Abstract
The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate how a term paper peer review activity enhanced students’ collaboration and promoted their critical thinking skills. This study was conducted in a fully online graduate course, which was first offered in the Summer 2014 semester. Students were required to take the course as part of the Masters of Science in Global Health and Masters of Public Health programs. The course was offered via the Blackboard platform and utilized multiple strategies to enhance student participation. The course was designed in a modular format with course activities including individual watching streaming lecture videos, discussion blogs, journal article reviews and presentations in video delivery, synchronous case study in Blackboard Collaborate sessions, and term paper writing. The term paper peer review activity was added in the Summer 2015 semester. The purpose of the peer review activity was for students to learn from your peers' feedback as they work towards completing their term paper. Expected learning outcomes for the peer review were that students would become competent in scientific writing. Students’ feedback indicated their appreciation of the support from team members. Preliminary analysis indicated that students became more reflective during the writing process and a better quality of term paper was shown in their final grades. Faculty in either undergraduate or graduate program will learn the design of peer review and how it promotes students’ interaction and support in a group setting in online environments.
Highlights
NUTR 630, Global Nutrition is a graduate-level nutrition course that was first taught online in in Summer 2014
No statistically significant differences noted in mean learning satisfaction scores between semesters:
No statistically significant differences noted in mean term paper grade between semesters:
Summary
NUTR 630, Global Nutrition is a graduate-level nutrition course that was first taught online in in Summer 2014. Students are required to write a term paper that discusses a specific nutrition problem in an identified community around the world. As part of the discussion, students are asked to critically analyze the current state of the problem: occurrence, determinants, consequences and to discuss possible solutions to improve the nutritional status of the identified community of interest. While the term paper requirements have remained unchanged, the term paper format has evolved over the semesters. In summer 2014, the term paper was completed and submitted for grading at the end of the semester. Beginning Fall 2014, the term paper was subdivided into three different sections and students submitted the term paper sections for grading at different times during the semester and video presentation submitted at the end of the semester. In Summer 2015 (12-week semester), a term paper peer-review process was incorporated
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