Peer-assessment in online environments
Why encourage students to engage in peer-assessment?
Even though peer-assessment can take place informally, it is not common. Instead, the teacher is responsible for creating opportunities for students to engage in peer-assessment activities.
It is strongly advisable for teachers to plan peer-assessment activities frequently, because it has benefits for all students; and not only for the assessed (those who receive the feedback), but especially for the assessors (those who provide the feedback).
- Students engage critically with assessment criteria when they apply them to someone else’s work, so they understand them to a deeper level
- Students see how someone equal to them undertook the same task, so they get other referents; they can apply what they have learnt to improving their own work
- Students take responsibility for the assessment of their peers, so they feel deeply connected to the assessment process; assessment is no longer inaccessible and exclusive to teachers
- Students improve their metacognitive thinking, critical thinking skills and learn to be objective with their peers, but still empathetic when they elaborate their feedback comments; they learn the true meaning of constructive criticism
- Students discover ways to overcome their obstacles and address deficiencies in ways that work best for them, instead of through prescribed interventions provided by a teacher
- Students understand feedback better when it comes from their peers, because the language they use is similar, and quite different from their teacher’s
- All students, regardless of their learning levels and rhythms, are empowered in the group, because each one of them has the potentiality to provide helpful feedback
In an online learning context, where students don’t have the opportunity to spend time together and thus develop their social relationships, planning peer-assessment activities can be an opportunity to work on the bonds among the class group. Nevertheless, if students don’t know each other, the teacher should plan previous bonding activities.
Before you start... set the right conditions for a peer-assessment activity
Even though peer-assessment activities can have great benefits for student learning, these will only apply if it’s done right. Giving and receiving feedback is a demanding process, so students will need the required scaffolding from the teacher, which will be more or less guided depending on their level of feedback literacy.
On top of that, it’s crucial that students truly understand what peer-assessment means, how it works, and how it benefits them. Therefore, teachers must set the right class conditions for a successful peer-assessment activity.
With that purpose, teachers may consider the following guidelines:
How to do peer-assessment in online learning
You can use the peer-assessment activity option that some LMSs offer. For instance, Moodle users can use the Workshop activity. This feature allows for the collection, review, and peer-assessment of student's work. Students can submit files or type directly into Moodle using the text editor. Students can be given the opportunity to assess one or more of their peers, and the teacher can decide whether it is anonymous or public. Feedback is given according to the assessment criteria set by the teacher. Students obtain two grades in the Workshop Activity: one for their submission, and the other is for the quality of their peer assessment skills. All grades can be recorded into each student’s gradebook.
If you would rather have your students give feedback in a more interactive way, you can ask them to give oral feedback through a videoconferencing tool, such as Google Meet, Skype, or Zoom. This is a good option for the assessment of tasks that require performing in interaction with the rest of the class. For instance, if students do an oral presentation in front of their classmates, you can encourage them to give peer feedback orally. Make sure the assessment criteria are clearly stated before starting the presentations, and revisit them before pupils assess each other.
One example is Peergrade. Peergrade is an online platform to allow teachers and students to do peer feedback sessions, either within the class or as homework. Learners hand in the work in the assignment created by the teacher. Then, they get allocated someone else’s work to give feedback to, using a rubric with the assessment criteria created by the teacher. In this case, all students get to be assessors and assessed. For each task, students have 3 steps to follow:
- upload the hand-in, which can be a link or a file
- give feedback, and
- receive feedback.
When students give feedback, their classmate can appear as anonymous, so they do not know whose work they are assessing. This contributes to objectivity and fairness in assessment. When the give feedback phase of the task is open, students can download their peer’s work to their device, and then give feedback accordingly within the Peergrade platform. The teacher can choose what type of feedback students will give: assessment criteria can be presented as yes/no questions, multiple choice questions, or open text box questions.
When students receive feedback, their assessor is also anonymous. As they are reading the comments, they can react to them: they can mark a piece of feedback as helpful, and they can also flag a piece feedback if they disagree with it. If a student flags a comment, they can explain why they think it’s wrong or unfair, which will notify the teacher and they can intervene as a moderator. Once the student has gone through all their feedback, they can add a feedback reaction, including how useful they found it and how they think the feedback could be improved, in terms of constructivity, specificity, kindness, justification and relevance. The platform Peergrade gives the space to do online peer-assessment activities but, what’s more, its features support feedback uptake and the development of feedback literacy.
Reflection activity:
Which of the options do you think might be the most suitable for you? Choose one of them and explore the tool.
- What functionalities do you like?
- Is there any activity that you can think of where your students could assess each other? Which one?