Better Lab Reports Through Peer Assessment using Peergrade.io

Big Ideas/Key Concepts - Peer Assessment improves students critical thinking skills. As students get more practice at assessing others using a detailed rubric, they become more capable of seeing the areas for improvement in their own work. Allowing students time to change their assignment based on the feedback they were given (before teacher assessment) can help in promoting a growth mindset. This can also increase student motivation, and result in higher quality assignments.By using technology to make the peer assessment anonymous it allows you to avoid issues of fairness and student friendship. As the teacher, you have full access to see all student work and feedback given, allowing for opportunities for Assessment FOR, AS, and OF Learning.

The Basic How To:
*A detailed explanation of how to do each step can be found in the  “Getting Started for Teachers” section of the PeerGrade website.

1. Go to PeerGrade.io and set up a Teacher Account [5 min]
2. Create a Class (ex/ P5 Gr 9 Academic Science) [1 min]
3. Create an assignment (ex/ Chemical Reactions Lab Report) - the easiest way to do this is to take an assignment you already use and recreate the rubric on PeerGrade. PeerGrade also has a rubric library of pre made rubrics to choose from. [5-30 min depending on detail of your rubric]
4. Invite your students to PeerGrade.io to join your Class (you can import student emails or show the students a “join code”). [5 min, can be assigned as homework]
5. Have students upload their finished work. [assign as homework, allow 5 min in class for any students who forgot]
6. PeerGrade will anonymously send the students each others work to evaluate using your rubric. [20-75 min depending on length of assignment and number of peer assessments you require] [30-40 min to do 2 peer assessments of a senior science lab report]
7. Students will receive their anonymous peer feedback, and can evaluate the feedback for its helpfulness. [can be done in class to facilitate a class discussion or assigned as homework]

Materials and Equipment - Every student will need access to an internet capable device [laptops are recommended].

Safety - Peergrade.io is a third party tech tool. Students create an account that includes their name and email address. If there are concerns about this personal information on a third party website, then a live session can be used instead which only requires a teacher account.

Curriculum Links - Peergrade allows students to get quick and relevant constructive feedback on their ability to effectively communicate scientific investigation skills as seen in Strand A of the Ontario Science Curriculum.

[A1. demonstrate scientific investigation skills (related to both inquiry and research) in the four areas of skills (initiating and planning, performing and recording, analysing and interpreting, and communicating)]

Teaching Suggestions/Hints:

• PeerGrade.io provides an excellent “Getting Started for Teachers” section that includes step by step instructions as well as videos explaining every part of the process.
• To increase student motivation to do peer assessment a “reward” can be  provided, consisting of marks on an assessment, or an opportunity to edit/review their own assignment based on the feedback they received.
• In order to ensure that everything runs smoothly, it is a good idea to do your first use of PeerGrade during class.  Subsequent uses of PeerGrade could be assigned as homework.

Assessment strategy 

Peergrade.io is a great example of Assessment AS Learning and Assessment FOR Learning. Students learn to better evaluate their own errors and area for improvement by judging other examples using specific criteria.

This can also be used as Assessment OF Learning by assigning marks on your lab report rubric for “useful” and/or “constructive” feedback given. Not only do the students judge the feedback they were given (this is also anonymous, and required in order to see all of their feedback), as the teacher you can see all of the feedback given, and what the students thought of it. Providing marks related to the use of peer assessment can increase student motivation. Allowing students time to change their assignment based on the feedback they were given can also increase student motivation, and results in higher quality assignments.
 

Next Steps/Extensions/Accommodations/Other Topics for Peergrade.io:

Next Steps/Extensions/Other Topics - Peergrade can be used for any assignment or in class activity.  It is a great way to have students get better at critically assessing their own work, by giving them practice assessing others. This can be used in a mandatory way by providing marks, or in an optional way by simply allowing students the option to use it before an assignment is due.

PeerGrade can also be used as an assignment checkpoint, a time for students to get a first draft evaluated before continuing with the rest of the assignment.

The variety of upload media allowed (google docs, word, videos, images, etc.) creates the option to have students evaluate each other on anything, including written in-class work (have students snap a photo and instantly upload and assess).

As students become more adept at understanding assessment, the class can co-create the assessment rubric that will be used on an assignment.

Accomodations - If students do not have individual access to technology at home, Peergrade can be used in class (~30min to evaluate 2 lab reports). If individuals do not have access to individual internet-capable devices in class, they can work in pairs to do the peer feedback.  This limits your ability to do Assessment OF Learning, but still allows the students to do Assessment AS Learning.

Additional Resources:
 

Classroom examples: Sample Lab Report Rubric

Support Resources:  

• Creating a PeerGrade Account
• Creating an Assignment
• Peergrade Help Center
• Premade Rubric Library
• How to Give Effective Feedback (for teachers and students)

Related Background Resources:

• Student Peer Assessment, UNSW Sydney