Connecting Peer Reviews with Students’ Motivation
Onboarding, Motivation and Blended Learning
Kay Berkling
Cooperative State University Baden-Württemberg, Karlsruhe, Germany
Keywords: Blended Learning, Problem based Learning, Software Engineering, Education, Ecosystem of Learning,
Self-directed Learning, Gamification, Scaffolding, Self-directed Learning.
Abstract: This paper evaluates the onboarding phase for students who are exposed to a blended and open learning
environment for the first time, where self-directed learning is key to success. The study was undertaken in a
very restricted environment, where the primary motivation of students is the achievement of good grades in
the most efficient manner due to extreme time constraints. In past research, we have shown that students
have difficulty to move from the traditional setting of frontal lecture and final exam to an open learning
environment that focuses more on self-directed learning and peer created content than grades. This work
builds on findings that blended learning environment should be adaptive to learner types and gamification
features need to be implicit. Adaptivity is not guaranteed through a single platform but instead by involving
students in constructing their learning environment. This paper reports on the final set up of the course and
the student evaluation thereof. We show that the current environment with student involvement leads to
mostly positive attitudes towards most aspects of the course across virtually all students. Forums are
perceived as a barrier as are individual contributions to the class content and are not appropriate features for
onboarding. In contrast and despite being difficult, effective use of peer reviews can be shown to match
student motivation across all learners. Their use is understood as a means to obtaining a good grade and
learning.
1 INTRODUCTION
This paper is the fifth in a series of publications
about the results of gamifying a course in Software
Engineering. The gamified version of the course,
builds on mastery and autonomy. Both are different
from traditional classrooms, where a single exam
results in a grade and not necessarily mastery of the
subject and teacher driven content often does not
leave too much room for autonomy. A course that
insists on mastery of the material (repeated hand-ins
until perfection) and self-driven learning is difficult
because firstly, it is so different from anything
previously seen in teaching and secondly, the rate of
learning appears to slow down even while enhancing
long-term retention (Björk, 2013; p.421). The first
experience with a gamified version of the course
resulted in a lack of acceptance by students and
exposed the mismatch with student motivators,
geared solely towards grade and efficient learning to
the test due to time constraints. Explicit gamification
was perceived as inappropriate for the serious
business of study in this culture (Berkling and
Thomas, 2013). The need for an adaptive
environment geared towards different learner types
and scaffolding during “onboarding” was also
shown in previous work (Thomas, Ch., 2013). Not
only are autonomy and mastery difficult for
students, but they are difficult to implement for a
single teacher with around 100 students. It would
mean giving feedback to homework on a weekly
basis. To afford this feedback loop, peer reviews are
introduced into the classroom.
Peer reviews have become popular as a method
of grading in large scale settings of MOOCS.
According to Piech et al. who have studied Coursera
MOOCs in detail, aspects of peer review (incentive,
presenting complex scores back to students,
assigning reviewers) are still open research problems
(Piech, 2013). Studies look at how accurately the
peer grade reflects the expert teacher grade in order
to justify peer review as student grade. Some studies
show the difficulty that peer reviews pose to
students from the feeling of power to not
understanding their use. According to one study,
professionalism is lacking, loyalty to fellow students
24
Berkling K..
Connecting Peer Reviews with Students’ Motivation - Onboarding, Motivation and Blended Learning.
DOI: 10.5220/0005410200240033
In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2015), pages 24-33
ISBN: 978-989-758-108-3
Copyright
c
2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
interferes and inadequate effort is apparent because
it is not required (Nilson, 2002). In line with these
findings, in a previous version of this course, peer
reviews have been shown to be a difficult
component and were simply neglected by students.
As a result, they were not appreciated for their
potential usefulness.
Platform adaptation and scaffolding through
extrinsic motivation changed this. (In this paper,
adaptation relates to the fact that students choose
their own environment. There are currently no
system-based adaptive learning platforms available
to us.) Feedback was made public on platforms that
are chosen and controlled by students. The
importance of modern social platforms in
communication and learning reflects studies by
several researchers (Herbert 2010, Aydin 2012,
Timaz 2012, Prizo 2011). The completion of peer
reviews is recorded and figures directly into the final
grade, thereby creating an immediate incentive as a
scaffolding device. With these changes, autonomy
through defining their own environment and project
and mastery through reworking homework based on
peer feedback now show a clear and immediate
connection to the final grade. While small changes
and tweaks will always remain, the basic framework
of the onboarding process is finalized as presented in
this paper. We report on a student survey regarding
their perception of this learning environment. 81
participants took part in this survey, taken from three
different classrooms of 27, 23, and 31 students each.
