Peer assessment in Higher English
Overview
Staff in the English department at Carluke High School in South Lanarkshire have used Glow to enhance learning and teaching in a number of ways over the last two years. Projects have ranged from novel studies in S2 to War Poetry at Standard Grade. In this cookbook David Falconer describes the impact of using discussion boards for peer assessment with Higher students.
Context
David created the Higher English Glow Group for his fifth and sixth pupils as they began to prepare for internal assessment of writing. The aim of the Group was to give the pupils a forum in which to publish their creative writing to their peers. Pupils would then assess each others’ work and give constructive feedback.
The expectations of pupils’ writing abilities at Higher are:
Candidates will develop and extend a range of writing skills as they employ different registers, formats and styles to fulfil a variety of purposes. Study at this level will be characterised by such activities as close consideration of different models and styles, writing to particular briefs and for specific audiences and experimenting with imaginative forms. (SQA course specification)
A tour of David Falconer’s Higher English Glow Group
Pupils first undertook a number of activities in class to generate ideas for their writing. Ideas were developed and honed, and a first draft completed. The work was then submitted through the discussion board in the Glow Group. As most of the pupils had not used Glow before, David had created a discussion thread per pupil, which included instructions about how to reply to a discussion post, attach a file and save the posting. With hindsight, David felt that this level of support was generally not needed, as pupils clearly felt comfortable with the technology and had no difficulties in understanding how to use a discussion board.
With the initial pieces of writing submitted, pupils were asked to review the work of four other pupils. A reminder of the assessment criteria were included within each discussion thread so that pupils kept them to the forefront of their minds whilst reviewing. (click on images below to enlarge)
Creative writing – guidelines for peer assessment
David was pleased with the quality of feedback that pupils gave. He felt that most had provided perceptive and constructive comments, which would genuinely help their peers to develop their work further.
Feedback on one pupil's work
Once pupils had completed the peer assessment, David also reviewed the submitted writing. He decided to do this through the discussion board, in preference to marking work manually and annotating pupils’ work in pencil or pen. He commented that he found this very useful, indeed “quite a liberating experience”, as it allowed him to make much more extensive comments, with a greater degree of explanation and feedback to pupils, than he would ordinarily have been able to do. He often found that pupils’ peer assessment chimed with his, indicating that pupils were fully engaged with the success criteria and were reviewing with a considerable degree of maturity.
At the end of the review process, David printed the feedback for pupils, copying the comments from the discussion board to a Word document. This provided each pupil with extensive, thought-provoking commentary on their work and how to improve it.
David applied the same use of discussion boards later in the year, when pupils were working towards a second writing assessment, this time on discursive writing. Here the power of the discussion boards really shone through. Pupils each selected a topical issue and in their essays expressed and developed a line of argument. Pupils reviewed their peers’ work, and then used the discussion boards to questions assumptions, challenge arguments and discuss their differing views in depth.
Discursive essay – feedback
Ingredients
In order to use the discussion boards for peer assessment, David created a Glow Group and gave his pupils Contributor rights. He used features, such as the News and Web links web parts, to provide information on learning intentions and background reading. The default Discussions web part was used for the first writing assignment and David later created a new discussions web part for the second assignment.
Recipe
If you’re interested in replicating, or building upon any of David’s ideas, then you may find the ’how-to’ video clips below useful. These show how to create, use and modify discussion boards.
* how to post a message on a discussion board and attach a file
* how to read a message on a discussion board and view an attached file
* how to create a new discussion board
Impact
David Falconer talks about the impact of the Higher English Glow Group
At the end of the writing tasks, pupils commented on how valuable they had found this process of peer and teacher assessment to be. They appreciated the comments and support of their peers and recognised how the feedback would enable them to improve their work. Pupils spoke of an increased sense of confidence, that they had viewed the task with greater purpose and undertook it with more attention that they might otherwise have done, knowing that their work would be published to their peers and reviewed by them.
This approach to the writing assignments particularly encouraged the less confident members of the class. David felt that they had performed better than they perhaps might have done through more traditional methods of reviewing and marking work.
David commented that peer assessment like this is perhaps less well used at the upper stages of secondary than in first and second year. His Higher pupils had thoroughly valued the forum it provided to explore and develop their work.