The following article breaks down various methods/tips for creating peer-evaluation assessments. Brock’s Brightspace has limited peer evaluation functionality, with room for instructors to get creative with implementation.
Contents
Related
Mention third-party platforms like Critik
Talk to Erin Panda/ Sean beaudette(?)
Sean uses Critik in a large class to facilitate marking (takes students' grades into account when marking, he relies on the students to grade each other DO NOT MENTION IN ARTICLE)
What you’re using peer eval for will inform the choices that you’re making
Is the peer eval to supplement marking? Or is it to teach students practices and methods that can be gained from peer evaluation?
Peer Evaluation and Pedagogy
It’s important to establish and understand the pedagogical reason behind making use of peer evaluations. What’s the end goal? Is it to assess student’s abilities to provide well-meaning and constructive feedback? Or is it to simply facilitate class discussion and idea-generation, with less of a focus on the assessment aspect?
If you wish to discuss the pedagogy behind peer evaluation further, please feel free to reach out to cpi@brocku.ca
Brightspace Discussions
There are a few way to use discussions (link to discussions article for general basic building)
If setting up Discussions for submissions, think file vs text (does it matter) (if it’s an attachment, add a bit of a description for that, or make student documentation explaining how to attach a file to a discussion post)
Assignments would come in handy as a way of grading the original submission, while grading the posts can be left to the peer eval responses.
In tandem with Microsoft apps (focus on forms) or in assignments
Assignments - Submit to assignments for grade, submit to discussions for peer-eval
When it comes to grading, it would be best handled if the submission and the evaluation are separate grades, submission through assignments, then evaluation through discussions or Microsoft forms or what have you or whatever.
Are we evaluating the evaluation? Or is it just meant for student discussion and learning?
Third Party Tools
Kritik is a third-party peer evaluation tool that instructors may wish to learn more about. Please note: it does require a subscription fee for students, as Brock does not have a university-wide subscription. The tool is already integrated with Brock’s Brightspace, which means instructors can add the tool to their Content area in their course site via the External Tools option.
Kritik has an extensive help centre, which should prove useful when working with the tool.
Some CPI members have worked with Kritik, so if you wish to have a discussion about the tool, please reach out to cpi@brocku.ca
In-Person Peer Evaluation
Instructors may also consider an in-person peer evaluation activity, where students discuss and evaluate each-others work in person. Students can either work with hard copies of their work, or they can post on Brightspace beforehand, then discuss in class.
This may be best suited as a seminar activity, or for a small class.
In-person peer evaluations would focus more on instilling the evaluation process and practice into students, as opposed to grading their individual evaluations.