The purpose of this survey is to determine the
student contentment with their learning environment
given the new circumstances. The expectation is to
find that with this change, diverse learner types feel
comfortable with the course. The second motivation
for the survey was to better understand the
onboarding process. It is important that the students
do not perceive the learning environment as
threatening, which has been shown to happen in our
non-scaffolded setups. In this work we show that
peer reviews are difficult but accessible with
scaffolding and modern social platforms. After the
first rounds of difficulty, students understand the
impact that peer reviews have on their motivation of
obtaining a good grade. The use of other elements
(such as Forum, e-Portfolio) of the blended course
have been less successful without the necessary
scaffolding.
The paper is structured as follows. After a review
of the theoretical and historic foundations for this
work in Section 2, Section 3 will describe the course
setup. Section 4 will explain the design of the
survey. Section 5 will discuss results that describe
students’ perception of the components that make up
the course. Section 6 offers conclusion and future
work.
2 BACKGROUND FOUNDATION
The software engineering course is designed to take
gamification into account in an implicit manner, due
to the local culture, where explicit gamification may
not match the seriousness of the situation of
studying (Berkling and Zundel, 2013). There are
implicit elements to the course that are motivated by
gamification and the underlying motivational theory
of Pink’s universal motivators: Mastery, Autonomy
and Relatedness or Purpose (Pink, 2010). In
particular the vocabulary from gaming is used to
think of the first semester as onboarding process
designed as player journey (Kim, 2010), also
emphasized in J.Tagg’s work on scaffolding (Tagg,
2003). In the language of gaming, Points, Badges
and Levels are comparable to the traditional form of
grading students. A slow transition to intrinsic
motivation akin to mastery and autonomy is
accomplished by weaning students off the “cheap”
scaffolding reward system, leading towards learning
as the key accomplishment. (see also Self-
determination theory Ryan Deci (Ryan, 2000;
Gagné, 2005)). While the course uses gamification
principles, the vocabulary is not used during
teaching due to cultural aspects (Berkling, 2013).
In that sense, we are also looking at students as
gamers according to the classification of (Bartle,
1996). Learner types play a role as we have seen in
the past (Berkling and Thomas, 2014) but to assess a
student’s learner type is too difficult in a simple
survey and students are not able to directly and
accurately classify themselves as participant,
avoidant, independent, dependent, collaborative or
competitive (Riechmann, 1974). We therefore use a
simplified model to classify the students according
to gamer type (by asking students to sorting game
examples according to how likely they are to enjoy
them) and personality traits: collaborative,
competitive, creative and open to new experiences.
This gives us a two-dimensional very rough
classification of students’ players and learner types.
As predicted when technology is aligned with
motivation and content (Derntl, 2005), student
perception of the course is currently mostly positive
for scaffolded components after understanding and
aligning student motivation with content and
platform - despite the novelty of the setup.
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3 COURSE SETUP
The Software Engineering course is setup to be
taught across several cohorts of student groups of
about 30. Students are asked to define their own
software projects and determine their team for the
duration of the course, which lasts two quarters.
Each week, there is one lecture and one homework
that relates directly to the lecture and the project.
This homework is posted on the groups chosen
platform and design, mostly blogs. The homework is
then peer reviewed according to criteria by any
group across all cohorts. In previous versions of this
course, students’ work, submissions and peer
reviews as well as forums were located on a single
MOOC platform, chosen by the instructor. The most
significant complaint in the past was dominated by a
criticism of the infrastructure and lack of useful
feedback by other students. The most significant
change for this instance of the course was the
student choice of platform and the public peer
evaluations that had to be shown to the instructor to
gain points towards the final grade in the course.
The students were in complete charge of their
platform. In the past, peer reviews were private and
not taken seriously by all students; all reviews are
now publicly displayed with group name and their
publication under the control of the blog owner.
