Relating to assessment

3. Use peer feedback opportunities

Learning together allows us to develop, share insights, and ourselves feel valued. Peer-interaction can provide rapid constructive collegial feedforward, and hence nurture a meaningful sense of belonging to a supportive group. Structure effective loops in the programme to harness this peer feedforward constructively. Require and assess speedy and constructive peer feedforward (possibly anonymous) in terms of declared criteria, concentrating objectively on strengths and scope for enhancement in draft work. Students who spend more time on a task, particularly with others, are more likely to learn, and in turn more likely to stay. (Tinto, 2006).

Example: Nigel sets up a peer feedback activity. This is part of the summative, and allows students to both give and receive formative feedback. He is aware students may not be familiar with giving feedback, so he identifies developing this skill as one of the learning outcomes of the activity. He asks the students how best he should provide instructions for this, and they ask him to screencast himself giving formative feedback on a piece of work. He hosts the formative feedback activity on a discussion forum so he can also comment on posts, e.g. highlighting good feedback (and why) and gently nudging less clear feedback with questions.