By Tamara Congdon (17409414)

Self and Peer Evaluations are crucial for Assessments in the Classroom

It is crucial for students to evaluate both themselves and peers in order to develop and enhance
their reflection strategies, thinking processes and learning awareness. In this essay, I aim to prove
the importance of self and peer evaluation for the use of assessment in the classroom. I will start by
clarifying what is involved in self and peer evaluations and the benefits it has on the students.
Following this, I proceed with how to implement these self and peer assessments in a unit plan,
starting with the desired results aiming to be achieved by the end of the unit by using McTighe and
Wiggins Understanding by Design framework to plan the unit. Starting with the desired results that
will be the criteria in the form of a rubric, from that I outline the benefits of rubrics for the students as
well as the teacher. Using authentic questioning techniques and Blooms Taxonomy, teachers will be
able to structure the unit to implement rich questions to ensure that the students progress to higher
order thinking. A good way for students to be in charge of their learning is filling out a KWL chart
before the unit to help stay on track. By demonstrating all of these points, I prove that self and peer
assessments are crucial to the development of students and assessment.

Assessment as learning involves students continually reflecting upon their learning in a

metacognitive way, with ongoing self-assessment and response (Churchill et al, 2011, p. 403). This
develops the students learning awareness, resulting in them becoming independently effective
learners (Churchill et al, 2011, p. 403; Black & Wiliam, 2001, p. 6; Ames & Gahangan, 1995, cited in
Prestidge, Lina, Glaser & Candyce, 2000,p. 8). VCAA (2014) has outlined that students manage,
monitor and reflect on their own learning goals to understand their strengths and potential
achievements. The curriculum first included social and personal learning with the introduction of
VELS in 2005, which proves there has been substantial amount of evidence and research done on
the importance of self-evaluation for assessment in learning and teaching. The skills of learning,
evaluating and reflecting on oneself are constantly developing, from superficial thoughts to deep
reflecting processes (Prestidge, Lina, Glaser & Candyce, 2000). Therefore, no matter what stage
students are at in their self-awareness journey, teachers can cater for all their needs easily. In my
work as a leader in Out of School Hours Care (OSHC), we have Star of the Day where each child
has the opportunity to critically reflect on their actions for that session against the OSHC rules
(desired goals). I am amazed at the level of honesty these students give and are able to back it up
with evidence of their behaviour. We have recently started asking their peers for confirmation of the
students actions, so they can start to develop feedback skills and relate other peoples actions to

By Tamara Congdon (17409414)

the desired goal. Therefore, self and peer-evaluation is an effective method to formatively assess
students.

Peer evaluation is the process of which the class, group or pair critically evaluates the work of a
single group or individual, usually against the criteria, to assist them in improving their work. This
enables students to understand the assessment process, develop their critical thinking and
feedback skills (Churchill et al, 2011, p. 417; LSE, 2012). VCAA (2014) objectives are for students
to seek feedback from peers to help improve knowledge and skills to support their learning. In
doing this, students aim to build effective social relationships by being empathetic and dealing with
their inner emotions and moods (VCAA, 2014). Teachers will need to create a comfortable and
positive environment for the students, to ensure the feedback given is critical, purposeful and not
hurtful (Prestidge, Lina, Glaser & Candyce, 2000; PETAA, 2014). Through trial and error, teachers
and students will find what strategy best suits them, so it is important for teachers to know their
students to ensure the best possible outcomes. Strategies such as Two Stars and a Wish, Plus,
minus and whats next and Traffic lights (Educational Services Australia, 2014) all aim to improve
students critical thinking skills and practice assessing other students work against the criteria.
Although Vygotskys work did not elaborate on ideas into specific assessment procedures (Lidz,
1995, p. 147), hes model on Zone of Proximal Development proves that students need a capable
other to help in understanding, usually a peer. When my mentor teacher used this approach on a
student who was not doing their work to the best of their ability, I instantly thought it was a great
approach because it has been my experience that students learn better from peers. The peer
evaluation approach was able to not only get him to compare his attitudes and work with other
students, but motivate him to do better. This feedback was not specifically linked to a set list of
criteria, but students were able to give feedback on what they liked and what students could do to
improve their work. It is helpful and more efficient to have students criticise their peers work to a set
list of criteria, so it becomes clearer on how to improve on the piece of work.

