Abstract:

The contribution describes the peer-feedback activities carried out in a blended university course (Experimental Pedagogy; Bachelor's Degree in Psychology; Sapienza University of Rome), inspired by the Trialogical Approach to Learning.

The course here described lasted 10 weeks divided into 3 modules; 109 students participated (M: 27 - F: 82), in groups of 10-11 members. In each of the three modules the students had to: work in groups to deepen the course contents and collaboratevely build new knowledge; build and continuously improve their products, through iterative cycles of feedback and review activities; use different technological tools depending on the specific activities and objectives.

In this contribution we focus on the peer-feedback activities that take place in the first and third module of the course, respectively dedicated:
1) to the definition of the figure of the "Good Teacher" - on which each group had to finally create a conceptual map, and
2) to construct the final object, a pedagogical scenario describing a didactic activity that uses technologies to support active and collaborative learning.

These activities present, on the one hand, some common characteristics, among which stand out: the collaborative nature of the activity; the activities being performed face-to-face; the request to use evaluation criteria accompanied by improvement comments. On the other hand, the concept maps peer-feedback includes students’ identification of further assessment criteria, while the scenario peer-feedback is based on a set of criteria partly established by the teacher and partly built by the students.

Objectives and Methodologies:
The study here presented aims to track the evolution of students' critical skills during the course.
Specifically, our objectives were:
1) to find if students' perception about their own critical skills grew after having participated to the course here described;
2) observe if students' ability to evaluate eache others and provide the colleagues with constructive feedback improve through the course.

To this end, we have considered and analyzed the following data:
- Pre-post questionnaire for self-assessment of critical skills (Likert scale 1-5) (N = 90). The answers were statistically treated through a univariate Anova;
- The peer-feedback forms produced by the groups in the first and third modules (N = 48). The improvement comments were evaluated by two independent researchers based on a specific protocol.

Results and conclusions:
The results of the questionnaire show statistically significant differences with p <.01 in all the items investigated. As regards to the comments, the analysis shows an improvement between the comments offered in the first module and in the third, with statistically significant differences in the t-test (t = -3.075 (10) p = .012 *).
Overall, the articulation of the activities proposed in this course seems to adequately support the development of critical and evaluative skills, oriented to the collaborative development of knowledge products.

References:
[1] Paavola, S., Engeström, R. & Hakkarainen, K. (2010). Trialogical approach as a new form of mediation. An article to appear in A. Morsh, A. Moen, & S. Paavola (Eds.) Collaborative knowledge creation: Practices, tools, and concepts (pp. 9-23).

Keywords:

Higher Education, Blended Learning, Peer Feedback, Trialogical Learning Approach.