Peer Feedback and Communication

Learning Objectives

1. Leverage knowledge, skills, strengths, and diversity to develop innovative and inclusive approaches to design/project challenges.
2. Devise a plan that manages team dynamics toward completing project goals.

Instructor Preparation

1. Review the instructions on the activity guide Peer Feedback/Teamwork Reflection.
2. If choosing the In-Class option, make copies of the activity guide for students. Each student will need one activity guide per team member (i.e. If working in teams of 5, each student will need 5 activity guides)

Notes for Instructors

• Consider implementing this activity after the teams have completed at least one task as a team (discussion, subproject, deliverable, etc).
• Consider implementing this activity at the project’s end point, either the day the project is due in class or the day after the project has been completed.
• This activity is designed to lead into the standard writing and communications program (WCP) first or second year in-class reflection exercise.

Outline & Timing

Option 1 (In-Class)

Distribute the activity guide to students. Each student will need one activity guide per team member (i.e. If working in teams of five, each student will need five activity guides).

Step 1: Instruct the students to write one team member’s name on each activity guide.

Step 2: Ask students to reflect briefly on the project they have just completed, thinking specifically about the contributions of each team member and their own contributions.

1. Mark the activity guide using a checkmark to indicate where each team member contributed the most to the team.
2. Write down two or three sentences about what each team member contributed and how each team member added to the success of the team.

Step 3: Direct students to give a filled out copy of the activity guide to each of their teammates, so each person has all the activity guides that indicate their teammates perception of their team contributions (i.e. the person whose name is after “Teammate’s Name”).

Step 4: Ask students to read over the activity guides given to them by their teammates and reflect on the responses they received. The following questions may help with student reflection.

1. Was the area you indicated that you contributed the most the same as that identified by your teammates?
2. If not, how did they see you differently than you see yourself?
3. What things were you doing or not doing to contribute to the team (as identified by your teammates)?
4. How can you use this feedback in the future as you work on different teams or as you continue to work on this team?

Step 5: Ask students to read over the activity guides given to them by their teammates and reflect on the responses they received. The following questions may help with student reflection.

1. Turn in their responses to the reflection question — OR —
2. (Recommended) Use these responses in the standard writing and communication program (WCP) reflection requirements if this activity is done in a course with these types of learning objectives.
3. Instruct the students to save their teammate’s feedback in a safe place until the end of the semester. This information can then be used in their final reflective portfolio.

Option 2 (Expansion of In-Class Activity)

Transition to the standard writing and communications program (WCP) in-class reflection

Step 1: Give your students 5-10 minutes to brainstorm answers to the questions below. Their responses can be bullet points, stream of consciousness, or sentence fragments. Students are welcome to write their responses on paper or in a digital format. For either format, the student should plan to save the document and have access to it during finals when it comes time to compose the final portfolio. We suggest adding a question relating to teamwork during this reflection time as well.

1. What were the goals of this assignment? What communication strategies do you feel you learned or practiced by completing this project?
2. What is your argument or purpose? How did you make the argument or purpose visible and persuasive in your project?
3. Who was the intended audience for your project? How did the intended audience affect the choices you made when creating each piece of the project?
4. What are the defining features of the genre or media that you used in this project? How did you make use of these features?
5. What did you learn about teamwork by completing this project? How will this change the ways you approach teamwork in the future?
6. If you had more time for revision, what part of the project would you change and why?