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Faculty Spotlight: Jennifer Sessions on the power of Peerceptiv

The thing I really appreciate about Peerceptiv is that it doesn’t just help students improve individual papers. It helps them become more effective readers and editors.

Jennifer Sessions is Associate Professor of History at UVA. She is a historian of modern France and its colonial empire, with an emphasis on French relations with North Africa, particularly Algeria, and interests in comparative empires, settler colonialism, and cultural history. Her recent courses include lectures and seminars on Modern Europe and the World; Modern European Imperialism; Immigration, Race, and Islam in Paris; and France and Algeria: From Piracy to Terrorism.

Peer review of writing assignments is an important component of many of Jennifer’s courses, and she regularly uses Peerceptiv to facilitate this process. We asked her to share some of her experiences with the tool and recommendations for others who might be considering a similar approach.

Q. How have you used Peerceptiv in your courses?

A. I started using Peerceptiv for guided peer review of essay assignments in my modern European history course in Fall 2017, and since then have used it in everything from big introductory surveys with several hundred students to specialized upper-level courses of a few dozen. This fall, we’re even using it in a graduate seminar. Students at any level use Peerceptiv to review drafts of each other’s writing, and then use the feedback they receive to revise those drafts for final assessment by me and/or their graduate instructors. To reinforce the importance of peer review as a learning process, I treat the Peerceptiv and the revised essay as two separate assignments, with separate grades.

Q. What kinds of things has Peerceptiv helped you and your students achieve?

A. The thing I really appreciate about Peerceptiv is that it doesn’t just help students improve individual papers. It helps them become more effective readers and editors. It sounds hyperbolic, I know, but I regularly use the term “magical” in describing this power to colleagues. The anonymous online system depersonalizes the peer review process and facilitates more objective, honest feedback, which means writers get better, more useful feedback on their own drafts. But even more important, reading and providing feedback on several of their colleagues’ drafts allows students to see what does and doesn’t work for the assignment, to think through why, and to talk about how to make a given piece of writing more effective.

Q. How has Peerceptiv changed the way you design and conduct your courses?

A. Using Peerceptiv has made me much more deliberate in designing courses to scaffold concepts and skills over the course of a semester. More particularly, it has pushed me to shift the focus of writing assignments from outcomes to process. Instead of approaching each essay as a stand-alone assessment of students’ writing skills and understanding of course material, I now think about the essays in a course collectively, as an iterative, cumulative practice that helps students get better as writers and readers.

Q. What tips or suggestions do you have for instructors using Peerceptiv for the first time?

A. Leave plenty of lead time to create assignments, and work with the staff in the Center for Teaching Excellence and at Peerceptiv to design and set them up. Getting the most out of Peerceptiv requires effective rubrics that are specific but not overwhelming. Consultation with an expert in the teaching of writing was invaluable in helping me to strike that balance and articulate my expectations in ways that would be accessible to student writers. This is time-consuming on the front end, but once assignments are set up properly, the review process can be as hands on or hands off as desired.

Peerceptiv can be added to course sites in Collab, and also in Canvas at the Darden School of Business and the School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Contact the Learning Tech team or Peerceptiv Support if you have questions about getting started or creating assignments—we’re here to help!

If you’re interested in sharing your experience with Peerceptiv or another tool in the Learning Tech catalog with your colleagues, we’d love to hear from you! Email Kristin Sloane at ks8yx@virginia.edu.

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Faculty Spotlight

Organizing course content to encourage engagement

Recent studies have suggested that students’ emotional connections to courses are key contributors to successful online learning, alongside other more traditional elements such as the effective use of technology and access to the assigned content. In their latest article in the EDUCAUSE Review, Melissa Fanshawe, Katie Burke, Eseta Tualaulelei, and Cath Cameron offer three general recommendations for encouraging emotional engagement among students learning online:

  • Focus on the teacher-student relationship.
  • Let students know that you care about their progress.
  • Organize the online platform clearly and logically.

While the first two recommendations seem fairly straightforward, the potential benefits of well-structured course content and activities are more easily overlooked. Fortunately, learning management systems like Collab and Canvas include handy tools to transform your syllabus or other materials into interactive pages—which streamlines navigation, reduces confusion, and prioritizes progress and learning.

Collab: Lessons/Activities

If you use Collab for your course sites, you can use the Lessons tool for this purpose (also known as the Activities tool in some of the site templates available in Collab). Lessons includes options to add direct links to items in other tools in your course sites, including Resources, Assignments, Discussions, and Tests & Quizzes, allowing students to access everything in a single location. You can also add and embed text, images, videos, and checklists to track the completion of important requirements, and more.

If you’re familiar with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), you can customize the design of your pages even further. Check out the video below for a brief introduction to custom CSS in Lessons, and contact the Learning Tech team for a sample CSS file if you’d like to try it out.

Canvas: Modules

If you use Canvas for your course sites, you can use the Modules tool for this purpose. Modules also allows you to add direct links to items in other tools in your course sites. Check out the video below for an overview of Modules in action.

Further reading

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Digital Pedagogy

Getting started with activities in Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is a versatile option for encouraging engagement in your courses. Use it to present general polls, attendance items, review questions, quizzes, and more; students respond by following links to your activities in a web browser or app on their computers or mobile devices. Results are received and updated instantly and can be displayed at your discretion to generate reflection and discussion.

The steps below will guide you through creating your account in Poll Everywhere, importing your course roster, and creating your activities. Once you’re up and running, Poll Everywhere’s Essential Distance Learning Guide provides a great overview of many key features. And of course, you can always contact us with any questions or comments that pop up as you get started—we’d love to hear from you.

