PMI. Think/Pair/Share. C3B4ME. When you hear the term peer feedback, these are likely the strategies that come to mind first. These are great tools to begin the process of peer feedback- but what other strategies are there? How do we encourage students to take peer feedback seriously and respond in more purposeful ways? How do we raise the bar from students writing “good job” to writing specific and actionable pieces of advice?

With an effect size of 0.53 (Hattie, 2011), peer tutoring (which includes peer feedback), is definitely a strategy that can lead to improved learning outcomes if it is done well. In much of the literature, the term peer tutoring includes students teaching one another, peer-explanations, peer-checking (for example, checking each other’s calculations) and peer-assessment. The Victorian High Impact Teaching Strategies (2017) also has it listed as a strategy under Collaborative Learning in that it supports the sharing of student expertise and promotes active participation.

The best way to get students to take peer assessment seriously is to make it worthwhile. It isn’t a filler activity, but rather a way that students can get immediate feedback on their work, and act on it. It needs to be a means to improve the work and understanding of both the students participating, not just the one receiving the feedback. In our experience, we have found that students need to see what is in it for them. Here are some strategies that we have found to be successful in doing this in our classrooms:

Think- Aloud-Pair-Problem-Solving (TAPPS).

Think-Aloud-Pair-Problem-Solving comes from the work of Lochhead and Whimbey (1987). For this activity, students work in pairs and alternate roles. One student is the solver and one student in the listener and scribe.

Start by giving the solver a problem. This can be a question, an essay prompt or a task. The solver is required to think aloud and narrate his/her response to their partner. This will include the reasons why they are solving the problem in that manner and detailed instructions of what steps they are going to take to correctly solve the problem. This student is not allowed to touch a pen, calculator or material of any kind.

The listener is required to take notes and work the problem out by using the solvers instructions. The listener can ask the solver for clarification but can not intervene to help and solve the problem. The focus should be on the steps that are taken to solve the problem and not the actual answer. So even if the student is wrong, the listener will record the incorrect answer as described by the solver.

After the solver has solved the problem to the best of their abilities, the listener then has an opportunity to provide feedback on how they would have answered the question or what steps they may have done differently.

You can extend this activity by having the pair find another pair with the same problem and discuss the different ways that the problem was addressed by a different pairing. The purpose of this collaborative activity is to expose students to different ways of thinking and varying problem solving techniques.

You can then have the pair swap roles, with a different question and repeat the process.

Give One/Steal One

In this activity, students are required to provide one piece of feedback or idea on a student’s work (Give One), and then steal a piece of feedback or idea for their own work (Steal One).

I often begin this style of feedback by completing it as a class first. To do this, I project a student’s piece of work (with permission - or I write my own sample response), and as a class we ‘Give One’ and ‘Steal One’. We discuss that the feedback needs to be both kind and specific - essentially, we are looking for constructive advice and not an ego boost, though positive feedback is fine as long as it is paired with an area for improvement. Once the feedback session has occurred, students then go back to their work to improve it based on the feedback and the steals that they recorded or discussed.

Students then complete another piece of work (preferably using the same skills). I then hand out ‘Give One, Steal One, tickets - you can download these for free here. Students swap work, and fill in their tickets. Once they have filled in the feedback, they tear of the ‘steal’ and then have a conversation about the feedback that they gave. Students then take both their steals and the feedback that they received to improve their work.

Of course, the steals can not be direct plagiarism and we discuss this as a class. It is an act of seeing the ideas and answers of peers, paraphrasing it (which is why the ‘steal’ tickets are small) and then applying the idea to their own work.

On Your Mark

Start by giving each student a set task and a set time to complete the task. This can be a series of questions, an essay response, a drawing etc. For the purpose of this activity, it is best to give students paper to write/draw their responses anonymously (no names).

Once the assigned time for the task is over, give each student a blank checklist (download a free copy of the checklist here). Students should use the checklist to identify five features of their work that they think they have done well. This could be anything. For example, perfect spelling, great sentence structure, clearly showing all working out, excellent labeling, using a key term when defining xyz etc.

Once each student has determined their five successes, ask them to hand in their piece of work (they keep their checklist with them). The teacher then randomly re-distributes the work back to different student so each student will have a different piece of work (work of one of their peers) in front of them as well as their own original checklist.

Students are then instructed to view the piece of work in front of them, and add an additional two things that that student has done well to their own check list. The students would now have seven items on their checklist (five from their own piece of work, and two from a peers work). The students should write on their peers work a score out of seven (student guaranteed to get at least two due to nature of task). The student also needs to add comments on their peers work on what things from their checklist they were missing to get a higher score (assuming that the student didn’t receive all seven points).

You can continue to repeat the task by collecting and re-distributing the work and each time asking students to add two new items to their checklist. The task is called “On Your Mark” because once students are familiar with the process you can set a benchmark, for example, “you need to continue peer marking until your checklist has fifteen items and you have re-drafted your own work to ensure your work receives a score of fifteen”. "The first to re-draft their work and receive a perfect score according to their checklist, wins. This strategy is a great way to get students to co-construct success criteria, whilst simultaneously peer and self assessing work.

Check out our Instagram page for video tutorials on each of these strategies throughout the week!

References

Hattie, J., 2011, Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximising Impact on Learning, Routledge, USA.

Lochhead, J. and Whimbey, A., 1987. Teaching Analytical Reasoning Through Thinking Aloud Pair Problem Solving. New directions for teaching and learning.

Victorian Education and Training, 2017, High Impact Teaching Strategies: Accessed 12/2/2020 http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/teachers/support/highimpactteachstrat.pdf