Philippine E-Journals

How Peer and Self-Assessment can Enhance Students’ Experience with Assessment in Higher Education: A Practical Description of a Teaching Session

Manuela Ender

 

Abstract:

Any kind of assessment has great potential to draw students’ attention. As a parent of a two-year-old girl, I find teaching and learning very natural when we play together. However, as a teacher of nearly hundred students, I find it important to use teaching methods that support active and deep learning. Session with peer and self-assessment utilises motivation to facilitate students’ learning. Such session helps gain a better understanding of marking, assessment, and teacher’s expectation. This paper describes a teaching session of only 50 minutes that effectively incorporates peer and self-assessment for formative purpose. The students taking part in the peer and self-assessment activity study at a Sino-British cooperative university where teaching is in English. Following the approach of Dangel and Wang (2008), I combined the principles for good practice of Chickering and Gamson (1987) with the proposed learning outcomes of Anderson and Krathwohl (2001). Students’ feedback shows that the intended learning outcomes can be achieved. Getting marks from peers and marking the work of peers are useful for students’ own learning. As a result, peer and self assessment activities are beneficial elements for teaching and learning in higher education.