“Peer assessment is an active learning approach that requires learners to engage in acts of evaluation with reference to criteria and standards” Jisc, 2010, p.13
Before thinking about which technology you want to use to support peer assessment it is important to consider:
- Whether the assessment will count towards the student’s grade and how this will be calculated.
- Preparing students for the peer-assessment process providing advice on how to give and receive feedback.
- Discussing or negotiating the assessment criteria for the work to build student confidence in judging skills, knowledge and understanding of others.
- Providing an opportunity for students to practice their skills, perhaps on an anonymous piece of work from the previous year, can help them to feel more comfortable with the process and the technologies being used.
Why would I use technology to aid peer assessment?
- Easy for students to view each other’s work
- Can view a variety of work examples (e.g. videos, images, websites, presentations)
- Students may be more honest with their feedback as not face-to-face
- Can make feedback anonymous so students do not know who it is from
- Can easily combine with self-assessment of own work
- Reusable templates for the collection of criteria
- Some tools help you to calculate the assessment score associated with the peer review
How do I use technology to do this?
The technology you choose will depend upon the type of work being assessed, whether the assessment is based on a set of criteria or feedback comments, and if the feedback needs to be confidential. Some tools will allow you to collect anonymous feedback from students (Discussion Board) whilst in others it would be possible for students to find out who the comment is from (Course Resources Wiki). Other tools help you to manage peer assessment for group work collecting student ratings of other student’s contributions (PeerMark) and calculating how this contributes to their overall grade. You may need to use more than one tool, with one displaying the student work (e.g. SlideShare, Media Gallery, YouTube) and another collecting the peer assessment and feedback (Discussion Board).
PeerMark – This tool works within Turnitin which allows students work to be submitted and then allocated to other students to peer review. This process is anonymous and can work alongside the GradeMark tools such as general comments or a rubric.
Course Resources Wiki – students are able to view each others wikis and provide each other with feedback around the assessment criteria provided for the assessment. This option would not be anonymous.
ePortfolio – An eportfolio can enable students to put together a number of pieces or work in one place allowing other students to view this portfolio and provide feedback against the assessment criteria.
Course Resources Discussion – Students can post their work to the discussion board for their peers to view and provide feedback on. This option would not be anonymous.
References
JISC. (2010) Effective Assessment in a Digital Age: A guide to technology-enhanced assessment and feedback [online], Bristol, HEFCE. (accessed 26 March 2015).