Peer Assessment Experience - Essay Example

Peer Assessment Peer assessment has enabled my mates and I to improve our social skills. In the past semester, most of our preferred to use peer evaluations in a bid to allow us to mingle and interact with each other. The peer assessment went a long way in fostering unity of purpose among my peers (Pedler 2008). We enjoyed marking each other’s scripts and assigning marks to each other. The peer assessments were very helpful as we learned to mark and assign scores based on the guidelines provided by our tutors. The tutors were also very useful in giving us an insight of what the marking entails, and the different variations of the correct answers for some questions. For the various variations of the correct answers, we learned that we have to maintain an open mind and check for the main points in the answer. My Experience My experience as a peer assessor was an eye opener. For the first time, I felt like I was not the one being reviewed, but I was reviewing other students' work. This gave me a sense of pride and courage and it also enabled me to see the big picture. In marking my classmate's papers, I no longer saw myself as a victim of marking but rather a victor. The peer assessment gave me an insight of one of the functions of our tutors, which is to assess the students' academic performance. Our peer assessment was based on our assessment tests for all the units that we sat for in the semester. The move was aimed at getting us to interact with each other while improving our leadership skills (Cottrell 2010). For the first time, my classmates and I felt some sense of responsibility for our education. It dawned on us that our education depends on us and that we are all equally talented when given a chance to review our peer's work. The assessment came as an encouragement to the not-so-good students that they can be trusted to assess even the brightest students in our class. Every student was assigned a paper to mark, and the tutor would guide us through the marking of the papers. The instructors used this opportunity to go through the questions with us, in an attempt to revise the paper. The teacher would guide us through, reading the questions aloud, and one after the other. He would then ask a classmate to provide the correct answer, and we would have a brief discussion on each issue. The assessment allowed us to ask the tutor questions regarding the authenticity of the different answers that our classmates gave for the problem. It enabled us to understand the role of the assessors and what it entails to mark and assess a fellow student. It placed us at a higher level of responsibility, thus enhancing our leadership skills (Pedler 2008). During these assessments, we would also get a chance to debate on the several variations of the correct answers that had been provided by our peers. The tutor would validate the responses and also give a justification regarding whether these responses are right or wrong. This sort of discussion and brief debate was helpful to many of my classmates as they thought that each question should only have one answer. It also gave us an insight, and it broadened our thinking capacity. It taught me to be open-minded in the sense that I should think outside the box to give the most suitable answer to each question; to the best of my ability. Advantages of Peer Assessment During our peer assessment sessions, I noticed that it took the tutors a lesser time for us to mark our scripts and get them on time. This gave us a lot of time to review and revise the questions together with our tutors. It also gave us sufficient time to cover the syllabus in good time, thus giving us time to ask all our questions regarding the various topics. The peer assessment provided a faster feedback for our papers (Cottrell 2010). It provided my classmates and I an opportunity to receive feedback from our tutors regarding the difficult question before moving on to the next topics. It also enhanced our revision as we interacted with our peers in the brief classroom discussions while reviewing the various answers provide by them in their scripts. The peer assessment made me focus more on my answers as it helped me to learn where I went wrong in answering the questions. The fact that the answers were still fresh in my mind gave me the time to digest the information. I noticed that I improved my performance on later tests upon concluding the peer assessment. I was able to see my errors and past mistakes, and this enabled me to avoid repetition in later assignments. The exercise enabled me to understand the grading process, and I no longer saw myself as a victim but rather as a stakeholder. It also taught me to complete my assignments in an accurate manner so as to improve my academic performance. It gave me an insight of what the examiners look for in our answers as students. For the first time in my life as a student, I felt like I was not competing for higher grades, but I was learning through the assessment. The assessment gave me an opportunity to get feedback from my tutors without subjecting me to the academic ranking in terms of grades. This improved my attitude towards tests. It also enhanced our unity of purpose as classmates in our pursuit for a common goal of boosting our intellectual welfare. Limitations of Peer Assessment The peer assessment seems to kill the morale of the bright students, as they are always ready for tests. To them, a test brings another opportunity for them to show their academic skills through higher grades. In our peer assessment, I also noticed that peers have a tendency of giving the bright students lower grades. I also noticed that; if allowed to assess each other, friends tend to be lenient in marking, thus giving their peers higher grades than they deserve. These limitations impair the process of peer assessment. Recommendations on how To Improve Peer Assessment In my case, I learned a lot from peer assessment, while it also helped to nurture my social and interpersonal skills. It is with no doubt that, I gained a lot from the past semester, and I look forward to a livelier semester soon. Despite all the praise towards the peer assessment, I still feel that it would be more beneficial to me and my classmates if we were to be given the rubric material by our tutors. This would give us a feel of what it entails marking the papers. The rubric would guide us on the description of each category in the marking while giving us a profound insight as to what the examiners look for while setting the examinations. I would also request that the tutors allow us to exchange the peer assessments after the review so that we would examine the marking by our peers. By exchanging the papers and evaluating the markings by other peers, we would criticize the marks on each question and discuss with our peers regarding their justification for any questionable marking. The discussion and explanation would not only encourage our peers, but it would also shed more light on our expectations as peer assessors. Due to the familiarity of some peers, I would recommend that the tutor selects or assigns a peer reviewer to each of us at random rather than leaving the students to chooses their peer reviewers. This would curb the problem of favoritism (Pedler 2008) in marking where classmates become lenient in marking their friend's papers by giving them a higher grade than they deserve. The tutor should also help all my classmates to understand that their grades in class do not define their abilities or whom they are. Those grades are just an assessment of how far they have progressed in the academic semester. I would also recommend a class discussion to review the papers that we do and assess in class. The tutor should host the discussion but it should be organized by the students in a bid to improve their leadership skills (Pedler 2008). The review of the paper would help my classmates and Me to gain a deeper understanding of the coursework. Conclusion From my point of view, I would say that peer assessment has helped me a lot. It has sharpened my understanding of the different units that I undertook for the semester. It gave me a sense of responsibility in assessing my classmates and the notion that their assessment depends on my accuracy. It also gave me a sense of pride in marking my fellow classmate's papers. I got to understand the difference between my friends' academic performances. For instance, I once assessed a grade A student and later on assessed a grade C students. In their scripts, one could tell the difference between the two students even before marking the papers. One needed not to be told who among them is neat, focused and organized in their work (Cottrell 2010). The grade A student did not require any straining for me to view his answers while the grade C student gave me a difficult time trying to locate the main points from the paragraphs. The grade A student gives the assessor an easy time because his work is neat and well arranged, and the main points are noticeable from far. One needs not strain in marking his papers. This experience showed me that there is a correlation between our behaviors as students, to our academic performance. There is a difference between the grade A student's character and the grade C student's character (Pedler 2008). The difference between these two students is evident in the expression and originality of their ideas, the organization of their work, the balance of their academic performance for all the units and their curriculum alignment. This came as a challenge for me to emulate the grade A students, as it is not difficult to do what they do to achieve better grades in school. References Cottrell, S., 2010. Skills for success: the personal development planning handbook 2nd ed., Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Pedler, M., 2008. Action learning for managers, Aldershot, England: Gower Pub. Read More