Blog Post #3

How can you provide meaningful feedback to your peers?

I really enjoyed this assignment about peer editing. This is something that I will need to be comfortable doing as a teacher, but it is a little different when you are critiquing someone's work that is the same age as you. However, after reviewing the various links and assignments given to us to view, I feel much better about peer editing. I learned the correct way to peer edit.

I loved Paige Ellis' Blog Post regarding peer editing. She addresses concerns that I believe most students and future educators encounter. How do you really give someone constructive criticism? Like Paige stated, this criticism is not always accepted with open arms. Instead, it can be taken the wrong way. I loved how Paige brought in the aspect of us being a "learning community". That is exactly right! We are a community and all benefit from peer editing.

The video What is Peer Editing and the slideshow Peer Edit with Perfection Tutorial definitely helped me to understand the correct way to edit my peers' work. There are three steps to peer editing. First, you need to begin with Compliments. You can tell them what you liked about their post and what you think they did well. It's important to be specific and not just tell them you liked it. Remember to STAY POSITIVE. Secondly, make Suggestions. Suggest to the author of the writing ways they could make their writing better. This could be anything from word choice to organization. Again, be sure to be specific and stay positive. The last step to peer editing is Making Corrections. Examples of these corrections could be spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. Again, be specific and be positive. Don't just say there are some spelling errors. Tell the author exactly which word is spelled wrong.

The comical video Writing Peer Review Top 10 Mistakes gives some examples of what NOT to do when peer editing. Some examples of these are Mean Margaret and Picky Patty. You can edit people's writing without being mean. Like I stated before, some people do not take constructive criticism well. It's important to be nice when doing it. Also, don't be a Picky Patty meaning you don't have to overdue it. Explain some mistakes they made or suggestions for next time, but things that are very minor like more than one space between two words do not have to be addressed constantly. This video was very entertaining but also informative.

There are a couple of ways that you can go about peer editing in this class. One way is to offer your suggestion and critiques publicly like commenting on their blog. This could be a great idea when stating suggestions and compliments. I would probably use this approach for these two steps. However, you can also state your remarks while peer editing privately through email, text messaging, etc. I would probably use this approach when stating corrections. People sometimes don't want to hear what they did wrong or want others to see that either. It is sometimes best to do it privately.

I really enjoyed this assignment and learned a lot about peer editing.