Peer Collaboration and Critique: Using Student Voices to Improve Student Work

Who owns a final product? Teacher or students? And who gets to define quality work? Who should students take advice from? Is it even possible for a student to think about the quality of feedback they receive when someone in a position of power gives it? Or does feedback need to come from someone of an equal status to allow an author to actually question and think? These questions helped shape this exploration of peer collaboration and critique in the classroom. By completing three critique cycles in which students generated criteria for success, created multiple drafts, and engaged in self-reflection and peer critique, Ruff was able to explore answers to the above questions. Her students’ journey helped to highlight how critique should be approached. It shows the importance of student input in developing product criteria, how peer critique increases critical thought, the value of drafts, and the role of power dynamics in the development of culture and collaboration in the classroom.