Implementation of Peer Review to Enhance Written and Visual Communication Learning in Bioengineering Capstone Reports

Abstract

University of Washington include introductory and honors courses in bioengineering, tissue and protein engineering lab courses, bioengineering ethics, leadership, and bioengineering capstone writing and research/design courses. She is committed to enhancing diversity and inclusivity in engineering, and creating opportunities for undergraduate students to engage in K-12 educational outreach. Dr. Hendricks has over a decade of experience leading educational outreach and summer camp programs at both Duke University and the University of Washington. Dr. Alyssa Catherine Taylor, University of WashingtonAlyssa C. Taylor is a lecturer in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. She received a B.S. in biological systems engineering at the University of California, Davis, and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at the University of Virginia. Taylor's teaching activities are focused on developing and teaching core introductory courses and technical labs for bioengineering undergraduates, as well as coordinating the capstone design sequence for the BIOE Department at the University of Washington. Taylor currently pursues educational research and continuous improvement activities, with the ultimate goal of optimizing bioengineering curriculum design and student learning outcomes. Implementation of Peer Review to Enhance Written and Visual Communication Learning in Bioengineering Capstone ReportsIn addition to technical skill development, engineering undergraduate curricula must also foster development of effective communication skills. The capstone report often plays an instrumental role in this development, as it comprises both the final assessment of student communication performance and it is the most significant opportunity for active learning of in-discipline communication skills. Peer review has been proposed as an ideal means to provide students with much-needed formative feedback. [1][2][3] In addition, peer review has the potential to increase student interpersonal communication skills and metacognition, provided that the review activity is structured to encourage constructive contributions and reflection.In this paper, we build on our previous work-in-progress 4 describing the implementation of a peer review strategy integrated throughout the year-long capstone experience that allows students to obtain formative feedback and build transferable communication skills and insights. Students completed a workshop series of scaffolded communication critique, small-group formative peer review, and reflection. First, students were guided to collaborate as a class to generate rubric for sections of the capstone report, as well as guidelines for constructive and effective peer feedback. Next, students used these codes to provide feedback in small groups. When students submitted their revised draft, they included a cover letter describing their reflection on peer feedback and the changes they made due to peer review.The novelty of our specific approach to peer review lies in the combination of three qu...

Writing Children’s Stories to Improve Engineering Student’s Communication with Non-Engineering Audiences

“…Studies aimed at improving the technical communication of engineering students have tried a vast array of approaches, which can be sorted into three primary categories: those which see a greater emphasis on technical communication skills in courses already within the Engineering curriculum [11,12,13], those which add additional writing specific courses (not relevant to this particular study), and those which employ methods external to courses [14,15,16,17,18].…”

“…Within the first category, capstone courses were evaluated for their impact on technical communication competency by Fries, et al [11] and Hendricks, et al [12]. Since many capstone courses are already writing intensive, minor adaptations were made to emphasize technical communication skills.…”

Peer Sharing Presentations in a First-Year Engineering Learning Strategies Course

“…As a complement to peer instruction, peer feedback reinforces active listening and engagement in the learning process [6]. The peer feedback process requires students to evaluate the content and delivery of their peers' presentations, provide constructive commentary, and develop written communication skills.…”

Peer Review and Reflection in Engineering Labs: Writing to Learn and Learning to Write

“…While peer review seems to be an appealing way to off-load grading time and effort onto students, faculty may worry that the feedback students receive from their peers will not be effective [43]; indeed, without training or structure, students may give superficial feedback ("Great job") or even poor feedback [43,48]. While there are many variants of peer review, here we focus on the role peer review can have in supporting the peer reviewer's own learning [49]meaning the value of peer review is for the person doing the reviewing [50][51][52]. Peer review has been shown to enhance retention of concepts for undergraduates in engineering coursework [53], to support improvement in understanding [23,54] and in writing quality [55,56].…”

“…This approach is effective regardless of instructor level of experience and across levels of student ability [61]. The reflective process can be effectively integrated into a peer review process [52,54].…”