Post 343: Is it better to have a Peer Review of a Rough Draft Outline or a Rough Draft Outline Quiz?

Post 343: Is it better to have a Peer Review of a Rough Draft Outline or a Rough Draft Outline Quiz?

When I taught ENGL 102, Critical Thinking, students took a Rough Draft Outline Quiz where students submitted their Rough Draft Outline and answered a few quiz questions about their outline. Quiz Questions such as "What is your thesis statement?", "What are your body paragraphs?", and "What credible sources will you be using?" and then the student submitted their rough draft outline.

Teachers then have to grade the quiz in order to correct thesis statement and make sure the body paragraphs are on topic with the thesis statement. Then, teachers have to correct the outline to make sure students provided enough details/examples to back up their main idea.

Many teachers tell me that they prefer the quiz method of evaluating rough draft outlines because then the students take the assignment more seriously and turn in better quality formal work with fewer grammar mistakes.

I, however, disagree. I think rough draft outlines should be posted to the forums so students can peer review each other's rough draft outlines and students can give each other advice on thesis statements and body paragraphs. In this way, students learn to be interdependent with each other. Students bond with each other. Students form a community of learners. And I just look over the posts and grade to make sure they are on topic.

Also, students learn from looking at each other's outlines and they learn from each other's mistakes. For instance, if Bob, Mary, and Joe all have a wrong thesis without parallel structure, I can then explain parallel structure in Bob and Mary's paper and Joe can pick up this mistake and read about parallel structure in Bob and Mary's paper and correct it in his own paper.

Students who post later in the week can go over even more of my feedback to other students earlier in the week to fix for their rough draft outline instead of me explaining over and over again in a quiz format where students are not privy to each other's papers and to learn from each other's mistakes.

I lost the battle of forums vs quizzes and the teachers who wanted quizzes won out. Teachers thought students take the assignment more seriously if they know their unique audience would be the teacher.

I think for you Course Designers, give fewer quizzes, give more forum discussions and peer review in the forums to help students construct their own knowledge and help students learn from each other's mistakes.

Do you give a lot of quizzes in your classes or do you do peer editing for your rough draft outlines?