Calibrated Peer Review CPRTM at Texas A


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• Calibrated Peer Review (CPR)TMat Texas AM
  University
• by Dr. Wendy Keeney-Kennicutt
• Associate Director First Year Chemistry Program
• CPR Master Administrator TAMU
• k-keeney_at_tamu.edu

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HISTORY AT TAMUcpr.tamu.edu

• 2002 - CPRTM was introduced to First Year
  Chemistry in an NSF-sponsored Multi- Initiative
  Dissemination spring workshop and a CPR summer
  workshop. We started in the fall.
• 2003 - To avoid FERPA issues because of a
  joint NSF CPR grant with UCLA and our Center
  for Teaching Excellence CPR was housed on a
  secure TAMU server.
• 2003 - I volunteered to be the CPRTM
  master administrator because of experience.

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (1974)
protects the privacy of student education
records
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USE OF CPRTM AT TAMU

• In the last 3 years the use of CPRTM at TAMU
  been used by approximately
• 10000 undergraduate and graduate students doing
• 320 new assignments in
• 200 courses spread over
• 30 majors in
• 7 colleges.

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MAJORS USING CPRTM

• Accounting
• Ag. Economics
• Animal Science
• Archeology
• Biochemistry
• Biology
• Botany
• Bus. Admin.
• Chemistry
• English

• Ed. Psychology
• Film
• French
• Kinesiology
• Learn. Comm.
• Math
• Microbiology
• Nutrition
• Physics
• Poultry Science

• Psychology
• Secondary Ed.
• Vet Integr. Bio. Sci.
• Wildlife Fish. Sci.
• Zoology
• MISSING
• Engineering
• Starting F06
• Geosciences

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How Did CPRTM Become So Popular

• (1) Creation of W Courses
• Our Faculty Senate decided that for graduation
  there would be a writing-intensive (W)
  discipline-specific course graduation
  requirement.
• The Core Curriculum Review Committee report
  entitled Educational Leadership at the Beginning
  of the 21st Century (March 28 2000 as amended
  and approved by the Faculty Senate May 8 2000)
  established this requirement. The first
  writing-intensive course graduation requirement
  went into effect in the Fall 2004 catalog. The
  requirement for a second course is scheduled to
  be in place in the Fall 2006 catalog.

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How Did CPRTM Become So Popular

• (2) CPR was recognized as good pedagogy
  campus-wide
• I co-ran a CPR workshop for TAMU and local
  community college faculty supported by TAMU
  College of Science mini-grant in Summer 2003 and
  invited everyone.
• The Director of the TAMU Writing Center
  participated recognized its effective pedagogy
  and gave CPR her blessing for use in W courses.
• By Fall 2003 we had CPRTM on our server TAMU
  had quit using SSN as SIDs and we were set to go.

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How Did CPRTM Become So Popular

• (3) Continued Support for our TAMU users
• A good website cpr.tamu.edu with extended FAQs
• Regular workshops supported by WALS Center for
  Teaching Excellence (CTE) Information Technology
  Services The Writing Center and the Office of
  the Vice-President for Information Technology
• A local users group which has started to meet
  regularly
• 2 months summer salary for the TAMU CPR master
  administrator two other administrators are paid
  through their position at CTE
• Access to the actual program to solve problems

WALS Writing for Assessment and Learning in
the Natural and Mathematical Sciences (the
UCLA/TAMU NSF project)
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What are the issues

• TAMU has its own CPR webpage so students
  occasionally log on to the wrong one.
• TAMU is disconnected from the UCLA server so we
  dont have access to the library assignments.
  This will be changing under the upgraded system.
• Note We have found that there is more student
  buy-in when instructors write their own
  assignments
• The assignments reflect the instructors wording
  and tone
• CPR fits into the course flow better
• The instructor is much more familiar with the
  program after they write assignments.

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So what happened to CPR in Chemistry

• In Fall 2002 and Spring 2003 we incorporated CPR
  in all the Chemistry 101/102 classes
• 2600 students per semester
• Individual instructors (besides myself) had
  minimal training in CPR and were not involved
• Assignments were taken directly from the library
• 4 assignments dropping 1 to allow for absences
• I and a staff member managed the problems list
  all the grades and student questions
• So what do you think was the outcome I kept
  track using SALG.

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Student Assessment of Learning Gainswww.wcer.wisc
.edu/salgains/instructor/
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First Years Results from My Class
This was not good Everyone but me stopped doing
CPR. I knew that scientific writing/critiquing
were invaluable skills so I kept trying new
approaches to improve student attitude.
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Overview of Study (manuscript in preparation)

• I collected SALG data for 7 semesters from my
  students (1515 total 94-98 of classes
  participated) as I continued to make CPR more
  palatable
• Likert scale (1strongly disagree.5strongly
  agree)
• I enjoyed doing the CPR assignments
• The CPR assignments helped me learn some
  chemistry
• The CPR assignments helped me improve my writing
  skills
• The CPR assignments helped me learn to critique
  my own writing and that of others
• Yes/No explanation
• Do you think that future classes should do CPR
• I had both quantitative and qualitative data for
  analysis

