Access to Practice

Access to Practice (AtP) provides expert support and technical assistance for faculty to implement structured peer-reviewed writing assignments.

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What is Access to Practice?

As an instructor, you are the expert in your discipline. In comparison, the students are novices who strive to be members of your discipline. AtP team works with course instructors to develop and implement assignments throughout the quarter that help students learn the tools they need to succeed in the present and prepare them for future coursework.

What is structured peer review?

Structured peer review assignments are two-step assignments that can be implemented in introductory courses of 200+ students or in small upper-division courses.

The goal of structured peer review is to give students space to practice with difficult concepts or ways of writing that they will have to use in high-stakes assignments.

Structured peer review tasks are especially effective because they provide students with clear guidance of not only what they need to do to complete the assignment, but also an explanation of how the assignment fits in the context of a specific course and the overall norms, values, and expectations of the discipline.

Designing Effective Structured Peer Review

Identify what your students find most challenging

Specify concepts or ways of writing in your discipline

Review our recorded workshop: Designing Effective Writing and Peer Review Prompts hosted by Dr. Linda Adler-Kassner.

Work with the AtP team to design writing and review tasks that your students will complete through out the quarter

Implement the structured review assignments in your course

Work with the AtP team to assess the effectiveness of structured peer review in your course.

Sample peer review activities: Review sample assignments developed by faculty at UCSB

Structured peer review assignments have been used at UCSB across disciplines since Fall of 2018. Samples from Humanities, Social Sciences, and STEM disciplines are available for your review. Please reach out to the AtP team if you would like to have access to more sample assignments.

Humanities

Social Sciences

STEM

AtP and Eli Review

Eli Review for Instructors

Eli Review can be integrated with Canvas and Moodle
Faculty can review student participation in the activity and identify when students are struggling with content
The platform can automatically create anonymous review groups regardless of the size of the course

Button to access Canvas integration guide

Eli Review and Students

Students can access Eli Review through the course Canvas or GauchoSpace
Students can upload writing tasks in variety of formats
Peer review process and easy and efficient, that allows students to focus on their peer’s work rather than technical inconveniences

AtP and Research

Learn more about the AtP research project.

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Access to Practice is a research project that seeks to explore the role of small stakes assignments on student sense of disciplinary belonging. Instructors who would like to implement structured peer review assignments in the course have the option to opt into the research element of the project.

The instructors who are interested in participating in the research element of AtP will be asked to district two surveys throughout the quarter. The first survey will be administered during the first week of the quarter, and the second survey in the final week of the course. All research-related materials including the information sheet, opt-out link, and surveys will be provided to the collaborators.

The study is covered by CITRAL Human Subject Protocol. Please contact Maggie Safronova for more information about the protocol.

Publications

Schedule a Consultation Today

CITRAL Team

Linda Adler-Kassner (ladler@ucsb.edu)

Maggie Safronova (m_safronova@ucsb.edu)

Eli Review

support@elireview.com - For all student issues and any technical issues

We strongly encourage you to consult with CITRAL team members once you have drafted your first writing and review tasks.