In a learner-centered environment, students are usually given tasks where they need collaborate with their colleagues. The group will then be evaluated with their output and will be marked a grade for their group. And to be able to reflect individual contribution, I give peer and self-assessment not only to be fair to everyone but also to give them the pleasure to reflect on their performance and how other people could also contribute to their learning process.
Learning and Assessment: Together, from Each Other, from Ourselves
Using Peer-Assessment to be Fair?
I have been handling Research/Capstone subject for Grade 12 STEM students since 2018. It has been a practice even before that the students will have to form a group for the research to minimize the expenses per individual and to make the tasks lighter. Recently, I have reduced the numbers of groups down to three, instead of five, per section because last academic year, I got so much stress in checking 20 research papers in a short span of time.
After giving the class all the lessons (it is more like we are just reviewing since they already had their PR1 and PR2 in the past) and additional inputs and guidelines for them to begin and finish their research, the rest of the days will be dedicated to consultations. Aside from close guidance, as their teacher, my task is to monitor and assess their progress both individually and as a group. Sometimes, I get too confident that they are doing well when in fact they are not. So I have to make up with them by going some extra miles - off class consultations (until midnight), personal referrals for friends in R&D, provision of literary materials, and even mediating students within a group having personal differences.
In the end, all swells have to end well. But of course, some students do not know how to forget. So to be able to be fair with the mark that each of them will be receiving, I have included peer-assessment as part of their final grades even if it costs me with additional task of consolidation and recording. Some groups give their co-members with equal and perfect score (so all of them has almost the same final grades... with a difference of +/-3 due to their individual quarterly exam score) and some students gave nearly zero score to their group mates whom they have personal issue with. Even if the peer-assessment's weight is only about 15%, a very low average score would have substantial effect in their final grades.
At first, I thought that Peer-Assessment would provide me a way to be impartial and to recognize individual efforts in a group task. But after Module 4, I have realized that peer and self assessment could provide more significant benefits than just being fair.
Peer and Self-Assessment Feedback as Assessment FOR Learning
In one of our activity in Creating Hazard Map, I asked my students to criticize the works of their classmates (other groups) - provide feedback that focus on the group's strengths and areas for improvement.
Training our students with peer and self-assessment could provide significant benefits for future learning. It is important that they understand the true purpose of using this kind of assessment so that they could avoid giving biased and empty evaluation about their own performance and that of their peers. Otherwise, it will not be helpful in aiding learning.
One way to check the reliability of the results of self and peer-assessment is to correlate them with the evidences we gathered from other assessments - whether they are consistent or not. We could also ask opinions from other stakeholders such as their other teachers and even their parents, like what Dr. Lorna Earl discussed in her video/webinar in the previous module. It this way, we could be able to somehow establish a calibration system so that the result that we would be getting is accurate or near true values.
Students can learn from their peers and most especially from themselves. And as teachers, we have to set up an environment that could foster genuine collaboration among our learners where they are free to give and accept feedback to and from their peers and could be able to conduct self-reflection with respect to their own learning progression.
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