Technology Seminar Self and Peer Assessment

Archway of teaching and learning capabilities

Engaging our prior knowledge In small groups brainstorm: What is your understanding of self and peer assessment? What are the benefits of self and peer assessment? How have you used self and peer assessment in your classroom?

Student self and peer assessment All our young people should be educated in ways that develop their capability to assess their own learning. Students who have developed their assessment capabilities are able and motivated to access, interpret, and use information from quality assessments in ways that affirm or further their learning. Directions for Assessment in New Zealand (2009) Absolum, Flockton, Hattie, Hipkins, Reid

Learning oriented students are described as: owning their learning learning resources for one another assessors of their own and peers’ work being able to assess their own understanding and make improvements Dylan Wiliam, 2008

Self and peer assessment is Activating students as owners of their own learning. Activating students as teaching resources for one another. (Wiliam, D.)

Self and peer assessment enables students to ask and answer the question: “How is my/our learning going?”

Andrade H. and Valtcheva, A. (2008) Self-assessment is a process of formative assessment during which students reflect on the quality of their work, judge the degree to which it reflects explicitly stated goals or criteria, and revise accordingly. Self-assessment is done on drafts of works in progress in order to inform revision and improvement.

What’s in it for students and teachers? Students are able to assess their own and others’ progress with confidence rather than always relying on teacher judgement. Students become more independent and motivated. Students are actively involved in the learning process.

Self and peer assessment must always be against clearly established criteria Students need to know what good work should look like, and have clear and specific success criteria against which they can assess their work. The test of good criteria is whether students can use them for effective self assessment. If they can’t, they need to be reworked.

Look at these success criteria My plan is structured well. What does ‘structured well’ involve? I have asked effective questions in my survey. What are the criteria for ‘effective questions’? I have ten questions in my survey. But are they effective questions? What about quality?

How about these success criteria… My plan explains my steps in order. I have asked questions in my survey that give me the information I need. My survey gave me differing points of view.

Self (and peer) assessment skills need to be taught, modelled and scaffolded. “I assess against SC and identify my successes” “I identify criteria I didn’t meet. My teachers suggests way to improve” “I identify what to improve” “I make the improvements independently” Self and Peer Assessment

It’s not about right and wrong, but rather learning and improvement. This may be an essential shift for some students.

It is especially important to teach peer assessment skills Set negotiated ground rules for assessing peers’ work; for example, discussion relates only to success criteria. What other ground rules might be needed? Consider carefully peer assessment partners or groups. These will change according to circumstances. Give students opportunity for self assessment before peer assessment, so that they’re familiar with the process.

Students need to be given strategies for when they haven’t met criteria Some examples are: Retrace your steps in the process. Check with a buddy. Look at the exemplar again. Find more information.

Some issues for discussion How to avoid students giving evaluative judgements, or seeing it as ‘marking’. Over-confident students tend to over-estimate their achievement, and vice versa. The need to be wary of the comparison effect between students

How can we teach our learners to self and peer assess? Self and Peer Assessment Storm and sort… Group of 4 Write you own ideas in your section Share Write shared ideas in centre

Key Messages When first introducing self and peer assessment, ensure you plan opportunities where students can develop these skills. Self and peer assessment can and should take place at any stage of the learning process It needs to become a routine part of what students do during their learning and after their learning

Some quick on the spot ways of self and peer assessment Thumbs Traffic lights Smiley faces Buddy sharing Highlighting/circling/colour coding Pink for tickled pink, green for grow Is it too easy, too hard or just right?

I’m feeling really good about my learning! I can do it! I need a little bit of help with my learning! I’m getting there! I’m finding this learning tricky! I’m Stuck!

In the margin beside the student’s work The ladder of learning or the ladder of success Students draw a ladder in the margin Number of rungs refer to number of SC Students check their work against the SC. On the rung students place a if they have evidence of the SC If they have some evidence of the SC If they have no evidence Students then go back and make improvements Students can change their assessment