Self and peer assessment Anfal Ahmed Student self

Self and peer assessment Anfal Ahmed

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

You can use this presentation to: • update, review and/or reflect on the self and peer assessment practices in your classrooms and school • explore professional development in developing self and peer assessment skills in your students. In the presentation you can: • clarify the purpose and value of student self and peer assessment • identify strategies that teachers can use to enable self and peer assessment

Dylan Wiliam (2008) 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

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 essay is structured well. What does ‘structured well’ involve? I have asked effective questions in my research project. What are the criteria for ‘effective questions’? I have ten adjectives in my essay. But are they effective adjectives? What about quality? Teachers and students need to carefully examine success criteria for applicability and usability.

Self and peer assessment skills need to be taught, modelled and scaffolded. It’s not about right and wrong, but rather learning and improvement. This may be an essential shift for some students. What sort of classroom culture do teachers and students need to facilitate this shift?

A suggested process to start self or peer assessment 1. Students assess against criteria and identify successes. 2. Students identify success and where criteria have not been met. Teacher may suggest ways to improve. 3. Students identify success and a place for improvement, and make the improvement independently.

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. Read it out loud. Find more information. Use a dictionary.

How to organise Peer Assessment Topping (2008) Planning is essential to ensure successful peer assessment Collaborate with peers when developing the initiative Consult the students – seek their advice and approval of the scheme Discuss the process with students; clarify the purpose, rationale and expectations Involve the participants in developing assessment criteria Generally aim for same-ability peer matching Provide training, examples and practice – show them how to do it Give feedback and coaching Examine the quality Further reading pp 25 -26

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.

Some quick and easy strategies for self and peer assessment Highlighting/circling/colour coding ‘Two stars and a wish’ So far? Self assessment on a continuum Thumbs up/thumbs down Traffic lights/smiley faces

Back to AFL Tools Traffic Lights Use traffic lights as a visual means of showing understanding. e. g. Students have red, amber and green cards which they show on their desks or in the air. (red = don’t understand, green = totally get it etc. ) Students self-assess using traffic lights. The teacher could then record these visually in their mark book. Peer assess presentations or portfolio pieces with traffic lights

Back to AFL Tools Smiley Faces Students draw smiley faces to indicate how comfortable they are with the topic. Ready to move on Understand some parts but not all Do not understand need to look at it again

And more… • 3, 2, 1 at the end of a lesson 3 things I’ve learnt 2 questions I’ve got 1 insight I’ve had • Student presents his/her work and ways of thinking about it at board • Mini whiteboards for student evaluation, singly, in pairs or groups

More formal strategies • End of lesson check sheets • End of unit written assessments • Learning diaries • ‘I can do’ sheets

Back to AFL Tools Peer Marking Students mark each others’ work according to assessment criteria. Encourages reflection and thought about the learning as well as allowing students to see model work and reason past misconceptions. Opportunities to do this throughout individual lessons and schemes of work.

Back to AFL Tools Muddiest Point Students write down one or two points on which they are least clear. This could be from the previous lesson, the rest of the unit, the preceding activity etc. The teacher and class can then seek to remedy the muddiness.

References and readings Absolum, M. (2006). Clarity in the classroom. Auckland: Hodder Education. pp 98 -117. Andrade H. and Valtcheva, A. (2009). Promoting Learning and Achievement through Self Assessment, Theory into Practice, Vol 48 pp 12 -19. Topping, K. J. (2009), Peer Assessment, Theory into Practice, Vol 48 pp 20 -27. Wiliam, D. When is assessment learning-oriented? 4 th Biennial EARLI/Northumbria Assessment Conference, Potsdam, Germany, August 2008. www. dylanwiliam. net