Anyone reading this blog knows that I am big proponent of active learning. You should also know that I believe that students have a lot to learn from their peers and I try to infuse my class with opportunities for them to review their peer's work. A recent article by Tiffany Potter, Letitia Englund, James Charbonneau, Mark Thompson MacLean, Jonathan Newell, and Ido Roll (University of British Columbia) entitled "ComPAIR: A New Online Tool Using Adaptive Comparative Judgement to Support Learning with Peer Feedback" provided me with a new appreciation for student interaction. One of the concerns of using peer review is that students, especially early in their college career, may not be able to properly evaluate someone else's work. What the folks from UBC found through their research is that using a comparison option alleviates some of that effect. Better yet, the process help students learn more deeply, improves their ability to assess their own work, and improves their capacity to provide feedback on the work of others in a collaborative learning environment. You can read the entire article here.