Rubrics are an important tool for self and peer assessment by representing the criteria that students
can aim to achieve by the end of the unit. This allows them to locate, plan and track their own
learning development against specific, assessed criteria (Churchill et al, 2011, p. 413). It also
allows them to aim for the highest performance level as the required skills, knowledge and/or
understanding is presented in the rubric (Educational Services Australia, 2014; Black & Wiliam,
2001, p. 6). Rubrics are very versatile; they can be as simple as three smiley faces to represent the
performance levels for Foundation, or five detailed descriptions of performance levels for upper

By Tamara Congdon (17409414)

secondary school. Where possible, students should help create and/or negotiate some of the
criteria within the rubric (Churchill et al, 2011, p. 412). This approach not only puts students directly
in charge of their own learning and gives them goals to work towards, but it also enables them to be
critically and personally engaged with their work (Churchill et al, 2011, p. 412). By evaluating their
own work against the criteria, students will learn to identify the gap between the desired goal and
their work, and enable them to alter their work to bridge the gap (Sadler, 1989, cited in Black &
Wiliam, 2001; LSE, 2012). Rubrics are not only useful for benefiting the students; but teachers can
use rubrics often in their practice too.

Rubrics are a helpful tool to learn more about the students, and be able to teach them further by
reflecting upon and improving on teaching practices. They are helpful to see proof of the learning of
the students and be able to rank students against the grade, other classes and the curriculum to
see where their learning is at on a larger scale; which can be helpful when assigning groups based
on ability levels. Teachers can use students rubrics to establish a gap in understanding that is
common for the majority of the class, and can then create a lesson plan to cater for future teaching
and learning. Although rubrics are a fair tool for assessing the students, it is more beneficial to
assess them individually based on their competences (Przybylak, 2014). Teachers should know the
students capabilities and decide if they are putting in as much effort as desired by the task. For
example, Tilly might get a top mark for a piece of work that is standard because of the effort she
put in, whereas, Billys piece of work is level with Tillys but he gets an average grade because he
did not challenge himself. Rubrics are very informative to teachers and help students to improve
their reflection and thinking skills.

Blooms Taxonomy helps to improve and develop higher order thinking skills of the students, by
going through a step by step process of asking them authentic and rich questions to help improve
deeper thinking as the unit is progressed. VCAA (2014) requires teachers to explicitly teach thinking
processes to enable students to develop from lower-order thinking of recall and comprehension, to
higher-order thinking, which is required for creative problem solving, decision making and
conceptualising. Developing these thinking skills can be proven to increase students ability to selfassess themselves. Showing the students their work at the beginning of the unit and then showing
them how they have developed through the unit, demonstrates their evidence of thinking and will
ultimately give the students satisfaction, pride, self-esteem, confidence and the ability to further
develop their understanding of their own thinking and learning processes. Questioning strategies
are an excellent way to informally assess students throughout the unit (Churchill et al, 2011, p. 398),

By Tamara Congdon (17409414)

however it is important to give students thinking time to answer a question to promote deeper
responses (PETAA, 2014; Black & Wiliam, 2001, p. 8; Prestidge, Lina, Glaser & Candyce, 2000).
Schmar again stresses that teachers must work to create an accepting classroom atmosphere that
will support risk taking and foster student candour (Schmar, 1995, cited in Prestidge, Glaser, Lina &
Candyce, 2000). Blooms Questioning allows students to further develop their understandings of
their knowledge and themselves.

The KWL Chart is a great tool for students to think about what they already Know about a topic,
what they Want to know and what they have Learnt after a unit of work. Completing the first two
columns before commencing the unit encourages students to recall information, and also gives the
teacher students prior knowledge information enabling further teaching to be richer. When students
look back on the chart at the end of the unit, they can reflect if what they learnt relates to the
learning intention. VCAA states that students learn to reflect on what they know and develop
awareness that there is more to know (VCAA, 2014), which is very powerful as it promotes life-long
learning and curiosity. Students from Foundation to year 12 can benefit from this model as it helps
them remember what they know, celebrate what they have just learnt, strengthens their ability to
form questions and ultimately assess their own learning (Sadler, 2011, p. 105). This is the last thing
that teachers plan, but the first thing that students do to assess their own learning.

I have proven the importance of self and peer assessment in the classroom by first describing the
two in depth, then suggesting ways to implement this in the classroom by using a backwards design
approach. Starting from creating a rubric and outlined criteria from the start will help be a guide for
the rest of the unit. During a unit of work, it is important for teachers to continue to help students
develop their thinking processes throughout the unit by the use of rich questioning techniques.
Lastly the KWL chart will inform teachers of prior knowledge and help students create their own
learning intentions and reflect on it themselves. Assessment as learning, I feel, is an understated
importance in our Australian schools in the 21st century, and all educators should aim to implement
peer and self-assessment in most, if not all, formal and informal assessments of students.

By Tamara Congdon (17409414)

Reference List
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Assessment,Kings

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http://weaeducation.typepad.co.uk/files/blackbox-1.pdf

By Tamara Congdon (17409414)

Churchill, R., Ferguson, P., Godinho, S., Johnson, N. F., Keddie, A., Letts, W., Vick, M.
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By Tamara Congdon (17409414)

https://lms.latrobe.edu.au/pluginfile.php/1475579/mod_resource/content/1/Questioning
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