In Josh Duke's experience, students show considerably more enthusiasm for solving a real-life environmental problem than they do for writing a 30-page research paper.

That's true, according to the assistant professor of food and resource economics, even when the end product is the same. In Duke's problem-based "Topics in Environmental Law" class, for example, students still end up writing about 30 pages in which they explore and analyze an actual conflict involving environmental law.

By breaking the traditional research paper into six segments that are due at various intervals during the class, Duke says he makes sure students stay focused and keep up with the work throughout the semester. And, by making use of web-based technology, he has devised a system that uses peer review and peer pressure to further enhance his students' research and writing skills, he says.

"I have them post each of the six parts of the paper on the web site, and other students review it and make comments," Duke says. "This uses peer pressure to encourage them to do a good job, and they find it more interesting to work on the web. Also, the six separate assignments make it seem less like a paper and more like solving a problem."

The project began in 1999, when Duke says he "proposed a technological solution to move some of the work out of the classroom and into a web-based interface that offers novel communication possibilities."

With a grant from UD's Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education and assistance from Jeffrey Whisler of the PRESENT staff, Duke spent two summers working through an assortment of technical problems to create a secure, private interface on which his students could post work for their classmates to review and critique.

The class begins each semester by dividing into teams of about four members each, who choose an environmental conflict to investigate. During the course of the semester, each student researches and writes about six aspects of the issue, including the background of how the conflict developed, possible solutions that were tried but failed to resolve the conflict and its eventual outcome. As students post each segment of their work, their team members read it and offer written comments. The final grades are based on the students' writing, including how well they incorporated their peers' suggested improvements, and on the quality of the reviews they offered their teammates.

"The web-based interface allows student peer review activities to be completed, submitted and reviewed outside of class, which moves learning outside of the classroom and increases the efficiency of class time," Duke writes in a summary of the project.

He says the key to the success of this teaching method is its combination of problem-based learning with technology-based peer review. Students work hard but say they enjoy the format of the class, Duke says, adding that the class always produces some finalists in the University's annual legal writing competition.

"The students do very well each year in the competition, and I think it's due, in no small part, to the way they learn in this course," he says.