As you put grades on that last stack of papers, did you wish students had revised more? That’s the problem Eli Review was designed to solve.
More revision leads to better writing and better writers. Eli helps you stage better revision by scaffolding better peer feedback.
Get around to exploring Eli this summer:
- join one of our online workshops
- meet us at an event
- explore syllabi shared by Eli users
- take a next step
Participate in Online Workshops
The very best way to learn how Eli works is to use it in our free online, asynchronous workshops. Participants spend about three hours in the write-review-revise cycle from Monday-Thursday; on Friday, they get instructor access so that they can see how instructors coordinate review and use learning analytics for just-in-time coaching. We host one workshop per month:
Attend Events
We’ve got a few synchronous events on our summer calendar too. Join us online to talk about research and data visualization, in San Jose for a hands-on workshop led by San Francisco State University instructors, or in Knoxville in the exhibit area at CWPA to browse some of the reports we’ve been working on.
- May 19, 2 PM Eastern (video conference): “Asking Better Questions of Student Engagement”
- June 10 (CCCC@SJSU workshop): “We’re No Longer Wasting Our Time”
- July 20-22 (Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference exhibit, Knoxville, TN): “Learning Analytics for Writing Programs”
Explore Eli Users’ Materials
Examples are great teachers, and these syllabi and tips shared by great Eli teachers are sure to inspire. The links open a Google folder with a document guide that provides a short instructor profile, the course syllabus/calendar, and a screenshot of their Eli Review dashboard.
- Casey McArdle, Michigan State University: FYwriting and Technical Writing (see Casey’s materials)
- JoSann Lien, North Idaho College: hybrid FYwriting (see Jo’s materials)
- John Holland, Martha Rusk, and Joan Wong-Kure, San Francisco State University: FYwriting and SecondYrwriting (see this group’s materials)
- Kendra Flournoy, Western Michigan University: FYwriting (see Kendra’s materials)
- Libby Miles, University of Vermont: FYwriting and Jr/Sr writing (see Libby’s materials)
Most Eli instructors build their courses around a weekly feedback and revision routine. Here’s how Libby explains it:
Our Weekly Rhythm (Tu/Th, Spring 2017): Learning doesn’t just happen during the 75 minutes of each class session. Therefore, this class has deadlines between class sessions that are crucially important. There is a regular, predictable rhythm to it, which you can count on, and load into your calendars now.
- Tuesday before class: complete all readings, as assigned
- Tuesday by midnight: writing task due in Eli Review
- Wednesday by midnight: review your peers in Eli Review
- Thursday before class: complete all readings, as assigned
- Thursday by midnight: rate the reviews you received and complete Revision Plan in Eli Review
- Sunday by midnight: final versions due to BlackBoard, when applicable.
And, everyone struggles with how to grade peer learning. For a year or so, San Francisco State University instructors have been using a rubric that John designed that represents 30% of the final course grade. John’s approach is to offer students 8 points for doing the minimum each week. He looks at the analytics in order to dock points for students who don’t meet the minimum and reward students who go beyond it. With this engagement rubric and Eli’s engagement analytics, John can enter grades in iLearn (his campus LMS) for almost 100 students in about 15 minutes.
I will evaluate your engagement each week on a 10-point scale:
If you complete all parts of the Eli Review Cycle on time, you will receive 8 points.
- Importantly, you will meet the minimum word count specified in each component of the Eli Review Cycle.
- In-text comments – 25 words
- Final comments – 150 words
- Revision plan response to feedback – 25 words
- Revision plan summary notes – 150 words
If you go above and beyond simply completing these assignments, and actively engage in helping peers by using the describe-evaluate-suggest heuristic, you will receive 9 points.
When your classmates give high ratings for the helpfulness of your feedback and when I endorse many of your comments, and your comments have been added to revision plans you can receive 10 points.
You will receive 7 or fewer points if . . .
- your feedback does not include all aspects of the describe-evaluate-suggest heuristic.
- readers cannot understand your otherwise helpful feedback because you write grammatically unclear sentences yourself.
- you write comments that use hurtful language, are aggressive, offensive or just plain rude.
- your own writing is late or your feedback does not arrive in time for it to be helpful to a classmate who needs to write a revision plan.
- you don’t make a daily habit of checking the status of tasks in Eli Review and staying current on your postings, feedback, revision plan and revisions.
Take a Next Step
We’re around all summer, so your next step might be:
- Taking advantage of our free 2-week trial
- Sharing pricing information with your bookstore or department
- Browsing Eli Review’s support materials
- Catching up on our blog
- Subscribing to our newsletter
Setting up a time to talk to [email protected] to plan your course or research