Autonomy is expressed through self-
determination when choosing a project, the
technology to realize the project and choosing a
team. The key difference in student perception of the
course consisted in extending the autonomy to the
platform for displaying student work in public and
hosting peer reviews. The scaffolding consists of
providing deadlines for set homework, evaluation
criteria and enforcing the use of public peer reviews
on student blogs and including this work as part of a
grade.
Mastery is realized by delaying the grading on
content until submissions undergo several reviews
and revisions, creating a peer pressure towards
excellence in the public forums. Through the use of
peer reviews, guidelines for evaluation and
reflecting on their own homework, final
understanding of the course material is supported.
Blended learning environment consists of 4
hours of in-class time and virtual extension of the
classroom through the online activities described
above. Each week a lecture is given that covers
exactly one new aspect that relates to the next step
required in the project. The subsequent week, some
of the groups present the homework in class and
receive feedback from the teacher. This feedback is
then often used when giving peer reviews to other
project homework, propagating the information to
other groups. This approach blends live feedback by
a teacher with peer reviews. Homework is then
revised and has often been rechecked by peers to
verify the correctness of the change (this point was
not required by the instructor). While the general
guidelines for homework and projects are given, the
specific technical implementation is not prescribed.
As an example, students are required to use an MVC
framework to build a web application and the lecture
focuses on the principles of the Model View
Controller architectural pattern. The programming
language and chosen framework for its realization is
optional. As a result, Laravel (PHP), Rails (Ruby) or
Django (Python) enter into the classroom. Principles
of their use are reviewed by peers and presented as
homework in the classroom, broadening the course
with student-built content. Lecture is then usually
followed by in-class peer review sessions and
project work as time permits. 2 peer reviews were
required by each team each week. Completing the
peer reviews included answering peer reviews with a
feedback. Both had to be shown to the teacher to
obtain points that counted 20% towards the final
grade.
Table 1: Overview of Categories in Student Survey
(Details are given in Appendix A).
Rank these games according to which type best fits for you
(Egoshooter, Facebook, Geocashing, Monopoli)
Rate each of these characteristics from 1-4: (I am creative, I
like to explore new things, I am competitive, I like to work
in a team.)
Grades:
How do you rate this course.
What grade do you expect to obtain.
What grade is sufficient for you.
I feel insecure in this course.
Tools: Topics followed by specific questions (See Appendix
A)
Peer Review
Blog
E-Portfolio
Self-Determinism
Forum/Platform/Classroom
Open Questions:
What do you think about joining all three cohorts for a single
lecture and then splitting into groups?
Which parts of this course setup did you perceive as
particularly difficult in the beginning? Which difficult parts
turned out to be useful? Which parts do you like.
In addition to the team work, individual grades
are given for individual contributions bringing
students’ expertise to the classroom with topics that
are related to the course content. These are called e-
Portfolios and their successful completion consists
of an online tutorial on a topic and a hands-on
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presentation and exercise to be done in class. The
result is posted in a Forum. Over the years this
content is built up to support incoming students with
tutorials on topics that are directly related to the
course.
4 STUDENT SURVEY
Onboarding for the Software Engineering course is
considered to go far into the first semester of the
course. In the past, onboarding has been demanded
of students without any scaffolding. As a result,
students’ perception of the class was negative (site
self). The goal of this survey is to find out how the
current set-up is perceived and whether this
perception is valid across all learner types, based on
the rough self-diagnosis queried in the first section
of the survey. The survey regarding the components
that make up the course and the perception of their
effectiveness is given at the end of the first of two
semesters and was designed keeping reliability and
validity in mind (Schumann, 2012). Because three
classes were taught in parallel, it was possible to
calculate reliability of results across cohorts. The
survey was given within the span of one week to all
three groups (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday).
Students were asked to evaluate their experience
on a four point Likert scale (avoiding the middle
value to get a clear tendency) from “agree
completely” to “disagree completely” regarding the
tools. The questions were very simple and designed
to be closed-ended for comparison. To compensate,
the final section of the survey allowed students free
text to express their thoughts on difficulties and a
different setup of the classrooms. 81 students
currently enrolled in the course answered the survey
during class time.
Figure 1: Student evaluation of course and expected grade.
