Peer and self assessment

Steph Holt – @sholt12 (Science teacher and Learning Leader) led the 15 minute forum tonight peer and self assessment.

If self and peer assessment are to be successful, we need to ensure the following:

• Students need to be trained over time to assess their own work and the work of others, and develop an appropriate language.
• They must be able to assess their own work first of all, before assessing the work of others
• Plan time and regular opportunities for students to reflect on their learning progress.  Ensure that this is ongoing and at strategic points in the lesson.  This can be with individual students, small group feedback or the whole class.
• Support students to identify the next steps that will support students to work towards their goals.  The learning journey poster can help with this:

• Ensure that learning objectives are clear and outcomes are sharply focused and shared with students – so they have a reference point to assess their progress.  They also need to be phrased in a way that students will understand.
• Model the language of effective oral feedback, so students are then able to give feedback on the work of their peers.  So for example, tell students that their feedback must be kind, specific and useful.
• Establish a supportive atmosphere where students feel safe to give and receive feedback from their peers.
• Reinforce the value and importance of student feedback.
• Plan in time for students to respond to the feedback from their peers.

Strategies that support self assessment

• Give students a checklist of points/ key words that they should have included in their work.  they can then use this to set improvement targets.
• Encourage students to interact with mark schemes.  Discuss in pairs what the marks scheme is looking for and how it applies to their piece of work?  can they identify how and why they missed marks?
• Give students a copy of the specification or topic list at the start of the unit of work and get them to self assess as they go through (Red, amber green).
• Use a learning diary…..or write a learning blog.
• Assess their understanding of the learning objectives at the beginning and end of the lesson by plotting on a ‘progress arrow’:

The important thing with this is that they must be prepared to ‘prove’ their understanding, by answering questions, sharing their work etc.

• Use some kind of exit ticket to identify new learning and the hard learning from the lesson – what they struggled with.  This is a good way of focsusing Y11 on what they need to focus their revision on.

• Triangle of learning

This has been used successfully at the end of lessons, to encourage students to reflect on their learning and consider their next steps.  In the best examples, teachers use it to plan the next lesson – students who felt they had grasped a particular idea well (from what they had put on the triangle) were paired up with students who had a question about that topic.  A great opportunity to develop peer learning.

Strategies to support peer assessment

• Carousel activities – Set a flipped learning task, but different groups each learn a different topic and become ‘experts’ on that topic.  They then have to teach each other their topic and set a question.  They then assess the question and set an improvement target for each student.
• Best composite answer – Different groups work on an answer to the same question.  they then each assess each others work and then pick the best features of each one, to come up with a best composite answer.
• Students write their own exam questions and mark schemes.  Other students answer them and the ‘setter’ then marks and gives feedback.
• 2 stars and a wish – A good way to structure peer feedback “2 things I liked about the work……to improve you need to…….”
• Students assess a group presentation – again, making sure they are kind, specific and useful

Contributions from twitter #15mf

• @Ladybir21909208 – Discussing and agreeing on Success Criteria with ch so they can use the same and assess themselves.
• @MarkJWarner1 – always ask students to ask questions of each other’s work. Students get used to explaining and justifying. Must answer Qs too.
• @atharby – Paired written task, followed by paired peer assessment. No pressure, lots of differentiation opportunities
• @michaelt1979 – Don’t always leave it till the product is finished. Sometimes peer-assess ideas before even starting to write, for example