PEER & SELF

ASSESSMENT

Kailee Brennan & Cecilia Rands

“WHEN USING A CORRECT ASSESSMENT SYSTEM, STUDENTS

PERCEIVE ASSESSMENT AS A MOTIVATING AND PRODUCTIVE

PART OF THEIR EDUCATION BECAUSE THIS PROCEDURE

INFORMS THEM IF THEY ARE GOOD AT LEARNING AND ARE ABLE TO

ACHIEVE PROPOSED GOALS”

(MARTIN ET AL., 2002, AND MUNNS, G. AND WOODWARD, 2006, QUOTED IN AMO AND JARENO 2011).

HAVE YOU HAD EXPERIENCES WITH PEER AND SELF

ASSESSMENT? THINK OF ONE, AND EXPLAIN.

DID YOU FIND THE OPPORTUNITIES TO PEER AND

SELF ASSESS VALUABLE OR NOT?

WITH YOUR PARTNER, CREATE A LIST OF PROS

AND CONS FOR PEER ASSESSMENT.

PROS OF PEER ASSESSMENT:

encourages students to be independent - the teacher’s opinion isn’t the only one that counts

teacher perspective - reduces workload! this can benefit students also, if more authentic tasks can be assigned since the teacher has less work to do to assess

more feedback for the students to improve from

some research shows peers’ assessments correlate quite closely with teachers’ and are therefore quite useful

CONS OF PEER ASSESSMENT:

some studies have found that peer-assessment does not reinforce learning in the same way self-assessment does or can (Sadler and Good, 2006)

peers may try to give their friends “good” grades rather than “accurate” grades; this may be avoided by removing names from assignment sheets

WITH YOUR PARTNER, CREATE A LIST OF PROS

AND CONS FOR SELF ASSESSMENT.

PROS OF SELF ASSESSMENT:

just as peer-assessment does, it can reduce the workload of the teacher (or make the assessing that the teacher does more meaningful and worthwhile, since the student has already had the chance to adjust or perfect their own work)meta-cognitive - make students think about their thinking

correlations between students’ and teachers’ mark can range from .60 to .80, “certainly high enough to justify self-grading” (Dynesson and Gross, 391) (cited in “Assessment and Evaluation” handout)

CONS OF SELF ASSESSMENT:

at least in first attempts, students may not be very good at judging their own work; some students will try to give themselves very high marks, hoping that these will be taken into consideration by the teacher (Amo and Jareno 2011)

students may not feel they are an authentic part of the assessment process, but rather that this is just another obligation from the teacher (Amo and Jareno 2011)

THINGS TO REMEMBER... peer and self assessment go very much

hand in hand; whether or not you use them simultaneously in the classroom, much of the pros and cons are similar, many of the reasons to use them are similar, and so on

the emphasis should be on “student growth and self-understanding, rather than on arriving at a final grade” (“Assessment and Evaluation” handout)

THINGS TO REMEMBER...

Good questions to begin with:what aspect of your work was most

effective?what aspect of your work was least

effective?what specific action or actions will improve

your performance?what will you do differently next time?

(McTighe and O’Connor 2005)

THINGS TO REMEMBER...

moving students from worrying only about a final grade to thinking about how they are doing overall and what they can do to improve (McTighe and O’Connor 2005)

students’ abilities to both peer and self assess will improve with time, so don’t give up! Your efforts are worthwhile!

WHAT IS ONE NEW THING YOU LEARNED TODAY, OR ALTERNATELY, ONE THING THAT WAS REAFFIRMED IN

YOUR PREVIOUS THINKING?