The student survey included four components:
(1) Gamer Type ranked from 1 through 4 (to enforce
a choice) and Learner Types which was chosen on a
likert scale from 1-4 (2) Grading on a likert scale
from 1-6 (German grading system), (3) survey of the
different components used in blended learning on a
likert scale from 1-4 and (4) open ended questions
for qualitative feedback regarding the timing and
room setup and questions pertaining to what was
perceived as the most difficult component during
onboarding. Table 1 lists all Questions. Appendix 1
lists the entire questionnaire.
4.1 Overall Results
Overall, the result of the survey showed that students
are mostly happy with the course and its format.
Figure 1 shows the grades given to the course and
the expected grade the students will receive (final
grading will take place at the end of the second
semester only and final results are not available at
this time). The hypothesis when evaluating the
survey is that most learner types will feel
comfortable with the course because the course was
designed to meet several learner type needs
(Thomas, Ch., 2014). The final step, of including
student control over their platform was met this year.
Results seem to show that the goal of addressing
most students needs seem to have been met (see
Figure 1).
4.2 Self-diagnosed Learner Types
Our past experience shows that students are not
easily able to identify their learner type. According
to the simplified classification based on favourite
prototypical game (according to gamer types) and
personal characteristic, the following student
distribution makes up the three classrooms as shown
in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Number of students according to user
characteristics (multiple selections possible).
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Figure 3: Mapping characteristics onto favourite chosen
game.
The combination of game type and
characteristics is displayed in Figure 3. It is not
surprising that student have multidimensional
characteristics.
4.3 Overall Results across Classes
For each of the five questionnaire categories a
correlation score is computed across the three
courses. Table 2 lists the results. It can be seen that
there is a high correlation across all courses for the
topics of Self Direction, Blog and Peer Reviews,
which were at the focus of the first semester
onboarding process. This indicates that the areas in
focus have had similar acceptance across different
student groups. R-values larger than 0,7 are
generally accepted to show a high reliability. The
rest of this paper focuses mostly on the categories
that correlate well across the classes, namely Peer
Review, Blog, and Self-directed decisions.
Table 2: Correlation/(R-value) across classrooms.
Correlation Class 1/2 Class 1/3 Class 2/3
Peer 0,83 0,96 0,91
Blog 0,98 0,99 0,95
Self-Direction 0,96 0,96 0,97
e-Porfolio 0,75 0,68 0,97
Forum 0,97 0,60 0,77
The overall evaluation scores of the survey items are
depicted in Figure 4 for each of the three classes. It
can be seen that the general rating trends are the
same. However, one classroom was more severe in
rating of question group 5 regarding blogs, while
maintaining the same basic relative pattern. (Class 1
also complained about the lack of time in their
current schedule to the instructor.)
Figure 4: Evaluation results according to classroom, sorted
by disagreement.
Figure 5: Evaluation results according to user
characteristics, sorted by disagreement.
Figure 5 shows how the results compare across
groups of users who have chosen particular user
characteristics with the score of 1 (1=applies
completely – multiple selections possible). It can be
seen that the groups are very similar, while the
competitive students are more severe at rating some
Blog and Peer Review questions.
Figure 6: Highest rated features across three classes.
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Figure 7: Lowest rated features across three classes.
(2=sort of agree; 3=sort of disagree; 4=disagree).
Figure 6 ranks the top seven rated features of the
course. Adaptation, achieved by letting the students
make their own choices regarding technology,
including blog and peer review as well as
technology used for implementing their project is
appreciated by the students. It is of interest to note
that the peer review seems to be integrated with the
student primary motivation of obtaining a good
grade. The students agree that receiving peer review
feedback is useful in learning the material and
improving it.
Keeping in mind that feedback for all categories
is mostly positive, Figure 7 shows the lowest six
ranked items. Giving feedback on peer reviews
appears here as less highly rated than receiving it.
The answers also seem to reflect that lack of time to
spend on peer review which may not be directly
considered as working in a linear way toward
receiving a grade without wasting time with extra
things (as expected, see also Björk, 2013).
Overall, results can be considered positive and
consistent across three different classrooms. While
the ratings on the items still reflects the straight
forward motivation of students, it can be seen that
the peer review has been integrated into the process
of being successful in obtaining a good grade.
