{"id":943,"date":"2019-06-20T10:00:33","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T08:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpethzprd.ethz.ch\/letblog\/?p=943"},"modified":"2019-06-19T16:49:36","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T14:49:36","slug":"case-study-peer-review-corporate-sustainability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/letblog\/2019\/06\/20\/case-study-peer-review-corporate-sustainability\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Study \u2013 Peer Review Corporate Sustainability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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As part of a series of case studies, staff\nat LET sat down to have a conversation with Prof. Volker Hoffmann (SusTec, the Group for\nSustainability and Technology) and Erik Jentges (Educational\nDeveloper) from the Department of Management, Technology and Economics (D-MTEC)\nto discuss their corporate sustainability project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What\nis the project about?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course \u201eCorporate Sustainability\u201c aims to enable students to become advocates of sustainable business practices in their later careers. Each year it attracts 150-200 students with diverse disciplinary backgrounds and different educational levels (BSc, MSc, and MAS). We adapted the Six Sentence Argument (6SA) method<\/a> for this course. The method focuses on enhancing critical thinking skills through structured writing and guided, double-blind peer-review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nmotivated you to initiate the project?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We wanted students to get a clearer picture\nof what sustainability really is. In the course, they develop not only a deeper\nunderstanding of corporate sustainability but also the skills to give and\nreceive feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\ndid you do it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the core are four topics that relate to\nthe sustainability of corporations. These are assessment, strategy, technology,\nand finance. We developed digital learning modules (videos, some with\ninteractive elements) that explain key concepts to support the most relevant and difficult\nparts of the lecture. Also, we want to develop students\u2019\ncritical thinking skills. In e-modules, students learn to formulate concise and\nshort arguments with the 6SA method. The core idea builds on the\nassumption that writing is thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the e-modules, students face a decision\n(a micro case based on the lecture content) and argue for their preferred\ncourse of action using a logical structure of exactly six sentences. Each\nsentence fulfils a specific function in the overall argument and has a 20-word\nlimit. A clear grading rubric enables students to assess 6SAs in double-blind\npeer reviews. These have been continuously adapted and improved since 2015. The\nspecialized online tool \u201epeergrade\u201c also helped us to conduct a smooth process\n\u2013 for both students and teachers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the peer assessment, students engage\ncritically with their peers\u2019 arguments and receive constructive feedback on\ntheir own arguments. With the 6SA exercise, students learn to argue with\nclarity, and it helps them to reflect on the way they and others think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the second half of the semester,\nstudents work in diverse teams to prepare mock debates, consulting strategies,\neconomic models and campaign videos. In this phase, they are coached by several\npostdoctoral and doctoral researchers from SusTec, the Group for Sustainability and Technology. The students then present their projects and display their skills in\na group puzzle session and are debriefed in the following final lecture\nsession. Students receive grades for both individual and group performance and\ncan earn a bonus on their exam grade when completing the critical thinking\nexercises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did\nyou have the support you needed for the project? Is there additional support\nyou wish you had had to help you to achieve your goals?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project received funding from different\nsources. This helped us to hire academic staff to assist the development of new\nteaching approaches and the production of high-quality videos. In addition, we\nreceived specialist guidance in the instructional design and production of\nvideos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please\ndescribe some of the key outcomes of the project<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regard to our feedback modules, we think\nthat the quality of the argumentation and peer reviews has increased over the\nyears. For example, we learned that the effective design of such peer\nassessment exercises for students requires training on how to give constructive\nfeedback and that it should involve several feedback loops to support the\ndevelopment and refinement of critical thinking skills. Overall, the course now\nintegrates many innovative teaching elements and was a finalist in the 2018 ETH\nKITE award. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How\ndid the project impact learners or the way in which you teach?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When students are able to write better and concise\narguments that convince critical readers, and if they can give constructive\nfeedback to arguments that are being made to justify strategic decisions, then\nthey are able to actively shape good decisions in a company setting \u2013 they can\nbe change-makers for corporate sustainability. The students were motivated by\nthe new teaching approaches such as the supporting videos, interactive\nquestions inside the videos, and the critical thinking exercises. Peer\nassessment is \u201ehomework\u201c for the students, but they know that they can earn a\nbonus on their exam grade \u2013 and they are already rehearsing for some parts of\nthe final exam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With regard to students\u2019 learning, the peer\nreview process itself is convincing. What is unique to our teaching situation is\nthe incredible diversity in the classroom. A 19-year-old Swiss environmental\nscience student may be sitting next to a 25-year-old Chinese student who is pursuing\na master\u2019s degree in management, who in turn sits next to a 35-year-old\nAmerican part-time student with a PhD in chemistry and a management position\nwith responsibilities for 20 employees in a multinational company. Peer\nfeedback is a powerful solution to bridge these gaps of different levels of\nexperience and cultural backgrounds. It allows younger students to write a\ncreative and brilliant argument without being intimidated by more senior\nstudents. It allows a shy and quiet student to gain confidence by formulating a\nconvincing argument whose strengths are recognized in their peers\u2019 feedback. It\ncreates a space for older students to learn how to coach younger classmates with\nconstructive feedback to improve their reasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is why at D-MTEC, we use peer feedback\nin other courses as well. Students learn more when actually giving feedback\ncompared to when only submitting an assignment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nlessons learned do you want to share with your colleagues?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning, it was a lot of work and many\npeople were involved, but it was worth it. Today, with regard to the critical\nthinking exercises, we have continuously refined our processes. Every student writes\nthree reviews, thereby ensuring that everyone also receives much more feedback\nthan a single lecturer could provide. The main work for lecturers is providing\nan overview of the themes in the arguments and summarizing the activity for all\nstudents. This lets them know that their individual contribution becomes part\nof a collective intelligence. There are always truly smart and innovative\nsolutions that need to be shared with the whole class. Also, there is little\neffort involved in re-grading\/moderating student questions about feedback,\nbecause we train students to write helpful and considerate feedback and make them\naware of that they also have to learn how to receive feedback, especially if it\nis feedback that they don\u2019t want to, but need to hear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the production of videos, we recommend planning enough time and engaging with video experts and instructional designers early on. Especially writing a concise script for a short video requires a surprising amount of time until it effectively conveys your key points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are interested in applying these concepts in your own courses please contact LET<\/a>.<\/strong>
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Note<\/strong>: The project received funding from different sources (Innovedum, Emil Halter Foundation, ETH Critical Thinking Initiative). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional\nresources and comments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n