Three Peer Reviews and One Workshop: Rethinking Student Peer Review in Real Time
Using Moodle’s Workshop tool for structured, in-class writing feedback that actually sticks.
In my last two posts, I shared a short writing-to-learn assignment for my Principles of Economics course. If “writing-to-learn” in economics education is new to you, here’s a helpful definition from Ayadi and Onodipe (2023):
“We consider WTL activities as low-stakes writing that students complete during the learning process, as opposed to high-stakes assignments used for summative assessments such as term papers. These low-stakes assignments place a higher emphasis on the learning potential of writing—as an instrument that facilitates learning and communication.” (p. 198)
This week, I’m focusing on the peer feedback component, specifically, how students give and receive real-time feedback in class. With this final piece, the three-part assignment now includes: (1) a short narrative prompt, (2) a voice-to-text instructor feedback, and (3) structured, in-class peer review.
If you haven’t used real-time process strategies before, Caviglia-Harris (2020) captures their essence:
“Real-time process approaches include a set of activities that focus on economic content and writing and take place in class with feedback from peers and the instructor. Students can provide valuable feedback to their peers if they are trained with examples, provided detailed guidance on what is to be evaluated, and are encouraged to be critical. Without this training first, students will have a tendency to check for surface and mechanical error and will not have the ability to evaluate content, arrangement, and style.” (p. 121)
Just like the previous step, my goal here was to design feedback systems that help students revise better while reducing grading time. This fall, I’ll use Moodle’s Workshop feature to build peer review directly into the assignment and its grading.
Here’s how it works: students submit their drafts, I assign three anonymous peers to review each one, and everyone gives feedback in real time during class. Moodle structures the review process through a set of criteria called “assertions,” which students mark as Yes/No and support with comments. Each assertion targets a specific element of the draft. Here's one example reviewers will see:
Assertion 5: Conclusion
Does the student restate their point in a new and appealing way?
Do they answer “Who cares?” or connect to a broader course theme?
To support better feedback this fall, I’ll also share a reader-centered guide from our Center for the Advancement of Teaching & Learning.
Moodle adds one more helpful feature: peer reviews are autograded. Each student receives two scores—one for the quality of their writing, another for the thoughtfulness of their three peer reviews. While not perfect, the system encourages honest reviews and gives me a clear starting point for assigning revision grades.
Next week, I’ll shift back to discussing preps for Principles of Economics. See you then!
References
Ayadi, M. F., & Onodipe, G. (2023). Writing-to-learn: Strategies to promote engagement, peer-to-peer learning, and active listening in economics courses. The Journal of Economic Education, 54(2), 198–204. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220485.2022.2160398
Caviglia-Harris, J. (2020). Using the process approach to teach writing in economics. The Journal of Economic Education, 51(2), 116–129. https://doi-org.elon.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/00220485.2020.1731384