Round3 Unlocks the Learning Potential of Peer Review

Teachers have long known that asking students to review each other’s work is an effective approach that leads to enhanced student learning. To be effective, reviewers must be well prepared, and good reviews often improve the final product.

In practice, however, peer review has its problems. Students may be reluctant to openly critique a classmate’s work in front of the whole class, and verbal reviews are easily forgotten. And, for large classes, the time required for effective peer review often makes it impractical to accomplish during class.

That’s why Indiana University doctoral candidates Tiffany Roman and Matthew Callison—both experts in educational technology—have introduced an online solution they call Round3.

Round3 is an online platform that organizes and records all stages in the peer review process. Students review and comment on their peers’ work online, enabling teachers to follow a student’s progress from start to finish. Roman got the idea while teaching undergraduates at IU, even developing her own solution using Google Sheets. The results were very promising, so she and Callison decided to expand the idea to fit any class, any subject, and any number of students.

That’s where Ventures came in.

In a little more than two months, Ventures created a peer review software platform that can suit any classroom, anywhere, Callison says. The software leaves teachers with complete oversight while allowing them to closely monitor peer-to-peer interaction.

“With Round3, you can actually see the growth happening from where a student began a project to where they finished,” Roman says. Because it all happens online, “class time can be spent working on other things.”

Round3, formerly known as Critique, has won two entrepreneurial startup competitions, was featured on Inside Indiana Business, and served paying customers including IU’s Kelley School of Business. Currently more than 30 schools are interested in piloting Round3.