Step 1: Create your account in Poll Everywhere

Creating an account in Poll Everywhere is quick and easy. Because you sign in with NetBadge, there’s no hassle of creating yet another username and password combination.

  1. Visit polleverywhere.com, and select the Log in link at the top of the page.
  2. Enter your UVA email address (computing ID@virginia.edu) into the box, then select the Next button.
  3. Select the Log in with UVA NetBadge button, then sign in with NetBadge.
  4. Select the Sign up for my Poll Everywhere account button. Your account has now been created!

If you previously created a free account with Poll Everywhere using your UVA email address, we’ll need to invite you to join the UVA account in Poll Everywhere. Send us a message at learningtech@virginia.edu and we’ll take it from there!

Step 2: Import your course roster into Poll Everywhere

Now that you’ve created your account in Poll Everywhere, you can import your course roster, which registers your students as participants for your activities and allows you to review their responses and export them to your gradebook. If you’re using Poll Everywhere for basic engagement and you don’t need these features, you can skip to Step 3 below.

  1. Visit your course site. If you’re using Collab, you can follow the steps for adding tools to sites to add the Poll Everywhere tool to your site. If you’re using Blackboard or Canvas, you may need to contact your system administrator to make sure you have access to the tool.
  2. Access the tool in your course site. If you’re using Collab, you can select Poll Everywhere in the toolbar on the left side of the page in your site. If you’re using Blackboard or Canvas, you can follow the steps in the Blackboard and Canvas educator guides to access the tool.
  3. If you see a Continue to LMS to login button, such as Continue to collab.its.virginia.edu, select it to continue the process.
  4. Select the Import Roster button.
  5. Select the Go to Participants page button. Your participants will be listed on the page, and your course roster will be listed among the Groups on the right side of the page.

If new students are added to the course roster after you import it into Poll Everywhere, you’ll need to repeat the roster import process to add them to your group in Poll Everywhere.

Step 3: Create your activities

Now that the setup is out of the way, you’re ready to get started with Poll Everywhere!

  1. Visit polleverywhere.com and sign into your account.
  2. Select the Create button.
  3. Follow the steps for creating activities to create your activity, then activate it when you’re ready for your students to respond. You can even insert your activities directly into your PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides presentation!

By default, newly created activities are restricted to registered participants, which requires students to be registered with you (through their inclusion on a course roster you imported into Poll Everywhere) and signed into Poll Everywhere with NetBadge in order to respond. However, you can change this setting and make your activity accessible to everyone who visits the activity link by visiting the Configuration menu.

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Tool Features

New year, new tools

With many courses transitioning to online instruction, it’s safe to say that this semester will present unique challenges for faculty, staff, and students alike. That’s why we’ve spent the summer strengthening and expanding the digital part of our Academical Village to accommodate more features and potential applications than ever before.

Thanks to generous support from the Executive Vice President and Provost and the Chief Information Officer, seven tools have been newly added or significantly expanded for use in your course sites and activities. The Learning Tech catalog includes more information about these tools and their potential for teaching and learning, along with resources and contacts to help you get started.

The list includes:

  • Digication: Design and publish simple, elegant ePortfolio websites for academic projects and professional development.
  • Gradescope: Streamline the grading process for exams, problem sets, and other assignments by building intuitive, dynamic rubrics as you work.
  • Hypothesis: Add annotations alongside digital texts to provide context, offer reflections, ask and answer questions, and more.
  • MATLAB Grader: Build autograded programming assignments that provide immediate, contextual feedback, with detailed analytics.
  • Peerceptiv: Encourage student development as teachers and learners through a research-validated cycle of anonymous feedback.
  • Poll Everywhere: Post attendance items, quick quizzes, or polls, display live updates on your screen, and transfer scores to your gradebook.
  • VoiceThread: Create a virtual seminar discussion by recording and embedding video commentary within posted documents or clips.

Stay tuned for tips, tricks, and examples of each tool! Don’t hesitate to send us an email at learningtech@virginia.edu with your questions or ideas, or leave us a note in the comments below.

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Tool Announcements

Welcome! We’re glad you’re here.

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Learning Tech is live! This site is your connection to learning technologies available across UVA, but it’s also much more. It’s a unique space that spans the intersection between the physical, the digital, and the missional parts of our Academical Village, and helps you harness the power and potential of each of these parts in your teaching and learning. Whether your classroom is on Grounds, online, or a combination of the two, the resources presented here offer opportunities to enhance, refine, or even reimagine your courses.

For now, the core component of Learning Tech is its innovative, searchable catalog of tools, which provides vital information about their pedagogical purposes, functions, availability, and support options. Many tools are accessible directly from the catalog with a single click, while others may be integrated into your course sites in UVACollab, Canvas, or Blackboard. Most importantly, each tool is described in the context of its practical applications for teaching and learning, from fostering a range of learning activities and improving assessment and evaluation processes to encouraging increased student engagement and collaboration.

As exciting as these features are, we think the best is still to come. Together with our partners—the Learning Design & Technology Group, UVACollab Applications Group, and Information Technology Services—and with the support of the Executive Vice President and Provost and the Chief Information Officer, we’re already working on more enhancements. These include a ratings system that will allow you to share detailed feedback on tools you’ve used previously, review similar feedback from your colleagues, and connect with additional use cases.

Follow us on Twitter @learningtechuva for new additions, updates, profiles, and more. You can also contact us at learningtech@virginia.edu with your questions and ideas—we’d love to hear from you.

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News/Announcements