Creating an Authentic Learning Experience for Students: Joseph Borowiec

Reposted from the FITL blog.

The The Faculty Innovations in Teaching and Learning Center sat down with industry professor Joseph Borowiec to learn about how using instructional technology has enhanced student learning.

In Senior Design I (ME-UY 4112) and Senior Design II (ME-UY 4113), mechanical engineering students apply their knowledge and skills obtained from earlier course work into the product design, development, and creation of prototype hardware. As part of the capstone design experience, students are expected to utilize their collaboration skills in all aspects of the two-part course sequence.

Professor Joseph Borowiec, who joined the faculty at NYU Tandon in 2009, has taught Senior Design I and II for a number of years. As a licensed professional engineer, he understands the importance of providing hands-on, authentic learning experiences as his students prepare to begin their careers as innovative mechanical engineers.

Supporting Instruction with Technology

An important element that Borowiec has incorporated into the courses he teaches is peer-to-peer feedback.  With great emphasis on teamwork, Borowiec provides students with opportunities to conduct peer reviews on each other’s work and performance throughout the year long group project. He stated that many students strive to be project managers at one point in their engineering career. He explains to students, “If you have people who report to you, often you have to do reviews about their performance. What are you going to write? You need to cite specific examples.”  By creating peer review assignments, Borowiec feels that the assignment helps students practice effective and professional communication in writing through real world application.

For years, Borowiec says that he used paper forms that had to be sorted, organized, and grouped. Thereafter, time was scheduled to meet with individual students to share the comments from their peers in order to maintain anonymity. He often found that not all the students would participate and very few students would make the effort to receive the comments written by their peers. In order to streamline the process without hindering the learning outcomes of the assignment, Borowiec sought out assistance from FITL. After meeting with FITL’s instructional designer, he learned about the Peer Assessment feature in the Assignments tool in NYU Classes, NYU’s Learning Management System (LMS), which fit seamlessly into his existing instructional practice.

NYU Classes offers an Assignment tool that allows instructors to provide instructions, grading, and feedback on online submissions of student work.  When creating an assignment in NYU Classes, instructors can select “Peer Assessment.” Peer Assessment expands the grading process by allowing students to review and grade each other’s submissions. Peer review is automatically enabled after students successfully submit their assignments and the assignment submission period has ended. Students must review a predetermined number of their peers’ submission set by the instructor. The grades provided by students are averaged and are tentative until the instructor reviews the submissions and peer review comments for a final grade.  The instructor’s grade and peer reviews can be released to the original student submitter.

Instructor View: Creating a Peer Review Assignment

As a frequent user of the Assignments tool, Borowiec was eager to experiment and implement the feature as quickly as possible. 

Implementing Technology to Engage Students

Borowiec used the peer assessment feature towards the end of the semester for a self-reflection exercise. Each member of the group needed to document the work that they completed for the semester, and in turn, group members evaluated each other’s performance based on several question prompts. Some questions included:  What are the team member’s strengths? Are there areas this person needs to improve, and what are they?

Student View:  Peer Reviews on Assignments List

Student View: Writing a Peer Review

When asked about the process of creating a peer review assignment, Borowiec stated that “it was super easy because once you release it to the students, they can just see it.” By selecting the anonymous evaluation setting when creating the assignment, students were able to read their reviews without knowing the name of their reviewers, which helped maintain confidentiality among group members.  It helped students stay on track and there was no need to meet with a student unless an issue or concern needed to be addressed.

Student View:  Assessing Peer Reviews

Analyzing the Data to Inform Instruction

Without spending extra time to sift through paperwork, Borowiec had more time to analyze student responses. Although peer reviews may be anonymous to students, instructors can view student reviewers grades and comments for each of the students they evaluated. If grades/comments from a particular student were deemed inappropriate by the instructor, the peer review can be easily removed.

Instructor View:  Accessing Assignments and Peer Reviews

It was a teachable moment for the industry professor as he read through the students’ peer reviews. Borowiec stated that he became aware of more problems within groups then he initially thought. He often found that group problems arose during the end of the semester. However, he soon learned about group dynamics that unraveled throughout the course of the semester. He continued by stating that is was startling to see the number of zeros students gave to each other. Quickly, he realized that assigning peer reviews at the end of the semester was neither effective, nor efficient for a two sequence course. Thus, he found the need to incorporate these assignments throughout the course in order to provide immediate support to struggling groups and address issues among students regarding ascertaining effort in completing their responsibilities within the group.  By capturing the peer reviews electronically, he had more time to meet with groups to foster student growth on professionalism. Borowiec feels that more information you have, the sooner you can make informed instructional decisions to support student learning.

Additionally, Borowiec was surprised by the students’ inability to provide clear and constructive feedback. He felt that students gave negative comments freely and frequently without justifying their reasoning. Thus, he felt the need to implement instruction on professional writing and constructive feedback by modeling responses and assigning peer review writing exercises to guide them in developing their narrative writing skills. It is evident that Borowiec was able to adapt and modify his teaching methodologies to better meet the needs and abilities of his students.

Reflecting on Teaching with Technology

When implementing new technology to instructional practices, it is vital for instructors to evaluate the effectiveness of the technology and make modifications to improve the next implementation. Borowiec recommends these helpful tips for instructors to consider prior to implementation.

Tip #1 Prepare Students for the Peer Review Assignment

It is essential to set requirements and expectations for student peer review assignments. Instructors need to provide students with specific questions/instructions to guide and structure the evaluation process on peer work and performance. Borowiec uses examples as a basis for this conversation.  Additionally, it is important to have a discussion about professionalism. He often found that the negative comments were very candid without being constructive. The peer review assignment should help students learn about giving and receiving constructive criticism effectively.

Tip #2 Implement at Different Points of the Course

Peer reviews should be scattered throughout a course. Instructors should help coach students with effective methods for formally critiquing peer work. Borowiec explains that it is an ongoing process for students to develop narrative writing skills.

Tip #3 Structure Your Grading Schema for the Assignments

Instructors may want to incorporate peer review grades as a percentage of the final project grades. Borowiec recommends that there should be several peer review exercises for students before incorporating peer review grades into students’ grades. At the beginning of the process, Borowiec did not want students to have the power to influence another student’s grade. His goal was to find consistent information from what he sees occurring in the classroom alongside the reflection of student performance from the perspectives of their peers.

Technology has the power to inform and guide instruction. Effective teaching strategies and practices rely on getting information about your students quickly in order to make appropriate decisions to support learning. Borowiec’s proactive approach and methods allow him to restructure his courses that benefit his teaching and help students achieve learning objectives while preparing them for their careers.