4.4 Differences across Students
Despite the rough estimate, it is interesting to see
whether there are differences in onboarding for
various user types (Creative, Competitive, Exploring
new things, Likes to work in teams). Figure 8
compares those survey items for which the variance
is below .5 for each subgroup. It can be seen that
competitive students agree that peer reviews mostly
do not help with keeping up with the timeline,
whereas other groups of students do not agree within
their subgroup on this point. In contrast, all groups
regardless of their characteristic agree that having
control over their grade is the most important item.
The only other item where all groups agree is the
importance of working in a team.
Figure 8: Features for which students agree on their
assessment within subgroup (variance < .5).
Looking at the two largest groups of students
according to preferred game style and user
characteristics, two groups have a large enough
student sample to be compared according to their
different ranking of the items in the questionnaire.
Figure 9: Number of students according to favourite game
and characteristic (multiple selections possible).
While these subgroups are very small, some
tendencies can be seen that are in line with the
characteristics.
Figure 10 shows that explorers, who like
Geocashing and finding out about new things (12
students) enjoy the interaction with other teams that
the peer reviews support. They also like to help
others with their know-how. Students who identify
most with Egoshooting games and enjoy working in
a team (19 students) rated teamwork uniformly at 1.
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There are, however, no major differences in rating
apparent, which agrees with our expectation in an
environment that is adaptive to user style.
Figure 10: Minor differences between student groups by
game preference and user characteristic.
4.5 Qualitative Feedback
Asking students which parts of the course were most
difficult during onboarding resulted in extensive
written feedback. The comments reflect the
difficulty of getting into the habit of doing the peer
reviews. Furthermore, the amount of time needed to
do the homework was criticized. Table 3 lists the
key attitudes towards the course that are equally
reflected by almost all comments.
Table 3: Points agreed upon by most students.
Positive Considerations Needing Improvement
The basic setup of the
course is good, self-
driven project work, peer
reviews, and mastery
through reworking of
hand-ins.
1 peer review per week
was too much work per
week. Time investment
had better reflect
positively in grade!
Working across
classrooms was
interesting.
The weekly assignments
were not clear enough;
they also should have
been listed in their
entirety at the beginning
of the semester.
Peer reviews help
improve understanding
of the homework.
It is very difficult to get
used to the concept
before understanding the
usefulness.
Some of the following citations demonstrate the
thoughts of students in the course.
Table 4: Comments regarding peer review.
“The basic idea is good, however there is never
enough time.”
“Constant reworking of homework takes some
g
etting used to but is the only way to learn.
F
orming a habit of consistent improvement
contributes to deep comprehension.”
“I think it is good to have a weekly homework in
order to be forced to keep up to date, rather than
pushing everything towards the end of the
semester.”
“It is good that the homework is public. You have
to hand in the homework on time and receive
feedback to improve it. Working across course
s
results in more feedback.”
“Peer reviews take a lot of getting used to. But you
can learn a lot from others.”
“It took a long time to get used to the peer reviews,
the grading system and overall organization of the
course. This improved with time… It was difficult
to determine the homework within all the
information.”
“If the amount of time spent on this course results
in a good grade, it will have been worth the effort.
Otherwise this course is definitely too much work.”
“Because the course has a dif
f
erent structure from
others, it was difficult to get used to it. But it grows
on you and was fun.”
“Difficult to get used to but good.”
“Reworking homework and practical application
helps to fully understand the material. However, it
was difficult to understand the full requirements of
the weekly work. This improved with time.”
“Building habit of weekly assignments was difficult
but turned into routine. This kind of work routing,
f
eedback and taking charge of my own grade was
good.”
5 DISCUSSION
The survey showed that there is general content with
the course. While there are some issues with time
and clarity of content, the overall framework was
accepted by students even though it is perceived as
difficult. It was shown that the same feedback can be
reproduced across three different classrooms. It was
also attempted to show that roughly estimated
learner types seem to react in similar ways to the
course.
