Peer Review Improvisation

Today, M and I were leading a generic research skills session. Last week was a very hectic one (student led conference and 1001 meetings) and I forgot to look at the timetable before we left because I was pretty sure the session had to be on the Peer Review process. It made sense to me. So, when M asked me what we were supposed to do, I did not hesitate. Of course, I was wrong. The scheduled session was on writing research reports.

So, while we prepared something on a topic, the students had done their homework for another one. We assessed the situation: the text on Peer Review was about 10 pages long whereas the one on findings was much longer. I took the decision of giving a thorough summary on the text if we chose to go with the Peer Review session, which is what we decided.

I thought it went extremely well, because Peer review is a very interesting session. Also, I participated more than what I normally do in this mentoring sessions, as I am quite normally engaged in learning both about content and about delivery. Even though we finished earlier than scheduled (it wasn't fair to do some of the tasks if the students hadn't read the text) I though the improvisation went well and that there were some moments we could not have achieved if we had planned better. The topic, the mixture of the academic (text) with the anecdotal (Sokal) and the fact that this is something students need to know about but won't necessarily face as part of their projects (external validation) contributed to its success.

Also, M asked me, during the weekend, to think of a particular angle I would like to bring to the session (this was the first time this happened). And I did. I thought about it and prepared it rather than sit back and learn. I enjoyed it more too, which leads me to believe that teaching on the training programme next year will be a joy.