Using Peer Assessment to Foster Deep Learning

“Freshmen have never arrived at college with impressive writing skills…when it comes to implementing the writing requirement, few institutions have managed to do what is necessary to achieve success.”

Derek Bok, president emeritus, HarvardOur Underachieving Colleges, 2006

The problem

“Repeatedly, students [report] that reading alone or listening to lectures did not engage them deeply enough for them to remember facts and ideas nor to analyze them. Only through writing, perhaps through the condensation and analysis of classroom notes or through the writing of drafts of papers that required them to integrate theory with evidence, did they achieve the insights that moved them to complex reasoning…”

In a study entitled Time to Know Them: A Longitudinal Study of Writing and Learning at the College Level, 1997, Marilyn Sternglass found:

“By and large, progress seemed to depend most of all on how much writing students did, how much specific feedback they received, whether they wrote about something that they knew a lot about,” and whether their instructors let them bring their own intellectual interests into their compositions.

More than 80% of the students in the study “agreed that giving more feedback was the most effective way to help students become better writers.”

In one study focused on the writings of 400 Harvard undergraduates, Nancy Sommers found:

Without having to do more work ourselves!

What we need is a way for students to get a significant amount of feedback

students develop important intellectual skills and become increasingly more disciplined as thinkers.

When we use peer assessment effectively,

How to Improve Student Learning Guide

P. 6Idea#2

Teaching Student How To Assess Their Reading

How to Improve Student Learning Guide

P. 8Idea #4

Teaching Students How to Assess Their Speaking

How to Improve Student Learning Guide

P. 9Idea #5

Teaching Students How to Assess Their Listening

PART ONE – Critical Reading:Working in pairs.Using the Concepts and Tools mini-guide

Critically read the explanation of Intellectual Humility on p. 14.

Combining Critical Reading, Critical Writing and Peer Assessment

1. State the meaning of the idea in a sentence or two. (Clearly and succinctly state the most basic meaning or use).2. Elaborate on the concept in your own words. (In a paragraph or more, unpack the idea, giving it sufficient

detail for the context.)3. Exemplify the concept by giving concrete examples of it.(Use examples from everyday life.)4. Illustrate the concept with a picture, diagram, metaphor,

or analogy. (Enabling the reader to better understand the idea by

connecting it to something she or he finds intuitive.)

Intellectual Humility is…In other words…For example…To illustrate…

PART TWO – Critical Writing

Working in groups of threeTake turns reading your papers aloud

slowly and giving one another feedback on your papers.

Using intellectual standards in assessing the paper.

Focus primarily on clarity and accuracy.(refer to p. 9 in the Analytic Thinking

guide)

PART THREE – Peer Assessment

Choose the best paper in your group, again using the intellectual standards to determine which is best.

When finished, join with another group, the two papers are read aloud and feedback given as before, and the best of those two papers is read aloud.

Finally, the best 4-5 papers are read aloud to the entire “class” and feedback is given from the class and instructor.

PART FOUR – taking peer assessment to a higher level

1. State the meaning of the idea in a sentence or two. (Clearly and succinctly state the most basic meaning or use).2. Elaborate on the concept in your own words. (In a paragraph or more, unpack the idea, giving it sufficient detail

for the context.)3. Exemplify the concept by giving concrete examples of it.(Use examples from everyday life.)4. Illustrate the concept with a picture, diagram, metaphor, or

analogy. (Enabling the reader to better understand the idea by connecting it

to something she or he finds intuitive)

Use the format on p. 46 of the Aspiring Thinker’s Guide. For #4, use this variation:

Critical thinking is connected to the following ideas within my subject…

Write out your understanding of critical thinking, using the SEEI format

Working in groups of threeTake turns reading your papers aloud

slowly and giving one another feedback on your papers.

Use intellectual standards in assessing papers.

Focus primarily on clarity and accuracy.(refer to p. 9 in the Analytic Thinking

guide)

Assess one another’s papers using the same peer assessment format

p. 36 – How to Write a Paragraph guide.

Using this format, writing out the essence of a key concept in your subject, discipline or profession.

Read through one of the examples on pp. 36-39 before beginning.

Then you will work together to give feedback on your papers.

Exploring Key Ideas Within a Subject or Discipline

P. 63, Critical Thinking Reading and Writing Test.

Using this template, write out the logic of The Art of Loving (text on p. 26).

Then give feedback on your papers using intellectual standards.

The logic of an article, essay, chapter