Removing the Fear and Creating Meaningful Participation in Online Peer Review

In the online ENG 081 Basic Writing Skills, students participate in peer review.  However, in my first attempt, I found that students purposely skipped the assignment, even stating that they were skipping because they were "too nervous," or "didn't trust what their classmates would say and just wanted my feedback instead." In Spring 2014, my goal was to increase participation and to help students to have a positive experience. I added two discussion board posts. For essay #1, each student identified 3 strengths for a piece of "real-world writing" posted by a classmate (but NOT written by him/her). For essay #2, each student identified 1 improvement for a piece of "real-world writing." For essay #3, I assigned partners to review one another's brainstorming. This time, the entire class submitted the assignment for peer review (12), all but one student completed a review, nine of the ten reflected positively (see results),and four requested to do more peer review in the future. See additional results and reflection in attachment.