Becoming a Proficient Writer: The Important Role of Peer Learning
Hefer Bembenutty
I would like to investigate the role of peers as active agents to facilitate the writing learning experience of each other in an undergraduate educational psychology course for teacher candidates. During my teaching career, I have found that peers are able to provide effective feedback to each other and help to develop critical thinking and to explore epistemological beliefs among themselves.
In educational psychology courses, little emphasis is placed on peer learning and help seeking from peers during the writing process. At the college level, acquisition of writing proficiency, editing, responding to writing, and evaluating writing come primarily from the instructors. The instructors create and grade the written assignments. However, help seeking from peers is considered a self-regulatory learning strategy known to enhance academic performance, acquisition of literacy, and writing expertise (Newman, 1994; Zimmerman & Kitsantas, 1997, 1999; Zimmerman & Risemberg, 1997 ). The implicit idea in current practice is that peers have little to contribute to the learning and writing experience of each other. An important way in which peers learn from each other to acquire writing dexterity is by engaging in self-observation, peer observation, emulation, and self-reflection. Through observational learning, peers could encourage each other to engage in critical thinking, drafting, revision, editing, proofreading, and to explore their epistemological beliefs.
Acquisition of writing dexterity is a long-term process involving high-quality instruction and peers can help to facilitate the writing process. Peers can help writers to adopt many self-regulatory techniques such as drafting, revision, editing, proofreading to direct and sustain their writing process and providing effective feedback to each other.
I would like to learn ways in which I can help my students, who are teacher candidates, to engage in a peer learning experience during the writing process of the course’s assignments. My students will be assigned to write two self-reflective papers in which they will have to evaluate developmental and learning theories as they apply to classroom situations. However, the students will be required to share with their peer their papers in such a way that they can engage in critical thinking, drafting, revision, editing, proof-reading, and exploring their epistemological beliefs.
I am interested to uncover what are the learning strategies that peers use to help each other during the writing process. Would they use elaboration, rehearsal, mapping, outlining, clustering, and organization?
I am also interested to find what are the personal characteristics that are associated with a successful writing process. Specifically, I will be curious to learn whether peer interaction during the writing process facilitate self-regulation of learning, delay of gratification, and motivation among each other.
References
Newman, R. S. (1994). Adaptive help seeking: A strategy of self-regulated learning.In D. Schunk & B. Zimmerman (Eds. ), Self-regulation of learning and performance: Issues and educational applications(pp. 283-301). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Zimmerman, B. J. & Kitsantas, A. (1997). Developmental phases in self-regulation: Shifting from process goals to outcome goals. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 29-36.
Zimmerman, B. J. & Kitsantas, A. (1999). Acquiring writing revision skill: Shifting from process to outcome self-regulatory goals. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 241-250.
Zimmerman, B. J. & Risemberg, R. (1997). Becoming a proficient writer: A self-regulatory perspective. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 22, 73-101.
