Student Peer Feedback: Why and How?

Event Date & Time

Event Description

***Please note this session has been cancelled***

Student peer feedback is a reciprocal process whereby students provide feedback on the work of peers and receive feedback from peers on their own work. It has several benefits which include providing learners with a greater variety and quantity of feedback, offering feedback that may be easier to understand than that offered by instructors, and sensitizing students to different readers’ perspectives (Nicol, Thomson, and Breslin, 2013).  In addition, student peer feedback may be a useful assessment strategy for instructors who wish to incorporate more learner-centered teaching practices while having to balance larger class sizes and increasing demands on their time.  Research has shown that the process of student peer feedback can have a positive effect on learning (Hamer, Purchase, Luxton-Reilly & Denny, 2014).

This session will begin with a brief overview of the learning benefits of student peer feedback practices in post-secondary teaching and learning. Next, instructors from Science, Sociology, Psychology and Anthropology will explain why they chose to integrate peer feedback and will provide a succinct description of how they have used peer-to-peer feedback in their teaching.  The panel presentation will be followed by roundtables during which participants can ask individual instructors more detailed questions about their approaches.

By the end of the session, participants should be able to:

1. List at least three benefits of using student peer feedback from the perspective of learners and instructors.
2. Briefly describe at least two different approaches for conducting student peer feedback in teaching.
3. Decide on next steps for incorporating student peer feedback in their own teaching.

References:

Hamer,J., Purchase, H., Luxton-Reilly, A., & Denny, P. (2015). A comparison of peer and tutor feedback. Assessment & Evaluationin Higher Education,40(1), 151-164.

Nicol, D., Thomson, A., & Breslin, C. (2014). Rethinking feedback practices in higher education: a peer review perspective. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 39(1), 102-122.

Facilitators:

Silvia Bartolic, Instructor, Department of Sociology

Alice Campbell, Sessional Instructor, Department of Anthropology

Janel Fergusson, PhD Candidate, Department of Psychology

Gunilla Öberg, Director, SCIE 113, Professor, Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability

Isabeau Iqbal, Educational Developer, Centre for Teaching Learning and Technology 

Andrea Han, Associate Director, Strategic Curriculum Services, Centre for Teaching Learning and Technology