Blog Post #3

How Can You Provide Meaningful Feedback to Your Peers?

What Is Peer Editing is a helpful video in learning how to edit my classmates work. It simply states the guidelines which we should follow for peer review. I learned it is important to stay positive, be specific, and suggest corrections. When correcting someones work you have to remember how you would feel if someone corrected your work in a negative manor. Be sure to compliment the writer where you feel necessary to keep them interested in your ideas. Understand when you are making a suggestion the writer has the option to disregard your corrections.

Tutorial Peer Editing is a simple slideshow that describes what we should look for while editing. We need to focus on things like word choice, details, organization, sentences, and topic while making our suggestions. It is important to let our classmates know when spelling and grammar could use improvement. Top Ten Mistakes is composed of the most common issues we see while peer editing. As we see here, if we want to make progress we have to be interested in what our peers have to say. I have to say the production of this video is genius for a classroom. We should never say that someones writing is bad, but there is always room for improvement. I chose to do my peer editing in comments left on the blogs of my group members. This way, if someone wants to add to my corrections or even correct my suggestions they have the opportunity to do so.

Kayla Syzmanski:
Thanks for the feedback Kayla! You seem to be somewhat of a professional at critiquing. Sometimes I wonder if my sentences are too short or too long so I appreciate your help.
I noticed you made a simple error in your second paragraph: "I have learned to be more serious when writing when writing things that are posted on the internet."
Anyone could easily get distracted while writing which is why it is important we double check our work! Hope to hear more feedback soon. Thanks again!


Katy Mehrer:
Katy, I think you have done well in expressing your thoughts about computers in the classroom. I like how you pointed out that you used computers in the classroom in the 20th century but this is a broad statement. If a young reader did not know any better they could mistake this as you saying you used computers in the classroom in 1901. This is why details are important. In your second paragraph I noticed a few sentences that would be better understood if you could elaborate a bit more on the topic.
Example: What I don’t agree on is them having to use them in elementary school. Google has been a big part of looking things up for kids, but I believe that most kids that are using these tools are the children in upper schooling.
I like how you point out that Google is a popular search engine in the 21st century. Perhaps you could elaborate on why you do not believe students should use computers in elementary school. Do you think Google has the potential to be a helpful search engine to primary students as well as secondary? Also, you use "them" twice, referring to two different things in once sentence.
Another example: When I was in school, we still had computer labs, and different things to do with computers. I don’t believe it is a must do to teach with computers. I know quite a few things about computers.
I like how you compare your education to the future of education but after reading I am curious to know more. What different things did you do with computers in school? Were these activities beneficial to your learning? What did you learn about computers? If you do not believe it is significant to teach with computers I think it is important to try and convince your readers of the same.
One more thing I would like to touch on is your opening sentence. In my experience I have learned that the opening sentence of any kind of writing should be captivating to the reader. At first I was a little confused by the repetition of "Teaching in the 21st Century”. Perhaps you could replace this with a bold statement that will make your readers desperate to know more. I believe you have done well but I would suggest spending more time on perfecting your writing.


Alyssa Sherman:
Alyssa, you have done well providing feedback on your video. I like how you summarize the video and pose more questions and information about what you saw. It is clear to me that you thought long and hard about your response. There is one word that I think may be misspelled. Did you mean "lessons?"
"However, while the idea of teaching students their lesions the night before class seems like a great idea, there are some major flaws that cannot be overlooked."
I also noticed an abundance of the word "this" throughout your writing. Do not be afraid to mix it up a bit and use other words to phrase your writing. Overall you make some interesting points and I enjoyed reading.