CA3

Calibrated Peer Review: A Writing and Critical Thinking Instructional Tool
ARLENE RUSSELL, UCLA AND TIM SU, CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO
June 18-20, 2008, Los Angeles (UCLA), CA

Course Fee $100

Calibrated Peer ReviewTM (CPR), a web-based, discipline-independent, instructional management tool enables an instructor to make frequent writing assignments that probe student understanding of concepts without increasing the instructor's "grading" load. In CPR assignments, students "write-to-learn." CPR instructors can choose materials from the growing library of field-tested CPR assignments in many disciplines or they can create their own assignments. In a CPR assignment, students write short essays on a specific topic. Guiding questions focus both the direction that students should take in organizing their thoughts for the essay and encourage critical thinking about the topic. After electronic submission of the essays, the students are trained as reviewers using "calibration" essays. When students have completed the training, they review three anonymous essays written by their peers and finally their own essays. To launch a "CPR assignment," an instructor selects an assignment, creates a class list, and sets the due dates for essay submission and assignment completion.
At the workshop, participants will first experience a CPR assignment as a student does and then learn how to implement the program in a class. The group will review the rich set of assessment information that the CPR program can acquire on student performance and learn how to customize the information to specific needs. Participants will then work on the creation and development of new assignments for use in their own classes. Learn how to become proficient in developing new and creative CPR.

For college teachers of: undergraduate science, math, technology and social science courses, graduate students interested in an eventual teaching career. High school teachers are also welcome.

Prerequisites: none, but potential proposers of NSF CCLI grants in any science area are encouraged to attend this workshop. To use CPR assignments at an institution, students will need to have regular access to computers with Internet capability. More information may be obtained from the Calibrated Peer Review web page: http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu.

Dr. Russell, a Senior Lecturer at UCLA in both the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and in the Department of Education, is a co-developer of the Calibrated ReviewTM (CPR) program, a product of the Molecular Science Project, an NSF systemic reform initiative. Dr. Su is a Professor of Chemistry at City College of San Francisco. He
provides technical support for new users