What is PAIRR?
Peer & AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR) is a five-part curricular intervention:
See our Curriculum Resources for more.
The Development of PAIRR
2022–2023
A group of faculty and graduate students in the University Writing program experimented with AI in our courses, curated AI literacy readings, developed AI policies for syllabi, and offered guidance for writing instructors in adapting to AI, working with the Center for Educational Effectiveness at UC Davis.
Our work was enriched by conversations in a Writing, LLMs, and GPT – Research Group that included Sam Davidson, Marit MacArthur, Sophia Minnillo, Kenji Sagae, Lisa Sperber, Nicholas Stillman, and Carl Whithaus and in the graduate seminar UWP 250 Writing Assessment in Fall 2022. Stillman’s final project was “Beautiful, Shallow Tools: Automation in Undergraduate Writing from AES to GPT-3.” Further conversations in June 2023, at the Computers & Writing Conference hosted by UC Davis, also helped the team develop ideas about how to address AI in writing instruction.
2023-2024
The initial PAIRR model was developed by:
Lisa Sperber and Marit MacArthur (Continuing Lecturers in the University Writing Program and then-current and former Writing Across the Curriculum administrators)
Sophia Minnillo and Nicholas Stillman (Ph.D. candidates in Linguistics and English, respectively, pursuing the designated emphasis in WRaCs [Writing, Rhetoric and Composition Studies]), and
Carl Whithaus (Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, UWP Director and Chair of the WRaCS Designated Emphasis).
In Fall 2023, Sperber led MacArthur, Stillman, Minnillo and Whithaus in planning a large pilot study on peer review and criteria-driven AI feedback. The group adapted an AI feedback prompt developed and tested at UC Irvine, developed reflection questions about peer review and AI feedback, recruited instructors of large writing-intensive courses, wrote writing surveys and focus group questions, and received IRB approval. The PAIRR team then ran this large pilot study, with 654 students in 10 distinct courses at UC Davis, in Winter and Spring 2024.
With support from a small Research Initiative Grant from the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum (AWAC), the team analyzed students’ writing and survey data in Spring and Summer 2024. We presented initial findings at the 2024 College Composition and Communication Conference in Spokane, WA.
With the support of a Professional Development Award in Fall 2024, Sperber served as lead writer for our first research article — "Peer and AI Review+ Reflection (PAIRR): A human-centered approach to formative assessment."
2024-2025
The PAIRR team wrote a successful application for an AI Grand Challenge grant from the California Education Learning Lab, led by MacArthur and Whithaus.
Whithaus, MacArthur and Sperber led the expansion and further testing of PAIRR across California, with support from the California Education Learning Lab grant. Hao-Chaun Wang (UC Davis), Meredith Young-Ng (UC Davis), (Emerson Case and Valerie Turner (CSU Bakersfield), Karen Crozer (LA Mission College,) Julie Gamberg (Glendale College), Hogan Hayes (Sacramento State), Rachel Leibrock (American River College), Anna Mills (College of Marin), and Aparna Sinha (Cal Poly Maritime) join the PAIRR project.With support from the NEH-funded Center for AI and Experimental Futures at UC Davis, MacArthur and Ana Castellon, a Ph.D. candidate in Education, pursuing a Designated Emphasis in Writing, Rhetoric, and Composition Studies (DE in WRaCs), test PAIRR in additional writing-intensive courses across the curriculum at UC Davis.
"Peer and AI Review+ Reflection (PAIRR): A human-centered approach to formative assessment" by Sperber, MacArthur, Minnillo, Stillman, and Whithaus, appears in Computers and Composition in June 2025.
2025-2026
"Peer and AI Review+ Reflection (PAIRR): A human-centered approach to formative assessment" is honored with the Computers and Composition Ellen Nold Outstanding Article Award for 2025 at the Computers and Writing Conference 2026 at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo joins the Learning Lab-funded PAIRR project.
The PAIRR model achieves national recognition and widening impact. It is featured in The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching by Annette Vee, Marc Watkins, and Derek Bruff, W.W. Norton, July 2026, Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning (Bowen and Watson, 2025) and Smart Teaching in the Age of AI (Dickensen, 2026), a textbook for teacher education programs.
For more details, please see our list of Webinars, Publications, and Presentations.