A guide to the use of Peer Assessment within the Edinburgh Award Students submit reflections after Input 2 and Input 3. To remove the pressure of reviewing these reflections away from staff and because of the huge benefits in terms of student learning we encourage the use of Peer Assessment. There are different ways this can be done but currently the most comprehensive approach we are aware of is to use Peer Mark, an online peer review system, at Inputs 2 and 3. This system sits within Learn and allows students to submit their reflections and then be allocated a number of their peers' reflections to review against the Award's learning objectives for student submissions. At Input 2 students can also provide feedback on each submission they read. This approach ensures that: students receive feedback on their reflections at Input 2; number of students on an Award can increase because staff don’t have to review submissions; students increase understanding of what an effective reflection looks like which in turn helps improve their own submissions. Where an Award runs from October to March (the most common timescale for an Award to run) there is the option for those students to be part of a centrally coordinated Peer Mark session at both Inputs 2 and 3. If your Award doesn’t fit into that timescale you may choose to set up a Peer Mark session just for your students, there is more information about that here. Process for the central Peer Mark session Towards the end of summer we will share a timeline for using Peer Mark for the following year Award leader reviews these and decides on Input session dates based on the timeline and ensures availability for their tasks e.g. reviewing potential failing reflections at Input 3 If two courses are being set up for Input 2 then Award Leader needs to confirm whether their students will be part of the first or second course. We create Learn courses: two at Input 2 and one at Input 3* Once you have sent in the list of your students engaged at Input 1 we will add them on to the relevant Learn course for Input 2. Award Leader gives students the relevant deadlines, the submission template which students have to use and instructions on using the Peer Mark system – available here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/edinburgh-award/staff-space/peer-assessment-information Students submit their reflections to a dropbox within the Learn course, after the deadline the Award Leader will receive an email from us with a list of their students and a note about whether or not they submitted their reflection. A second dropbox then becomes available to those students who submitted their reflection and that is where students go to complete 8 peer reviews, they will have 5 days to do so. The instructions Award leaders share wth students outlines this task – students are reviewing each piece of work against two learning objectives 1) has the student been reflective 2) have they described the purposeful steps they took to develop their skills and have impact. At Input 2 students review each piece of work, rate it against each of the learning objectives and leave one piece of constructive and one piece of positive feedback. At Input 3 students just do the rating. Again, once the deadline for completion of the Peer Reviews has passed the Award Leader will be sent a list of their students with final information about whether or not students completed the Peer Review task. The above tasks are pre-requisites for moving onto Input 2 or, at Input 3, for completing the Award. *for the past couple of years we have offered two Peer Mark sessions at Input 2 for increased flexibility for Award Leaders, this offer will be confirmed via email when the timelines are shared. Instructions for setting up your own Peer Mark session If your Award doesn't fit into the timescales used centrally then the webpage below contains instructions for setting up your own Peer Mark sessions. Peer Assessment Information | The University of Edinburgh This article was published on 2024-05-06