Some changes to teaching are still required
(clarifying homework and listing these at the
beginning of the semester) but these are minor
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compared to the fundamental restructuring that has
successively taken place since moving away from
teacher centric learning. The survey showed which
parts of the framework for the class presented more
difficulties for students and which ones were
manageable. We found that peer reviews worked
much better this year with the new setup of student
chosen technology and public peer reviews. While
creating some difficulty for students, these
difficulties were mastered and their benefit
understood. This goal has not been achieved in
previous sessions of the course using tool
functionality out of the box rather than student
created blogs with open reviews and feedback.
Some items, like use of Forum and e-Porfolio
were less well scaffolded than others and agreement
between students was not clear. Both of these have
less direct effect on the grade than peer reviews and
may therefore be skills for higher levels in the
“game”. Future work will show how these can be
better integrated, perhaps across years and not
classrooms, where one class provides information
that is appreciated by subsequent years. This in turn
may motivate those students to provide more
information to students in lower years. The time-gap
between effort and profit is much larger. A typical
quote: “Why should I spend time learning X, when I
don’t need it for my project right now. I will learn it
when I need it. (And by then everything will have
changed anyway)”. The student is probably correct
in today’s IT world. However, learning things that
are not imminently of use is also a step further down
the process of turning extrinsic rewards like grades
into intrinsic rewards of knowledge building and
sharing even if they have no impact on the
points/badges/levels system of the old-school
grading system (Ryan, 2000).
Finally, peer-review and adaptive learning
platforms with respect to user type are open research
questions. By looking at how students design their
own working environment (adaptive in that sense)
more insights can be gained into how to design
automatic systems to perform at the same level.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
None of this work would have been possible without
the active role of students in the classroom who are
willing to take the risk and walk along new ways.
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APPENDIX A
The following table lists all items of the
questionnaire used to evaluate the onboarding
process for Software Engineering based on
principles of gamification with blended learning.
Game
Rate the order in which each of these games
most match your interest
G: Egoshooter (killer)
G: Monopoli (achiever)
G: Facebook (socializer)
G: Geocashing (explorer)
User Type
On a scale of 1:agree completely to 4:disagree
completely rate the following:
T: I am creative and like to show that in class
T: I am competitive and want to be the best
T: I like to explore new things
T: I like to collaborate in teams
CSEDU2015-7thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation
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Grading
On a scale of 1:best grade 6:worst grade
(German grading system) grade the following:
R: How do you rate the course?
R: What grade do you expect in this course?
R: What grade is enough for you?
R: How secure do you feel in this course?
Peer Reviews
On a scale of 1:agree completely to 4:disagree
completely rate the following:
P: Interaction with other teams is important
P: I like to see what the others are working on
P: Giving feedback helps me to understand
material
P: Receiving feedback helps understand material
P: It helps me to improve my grade
P: It helps me keep my time schedule
P: It is good that the activity counts toward my
grade
P: It is interesting
Blog
On a scale of 1:agree completely to 4:disagree
completely rate the following:
B: I like to create our blog for the project
B: I like to share my work with the others
B: I look forward to receiving feedback
B: I like to help others with what I know
e-Portfolio
On a scale of 1:agree completely to 4:disagree
completely rate the following:
eP: I like to influence the topics in this course
eP: I like that my interests are incorporated
eP: I am interested in peer expertise
eP: I like to share my know-how with peers
eP: Forum is a good place to share this
information
eP: e-Porfolio of others are interesting for me (if I
had the time)
eP: I don’t have time to be interested in ePorfolios
Self Determination
On a scale of 1:agree completely to 4:disagree
completely rate the following:
S: I like to define my own project
S: I like to define my own technology
S: I like to work in a team
S: It is important to have control over my grade
S: I feel that I can influence my grade
S: The content of this course is relevant for my
work
Forum – Platform - Classroom
On a scale of 1:agree completely to 4:disagree
completely rate the following:
F: I prefer asking my peers to tutorials in the web
F: I prefer interacting in the classroom to virtual
F: I like to work with peers to create knowledge
F: The ePlatforms for this course are functional
Open Text Qeustions
Classroom setup and hours
This course has four hours of in-class time and 4
hours of out-of-class study time. How would you
like to change that setup?
Difficulties with Onboarding
This course has a different set up from usual
lecture and exam style. Which aspects did you
like and which aspects where difficult to get used
to.
ConnectingPeerReviewswithStudents'Motivation-Onboarding,MotivationandBlendedLearning
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