Week 5 - Peer Feedback Reflection

Peer assessment and feedback is essential in the design cycle. Despite the positive reports on the impact of peer grading on students’ learning, many researchers have argued that evaluative feedback is more important than assigning grades (Ellman 1975; Liu and Carless 2006) and that peer feedback is more effective than grading in peer assessment. It is evident that researchers have discovered that peer feedback enhances learning by enabling learners to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and by receiving concrete ideas on how to improve their work (Crooks 1988; Rowntree 1987; Xiao and Lucking 2008). This study examined whether the involvement of students in online peer assessment predicted their performance on LS projects. The online peer assessment was found to significantly affect the quality of students’ project learning outcomes, because it provided opportunities to evaluate the work of others.

This study expands our understanding of the relationship between peer assessment and learning performance. It proposes a possible explanation for the benefits of online peer assessment on student learning performance. Thoughtful feedback on specific problems and suggestions are strong predictors of how assessors perform on their final project. Positive affective feedback predicts a higher performance from students which then reflects in their assessment. It is crucial for teachers to be sensitive to the fact that peer assessment works differently for assessors and assessees. Teachers should ask students to be specific in their feedback, particularly with regard to the problems in the students work, and to provide suggestions. Students should be encouraged to give thoughtful and meaningful comments rather than simply assign grades to peers. Students should be encouraged to exchange affective comments that give socio-emotional support to peers and recognize peers’ achievement. The results to this reading suggest that positive affective comments are not just about making other people feel good. They can help boost the motivation, interest, and self-efficacy of the students, which in turn can enhance their performance therefore enhancing the effects of feedback on the students assessment.

References - Lu and Law (2012), Online peer assessment: Effects of cognitive and affective feedback. Instructional Science 40(2), 257-275

Peer assessment and feedback is a very important component to use in a classroom environment. Since this design project assessment piece contributed with evaluating your peers design project, this allowed peer assessment by sharing my ideas and receiving feedback from my partner Stephanie Pole through our group wiki space. After sharing my idea of my design project and allowing her to read it in detail, it enabled me to think of new ideas and see what needs to be improved in order to create the most effective design project that would be able to be accomplished in a primary classroom within the 21st century.  Therefore, Stephanie’s feedback allowed me to reassess my original design project and see where I could make it better. This allowed me to think of my own pedagogy that I would do in my own classroom. I enjoy contributing Arts and Crafts with students as I feel like by using kinaesthetic learning in a classroom allows students to engage and recognise the importance of the activity. My design project also portrays details to the subject of Health and Physical Education as the whole topic is revolved around recycling. As a pre-service teacher, I would like to complete this activity with my students in the future as I think it is an effective way to build awareness of the importance of re-using and recycling to make the future a better place for the students. The Wikispace, has been an useful tool as you are able to upload files and discuss components of your design project with your fellow group members such as the risk assessment, design specification, Australian curriculum and the needs analysis. I felt as though the feedback that my partner Stephanie gave to me assisted me in making the final decisions around my design project. One thing I disliked about the Wikispace was at first it was rather confusing to use as when you post a file, it does not go in order of the date you posted it. Although, I would recommend using the Wikispace website as it is an effective way to collaborate with a group allowing everyone to share their suggestions and opinions. In summary, peer feedback is an essential component to any design project as your peers can help and encourage new ideas that you may not have considered.