A Community of Collaborators - The Value of Peer Assessment
By: Melony O’Neill, STS Teacher
Both Grades 7 and 8 Social Studies classes recently participated in peer assessment activities in class. Peer assessment helps students to evaluate other students’ work in accordance with the Middle Years Programme (MYP) rubrics. Students were asked to locate evidence in student work that reflects the various strands in the MYP rubrics. Using “sticky note feedback” students shared the reasons and “the why” behind their assessment level of the work in front of them. Students had paper copies of the rubrics to reference when making their decisions on evaluation levels for their peers. Students were coached to be positive and to offer constructive and actionable feedback that students could then attend to prior to submission of their work. Examples of feedback comments were shared and students could then model their comments in helpful and constructive ways. I was very impressed with how serious the students were in providing feedback to their peers. They did a thorough and detailed job of providing feedback in accordance with the MYP rubrics and helped to build a community of collaborators along the way.