Peer review: The rationale

• Communication skills are important.
• Doing a careful and thorough job is important.
• Studying others' work provides a valuable new perspective. You never really understand something until you teach it.
• Group discussion and joint effort are valuable.
• The process systematizes the group study and mutual help that students have always voluntarily engaged in and benefited from, and it puts all students on a level playing field in that regard.
• This process is like real life (technical employment in a large organization). Traditional homework is not.
• Spreading out your attention to a topic's homework over 2 weeks has pedagogical value ("sink-in time").
• The reports give the instructor early warning of trouble areas that should be addressed in class.
• The solutions manuals produced are useful in later semesters.
• You will finally learn the Greek alphabet. :-)

See also Internet Awareness Week and TeX Users Group talks.

Last updated Sun 9 Jan 00