Organising the curriculum - Peer assessment and self-assessment

Tools

Peer assessment and self-assessment

Introduction

Peer assessment and self-assessment are much more than learners simply marking their own or each other's work. In order to improve learning self-assessment must engage learners with the quality of their work and help them reflect on how to improve it. Peer assessment enables learners to provide each other with valuable feedback so that they can learn from and support each other.

Principles

Peer assessment adds a valuable dimension to learning: the opportunity to talk, discuss, explain and challenge each other enables learners to achieve beyond what they can learn unaided. Peer assessment helps develop self-assessment. Self-assessment then promotes independent learning, helping learners to take increasing responsibility for their own progress.

In practice

Learners do not become self-evaluative overnight. The development of peer assessment and self-assessment takes planning, time, patience and commitment. By planning and using a range of strategies and by dedicating time to allow learners to reflect on and discuss their learning, teachers can develop learners' peer and self-assessment skills.

The process of developing self-assessment and peer assessment needs to be tackled in stages. In the early stages learners need to have the process regularly modelled for them. It is useful to have examples of work, either from previous pupils or examples that teachers have written themselves, that demonstrate the intended learning outcomes. The teacher can then use these with the whole class, for example on a whiteboard, to critique the responses and model the approach before asking them to work on each other's or their own work. It is helpful if the teacher thinks aloud while critiquing so that learners develop the necessary language and approach. Once the teacher has demonstrated the process with an anonymous piece of work, the learners can then critique each other's work.

To develop peer assessment and self-assessment the teacher will need to:

plan peer assessment and self-assessment opportunities in lessons, for example with 'pair and share' opportunities during class questioning
explain the intended learning outcomes behind each task and how they relate to the learning objectives
provide learners with clear success criteria that help them assess the quality of their work
train learners over time to assess their own work and the work of others and develop an appropriate language
frequently and consistently encourage learners' reflection on their learning
guide learners to identify their next steps.

Strategies for peer assessment and self-assessment

Strategies for peer assessment and self-assessment	Key benefit(s)	Examples of how and where it could be used in a lesson
1. Encourage learners to listen to others' responses to questions and presentations made in class and to ask questions on points that they do not understand.	Learners think about what they have not understood Learners publicly acknowledge that they can, and want to, learn from each other Promotes the idea of collaborative working - 'many brains are better than just one' Can help establish 'working together' protocols	Whole-class discussion making conjectures about comparison of data displayed in two pie charts. Learners respond using whiteboards followed by episodes during which successive pupils add to or refute explanations Learners research different alternative energy resources and make short presentations to the rest of the class about how each one works and its advantages and disadvantages. The teacher acts as chair and takes questions from the rest of the class, feeding them to an appropriate learner on the presentation team
2. Use examples of work from anonymous learners and ask their peers to suggest possible ways of improving the work and how they would meet the learning outcomes.	Learners see what success looks like and explicitly identify the features that make for a good piece of work Helps moderate shared understanding of standards Sets benchmarks for target setting	Learners are given some solutions to a problem and asked to evaluate the efficiency of the strategies chosen, to identify errors and make suggestions for improvement Learners are given some background from a particular scientific enquiry and a set of results. Before writing their conclusions, learners are shown examples written by other pupils and discuss which is the better conclusion and why The teacher models a piece of work that is not perfect but is about the standard that learners might achieve. Learners work in groups, using the criteria to agree the level of the piece of work
3. Ask learners to use the expected outcome to comment on strengths of each other's work and to identify areas for improvement.	Learners identify their own strengths and areas for development Learners are sometimes more receptive to constructive criticism from peers than from the teacher Helps moderate shared understanding of standards	The whole class evaluates and revises an anonymous written draft explanation interpreting the data given in a graph or chart. Learners then work in pairs and fours to draft, evaluate and jointly revise similar explanations for other charts
4. Ask learners to mark each other's work but don't give them the answers. Instead, ask them to find the correct answers from available resources.	Helps learners distinguish between learning objectives and learning outcomes (and how to 'come up with the goods') Helps pupils recognise a range of appropriate responses Promotes research and independent learning	Learners share their conclusions to an enquiry and discuss what might improve each other's work
5. Ask learners to write their own questions on a topic to match the expected learning outcomes and, in addition, to provide answers to others' questions.	Helps learners distinguish between learning objectives and learning outcomes (and how to 'come up with the goods') Helps learners recognise a range of alternative appropriate responses	At the end of a topic of work, the class generates its own end of topic test, with a mark scheme using the expected outcomes for that topic and their own books and textbooks as a resource
6. Ask learners, in groups, to write five questions and, following whole-class discussion, identify the best two from each group (to generate 10-12 questions, eg for homework).	Learners gain confidence as they create their own questions and answers Helps learners recognise a range of appropriate responses	A 'checking progress activity' at the end of an important section of work within a topic
7. Ask learners to analyse mark schemes and devise their own for a specified task.	Learners are able to reflect on what the key aspects or ideas in a unit of work or task are, and refine their own interpretations of requirements and possible pitfalls Helps learners recognise a range of appropriate responses	The whole class evaluates short responses to the 'explain' part of a test question interpreting the data given in a graph or chart. Learners judge which responses would gain the mark in the test The teacher sets homework and then asks the class what the success criteria will be. Following completion, the work is peer-marked The teacher constructs an exemplar copy of each topic test with model answers and shows this to learners when returning their test papers, allowing time for learners to compare their answers to the model ones
8. Ask learners to decide whether they think an answer is reasonable, whether they can add to the answer, or whether they would have given another answer.	Learners can evaluate the validity of statements and generalisations and discuss common mistakes and misconceptions Helps moderate shared understanding of standards	Learners discuss the validity of general statements and whether they are sometimes, always or never true, eg multiplication makes numbers bigger or if a square and a rectangle have the same perimeter, the square has the greater area Learners are shown anonymous answers to particular test and exam questions and asked to improve or expand on the answer given
9. Encourage learners to develop assessment criteria for periodic assessment tasks.	Helps learners focus on what they need to produce or demonstrate to have their achievement recognised	As an extension to a starting point activity in a new topic, having found out what learners already know the teacher could ask them to speculate about what they might need to learn next
10. Ask learners for their level of confidence about a particular piece of work.	Learners can identify productive areas on which to focus their efforts and develop mastery of particular concepts and skills	Learners use 'traffic light' concepts for a particular piece of work. Green is 'happy', amber is 'not quite sure', and red is 'very unsure'. Greens can then support ambers and reds. Many red marks mean more in-depth teaching is required

Planning for a whole-school approach to developing peer assessment and self-assessment

A whole-school approach to developing peer assessment and self-assessment is necessary because it is hard to develop them in isolation. Peer assessment and self-assessment require learners to take increased responsibility for their learning and develop as independent learners. This has fundamental implications for the learning ethos in a school.

To successfully develop peer assessment and self-assessment, teachers need to have a clear understanding of the progression in the key concepts and skills in a subject. They need to be able to help learners understand this progression and help them use success criteria to judge the quality of their work and understand what they need to do to improve it.

Learners need to develop their confidence and skills in paired and group discussions. Teachers and teaching assistants need to be able to support group discussion and, for example, model challenging but constructive responses. Teachers need to develop skills in orchestrating whole-class questioning and dialogue that causes learners to reflect on their own learning and support each other's learning.

All of this has implications for continuing professional development and for the development of a learning culture and climate in the school based on collaborative working and mutual support.