcers to put their feet in the doors. I don't really know. All I know is, I would hate to get an A throughout college from my generous peers, only to arrive in the workplace woefully unprepared for reality.
I think you're right that peer evaluation now is more about being nice than being constructively critical, but I think Davidson's approach could change people's minds. If I were in a class where peer evaluation was the basis or at least contributed to the grade, I would approach peer reviews differently. I mentioned in class that it greatly benefits me to hear multiple opinions on my writing and helps me improve my writing skills in general, and I think others might feel the same after growing accustomed to peer-to-peer grading. For some, the peer pressure of knowing that some of your classmates will read your work could offer motivation to take assignments more seriously and might encourage a healthy level of self-scrutiny (something every person should have, college student or otherwise).
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