or her peers. As a result, teachers should limit the number
of peer reviews that each student completes for each critique
session to two to three. You may have students choose the
work they wish to critique or assign projects for review. By
requiring students to alternate classmates for each critique,
students will still get to see a wide range of their peers’ work
while offering fresh perspectives in the review process.
Critique Etiquette
If you are new to critiques, you may wish to provide students with some guidelines. Ask students to:
• Read what an individual states about his or her work to
understand the context in which they’ll need to provide
effective feedback.
• Spend sufficient time looking at the work and trying to
engage with the project.
• Consider posing questions before offering opinions or
advice and model some alternatives to show the difference
between criticizing someone’s work and being constructive.
• Speak to the positive aspects of the work without being
generic. For example, rather than allowing students to say,
“I like it,” ask them to state what is working well and why.
The more specific that students can be in their commentary, the better (see the “Sample First Critique of Poster” on
page 13 for examples of detailed comments). Teachers can
guide specific types of feedback through the questions and
comments they ask the peer reviewers to address. For example, if you plan to use a rubric to evaluate projects, you
could instruct students to address specific aspects of this
rubric. In this way, students receive feedback on their work
at a time when they can more easily make revisions.
Anticipated Problems
One problem with asynchronous online critiques is the window of time between when critiques begin and end. This is
the biggest challenge from the instructor’s perspective.
Imagine a student named Amber posts a link to her work
by a Friday 8 a.m. deadline, and another student provides
her with feedback that evening. Saturdays happen to be the
best day for Amber to work, so she reads the peer feedback
from her classmate and makes changes to her project. Amber then receives more feedback on her project on Sunday
from a different student. To put this in perspective, two
students saw Amber’s work at two different points in time,
a scenario that would never happen during a face-to-face
classroom critique. So, although this presents a challenge,
it actually works to the advantage of those involved in the
online learning experience.
In Amber’s case, if she decides to revise her work at multiple points over the weekend, she simply needs to review her
individual critique page before she begins making revisions.
She also has the ability to know when peers complete their
reviews if they provide the dates and times of their critiques.
If students provide conflicting feedback within an online
critique, view it as a teachable moment. Typically, students
don’t intend to provide malicious advice. They present
poor feedback due to a lack of understanding. When this
happens, intercede and address student misconceptions
early. Use the comments section of the online critique or
email students directly if the comments require intervention that is more pointed.
Expected Benefits
Students can reap multiple benefits from participating in
online critiques. First, because students receive feedback on
their work at regular intervals, they are able to revise their
assignments and, as a result, produce higher-quality work.
Second, when students are developing projects of their own
design within a learner-centered and project-based environment, they have a stake in making the outcome successful.
This means that students are not only motivated to read the
feedback they receive from their peers, but they are also more
likely to offer insightful critiques to others. A byproduct of
the peer feedback process is that students also gather ideas on
how to improve their work by seeing what their classmates
are doing. It is a win-win-win situation for all students.
Through online critiques, students learn how to give and
receive constructive criticism while meeting deadlines, which
ultimately prepares them for further study and professional
work environments. While our experience with online critiques is primarily with secondary and post-secondary students, participants of an online critique could also be faculty
completing online professional development or administrators collaborating with a superintendent on a project.
Although online critiques are great for students, teachers
may be the ultimate beneficiaries. Online critiques provide
rich data that instructors can use as a tool for assessment.
As students offer feedback for one another, they leave a
record of their thinking, learning, and misconceptions.
Teachers can use this data to modify their instruction and
track the development of student thinking over an entire
project or course. Additionally, online critiques have the
potential to build rapport and community among the students. In a face-to-face setting, teachers can help develop
the rapport easily, but the task is more challenging in online environments. Online critiques help in that regard, as
the whole class develops a vested interest in one another.
By seeing work progress over time, students support one
another and bring a positive classroom climate to the online setting.
Although implementing online critiques successfully
takes time and planning, in the long run, the benefits are
worthwhile. Online critiques improve the quality of stu-