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Improvements Made Over Time

• Prepared more thorough instructions and a
  supportive website
• Wrote most of my own assignments
• Became more proactive at listening to students
  adjusting grades when appropriate
• Told my students upfront in the syllabus that the
  class was a writing-intensive class and included
  my teaching philosophy
• Gave a CPR lab holiday since I did 7 labs
  rather than 10
• Invited students to let me review their essays
  before submission
• Increased importance of the text entry from 20
  to 30
• Increased CPRs worth from 3-5 to 12 of class
  grade
• Took classroom time to demonstrate CPR
• Used Blooms Taxonomy to show importance of
  critiquing

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Why is writing important
Evaluation
Judgment the ability to make decisions and
support views requires understanding of values
Combination of information to form a
unique product requires creativity and
originality
Synthesis
Identification of component parts determination
of arrangement logic semantics
Analysis
Use of information to solve problems transfer of
abstract or theoretical ideas to practical
situations.
Application
Identification of connections and relationships
Interpretation
Restatement in your own words paraphrase summary
Translation
Verbatim information memorization with no
evidence of understanding
Recall
Blooms Taxonomy categorizing level of
abstraction of questions
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Improvements Made Over Time

• Prepared more thorough instructions and a
  supportive website
• Wrote most of my own assignments
• Became more proactive adjusted grades when
  appropriate
• Told my students upfront in the syllabus that the
  class was a writing-intensive class and included
  my teaching philosophy
• Gave a CPR lab holiday since my class did 7
  labs not 10
• Invited students to let me review their essays
  before submission
• Increased importance of the text entry from 20
  to 30
• Increased CPRs worth from 5 to 12 of class
  grade
• Related that CPR is a grade in its own right
  helps poor test-takers
• Took classroom time to demonstrate CPR
• Used Blooms Taxonomy to show importance of
  critiquing
• Emphasized that most students are novice
  reviewers and that I would gladly look at
  anyones grade

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Quantitative Results
What I saw was a significant increase in student
acceptance and understanding of CPR over time.
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Group 1 Students with negative CPR experience
wanted future classes to do CPR Group 2
Students with negative CPR experience did not
want others to do CPR Group 3 Students with
positive CPR experience wanted others to do
CPR Group 4 Students with positive CPR
experience did not want others to do CPR
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Qualitative Results Do you think that future
classes should do CPR Explain.

• Over 7 semesters there were
• 550 totally positive responses
• 515 totally negative responses
• 174 mixed responses
• 25 neutral responses
• Total 1264 responses
• The qualitative part of this study gave
  invaluable insight into student attitude about
  CPR and how it changed as I made changes in
  presentation student support and grade
  intervention.

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Qualitative Results Negative Comments

• On writing in a chemistry class
• I have never viewed chemistry as being a subject
  where you write things We could take English
  to learn how to write correctly I didnt
  understand why writing a paper and grading other
  students papers had anything to do with
  chemistry.
• On the peer review process
• They ask you to grade the essays but then your
  opinion of how that person did would be wrong. I
  just dont see how your opinion could be wrong.
• Other
• Too time consuming waste of time not related to
  the subject it harmed their grade was worse
  than lab their peers lacked motivation added to
  stress

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Qualitative Results Positive Comments

• On writing in a chemistry class
• Calibrated Peer Reviews forces the student to
  look into the topic way more than what he or she
  would do out of a textbook. I know the CPR has
  tremendously helped me understand each topic
  better although I didnt exactly enjoy it.
• The CPR really helped me understand the topics.
  It reinforced the material by forcing me to teach
  myself and explain it to others through writing.
  It was very helpful.
• I think the first one is bad because you dont
  really know what youre doing and how to approach
  the whole thing but after doing it you realize
  that you are learning the subject because you had
  to write a paragraph on it. It was a big help
  whether people will admit it or not.

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Qualitative Results More Positive Comments

• Overall
• Although CPR was one of my least favorite things
  to do in this class I think the good in it
  outweighs the bad. I think that especially in
  the science fields students dont have to do a
  lot of writing and so they dont develop
  communication skills that they will need later on
  in life. I think communication is very important
  and it is something that you just have to work
  on. I think students will look back and wish
  they would have done more stuff like CPR.
• It seems like a pain at the time but I can
  already see how much I learned from it. Please
  continue to do it it helps more than people
  realize.
• Other positives
• Helped link chemistry to real life and their
  professional future developed time management
  and research skills

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Qualitative Results Overview
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Final Comments

• CPR is an example of the move from
  teacher-centered learning to student-centered
  learning
• If you add writing peer review and technology to
  the mix should I have been surprised at the
  level of student angst
• Students have a more positive experience when the
  instructor
• actively promotes demonstrates CPR in the
  classroom
• makes the assignments a significant part of
  grade
• is involved in writing assignments
• gives personalized support
• regrades when warranted

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Thanks to my co-authors Dr. Nancy
Simpson Director Center for Teaching
Excellence Ms. A. Baris Gunersel Ph.D.
Student Educational Psychology Graduate
Research Assistant Center for Teaching
Excellence