Editorial
The landscape of education and…
by Grace Koh (LT/MTL, Xinmin Secondary) and Kelvin Tan (Policy, Curriculum and Leadership; Learning Sciences and Assessment, NIE)
Introduction
It would be ideal if students could give, receive, and engage on peer feedback for their own learning!
When it works, peer feedback enables quicker provision and dissemination of feedback, reduces reliance on teachers, develops student agency, and includes students as viable pedagogical resources for themselves and their friends. When it doesn’t, peer feedback facilitates hasty erroneous feedback advice, damages student confidence in their own learning, and increases dependency on their teachers.
But the question should not be whether students should be giving and receiving feedback from their peers. In any student conversation where a learning need or gap is discussed, or when advice is proffered, peer feedback happens, regardless of the teacher’s instructional practices. So, what is more helpful would be to identify the instances when peer feedback is effective, and for what purpose(s).
Teachers often express skepticism regarding their students’ readiness for peer feedback, arguing that students are either too young, or lack the subject mastery required to provide quality peer feedback. However, these concerns often arise from two expectations: (1) that students should provide feedback comparable to an expert teacher, and (2) that they should be capable of assessing any given task.
If we instead reframe peer feedback as a learning process where students are gradually taught to apply and demonstrate their understanding of standards, it becomes a viable and powerful strategy for all our students.
In this paper, we suggest three levels of student readiness and responsibility for peer feedback. Each level in turn is discussed for its potential and implications for learning. In table 1 below, these three levels of peer feedback are illustrated.
Figure 1: Different levels of student readiness and responsibility for peer feedback
Figure 2: Building students’ readiness for independent peer assessment across the academic year.
At the start of the academic year, especially for a new class of students, it is recognized that the vast majority of students may not yet have the capacity, nor the orientation, to peer assess. Hence, even foundational or preliminary topics may be considered too complex to be delegated for the most students to peer assess. More scaffolding should therefore be provided at the start of the academic year, and the plan is for students to grow independence so that the majority of students can be entrusted to peer assess independently by the end of the year.
Conclusion
In this paper, three levels of student responsibility for peer assessment are suggested, and these levels indicate three consequent ways students can be supported in learning from assessment – from being reliant on teachers’ expertise, to differentiation for individual pacing and ambition in learning, and finally to exercise self-regulation in their learning from taking on substantive roles in their assessment of and for each other’s.
This calls for a shift in our understanding and reasons designing and enacting peer assessment. A common (helpless) pragmatic reason is that students simply have to peer assess because there is no time for teachers to assess them individually in a timely manner. If this is the only reason for peer assessment, there is a risk that students are asked to assess each other in areas and in ways that they are not prepared for because there is “no choice” or no time”. But this may simply be a symptom of teachers having “no plan” to develop students in assess by and for themselves.
If we remember that only students can learn from themselves, and that only students can perform their own assessment eventually (sit for them own examinations), we can then appreciate peer assessment as an effective strategy for students to become more regulated in their own learning. Peer assessment has tremendous benefits for building students’ capacity for independent learning. Designed and enacted well, it has distinct potential for assessment to be less intimidating, and confusing, for students.