Peer assessment is evaluating a classmate’s discussion or written assignment and

providing honest constructive feedback that will help them to know if they have met the writing

prompt and criteria. At UoPeople the use of peer assessment is to create a collaborative learning

environment that introduces students to diversity and allows students to get to know each other

“culturally, personally, and as thinkers” (University of the People, 2018). Peer assessment will

be mostly used for our discussions and written assignments weekly which will provide practice.

There are many benefits of peer assessment such as students being more involved and

taking responsibility of their learning. It motivates students to take interest in learning in order to

provide help when it comes to evaluating another classmate’s work. Having the author be

anonymous allows students to provide honest and fair feedback on the work itself rather than be

biased for the author which in return allows student to assess themselves (Rosa & Coutinho &

Flores, 2016).

Although peer assessment is a great “cognitive tool” (Rosa & Coutinho & Flores, 2016),

it might be a bit intimidating and challenging for student to evaluate and rate their peers work.

Due to the lack of practice the student might feel overwhelmed and have a sense of not being an

adequate candidate to provide constructive feedback. It is important to understand that in order to

provide feedback a student must be involved with the reading and learning material to be able to

provide proper feedback not just be passive about it.

Perhaps a challenge when receiving peer feedback is that there might be misinterpretation

that may lead to perceiving the feedback in a negative way rather than see it as helpful. A way to

prevent this is to make sure as an evaluator that the comments are detailed and clear enough for

our peers to understand.

 Therefore, a good strategy to approach peer assessment is to get familiar with the rubric.

While reading take notes when something stands out good or bad and to also write downs all

questions that pop up in your mind when reading. These questions and notes will help guide your

feedback and also create questions that you want to present to the author that will allow them to

revise their writing and make necessary changes if needed.

Although, peer assessment is a new tool for incoming college students it is a great tool to

help us grow not only academically but also a tool we can bring into the workforce. It might be a

bit of a challenge in the beginning but through practice it will become easier.

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 Reference:

Rosa, S. Coutinho, C. Flores, M. (2016). Online Peer Assessment: Method and Digital

Technologies. Retrieved from

Online Peer Assessment: Method and Digital Technologies (uopeople.edu)

Reap. (2007). Re-engineering Assessment Practices in Higher Education. Retrieved from

https://www.reap.ac.uk/PEER/Research.aspx

University of the People. (2018). Collaborative and peer to peer learning.

Https://www.uopeople.edu/student-experience/quality/collaborative-peer-peer-learning