One of the most important tasks for teachers is to educate critically thinking students. In order to do that, teachers need to engage students with the study material, encourage them to ask questions and argue for their opinions. It is also necessary to provide students with the valuable feedback they need to keep on growing and learning.
At Peergrade, we want to help teachers improve student learning and competencies by offering them all-in-one peer assessment software. Peergrade challenges the traditional view of teachers being the sole feedback givers by letting students partake in giving feedback to each other. Working with the same study material, students are able to offer each other great feedback when given clear guidelines, both by taking steps to ensure validity as well as creating clear and straightforward rubrics.
There are a number of advantages that using peer assessment offers to your students, read on to learn more about them.
More feedback
Peergrade guarantees that students get more feedback by ensuring that each hand-in gets feedback from several students. We recommend that each student evaluates at least three assignments, this helps ensure both quality and quantity. Teachers who have used Peergrade have pointed out that students can be as good as teachers in recognising strong assignments.
“The students are as good as me in picking the best texts from their fellow students”
- Mads Bunch, Associate Professor at University of Copenhagen
Learning from other perspectives
When students use Peergrade they can learn from other possible solutions. They are not only learning from viewing the hand-in from their peers point of view, but students also start to understand the material from a teacher’s point of view.
“I believe that university is for learning, not getting grades. By evaluating hand-ins of other students you get to see their solutions, learn from what they did and discover multiple ways of solving the exercises”
- Thomas Pedersen, Student at Technical University of Denmark
Self-reflection
As students evaluate the work of their peers they also need to self-reflect on their own work. Noticing strengths in their peers’ work can alert students to where their own assignment has weaknesses. In the Peergrade platform, students can self-assess after completing the peer evaluations, this way students can immediately write down the reflections they have made during the peer evaluation process.
Improving academic performance
Learning occurs through social interaction, and students participating in peer evaluations have shown to be better in memorizing the study material and acquiring new knowledge. In order to be able to formalize their feedback to peers, students need to be able to understand and reflect on the study material.
Motivating students
Guaranteeing feedback and engaging students as feedback-givers makes learning more personal. This in turn increases student motivation with the subject, but subsequently will also decrease the number of students skipping classes or dropping out.
“Students are more involved in the classroom, and they have a better understanding of the course setup, rather than being detached from the study.”
- Morten Nyboe Tabor, University of Copenhagen
Takeaway
Learning is not only about acquiring knowledge, but also about developing competences. Using peer feedback and Peergrade offers a way to engage students with the study material, encourages critical thinking and provides them with much needed feedback.
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