Peer Assessment That Works

In the real world a lot of activities require people to work in groups. Consciously or unconsciously each member assesses other members using their own predetermined criteria. Recognizing the significance of such assessment this book presents tried and tested ways of peer assessment that provide students with pleasant memorable experiences. Everyday challenges are addressed and possible solutions are offered. Drawing from over 40 years of academic experience in several different countries of the world, the author uses the many lessons learned to substantiate recommendations. Simple, straightforward yet groundbreaking techniques are employed to enhance peer assessment and improve its validity and reliability. Students learn to be more self-aware, productive, autonomous, collaborative and communicative. The strategies discussed in this book help both educators and students to manage and maintain trust. Shareware graphics used for mental stimulation and pictorial illustrations are intended to simplify explanations. This is the “go-to‟ book when you need help with peer assessment.

There is increasingly strong evidence that K-12 learners who assess each other’s work and then engage in related reflections, discussions, and negotiations benefit mutually from the process. In this practical volume, Keith J. Topping provides suggestions for implementing effective peer assessment across many classroom contexts and subjects. Using Peer Assessment to Inspire Reflection and Learning offers pre- and in-service teachers a variety of teaching strategies to best fit their particular students and school environments along with straightforward tools to evaluate peer assessment’s impact on their classrooms.

"This book encourages the development of higher-quality learning and assessment practices and describes the principal characteristics of self-assessment, peer assessment, and group assessment with guidelines for effective implementation"--Provided by publisher.

Written under the guidance and with the support of Dylan Wiliam, Kate Jones writes about five formative assessment strategies in action in the classroom, with a foreword from Professor John Hattie. Building on the highly successful work of Wiliam and Siobhan Leahy, ideas are shared and misconceptions with formative assessment are addressed with lots of practical advice. Formative assessment in action focuses on five evidence-informed strategies that the teacher can use to support their learners to make progress. Formative assessment can help both the teacher and student understand what needs to be learned and how this can be achieved. During the learning process, formative assessment can identify students' progress as well as highlighting gaps in their knowledge and understanding, therefore giving the teacher useful insight as to what feedback and instruction can be provided to continue to move learners forward. Formative assessment takes place during the learning process. It continually informs the teacher and student as to how learning can move forward as it is happening. This is different to summative assessment, which focuses on the evaluation of student learning at the end of the process. There's a range of case studies from different subjects and key stages to show how formative assessment can be embedded across a curriculum successfully.

In Peer Feedback in the Classroom, National Board Certified Teacher Starr Sackstein explores the powerful role peer feedback can play in learning and teaching. Peer feedback gives students control over their learning, increases their engagement and self-awareness as learners, and frees up the teacher to provide targeted support where it's needed. Drawing from the author's successful classroom practices, this compelling book will help you Gain a deeper understanding of what meaningful feedback looks like and how it can be used as a tool for learning. Establish a respectful, student-led learning environment that supports risk taking and honest sharing. Teach students to be adept peer strategists who can pinpoint areas of needed growth and move forward with specific strategies for improvement. Develop cooperative student expert groups to help sustain effective peer feedback throughout the year. Use technology to enhance collaboration, streamline the learning and revision process, and strengthen students' digital citizenship skills. The book also includes extended reflections that express, in students' and teachers' own words, the approach's powerful effect on their practice. Invite students to be your partners in learning, and enrich your collective classroom experience.

With widespread testing and standards-driven curriculum and accountability pressure in public schools, teachers are expected to be highly skilled practitioners. There is a pressing need for college faculty to prepare current and future teachers for the demands of modern classrooms and to address the academic readiness skills of their students to succeed in their programs. The Handbook of Research on Literacy and Digital Technology Integration in Teacher Education is an essential academic publication that provides comprehensive research on the influence of standards-driven education on educators and educator preparation as well as the applications of technology for the preparation of teachers. Featuring a wide range of topics such as academic success, professional development, and teacher education, this book is essential for academicians, educators, administrators, educational software developers, IT consultants, researchers, professionals, students, and curriculum designers.

Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) involves children in school consciously assisting others to learn, and in so doing learning more effectively themselves. It encompasses peer tutoring, peer modeling, peer education, peer counseling, peer monitoring, and peer assessment, which are differentiated from other more general "co-operative learning" methods. PAL is not diluted or surrogate "teaching"; it complements and supplements (but never replaces) professional teaching--capitalizing on the unique qualities and richness of peer interaction and helping students become empowered democratically to take more responsibility for their own learning. In this book, PAL is presented as a set of dynamic, robust, effective, and flexible approaches to teaching and learning, which can be used in a range of different settings. The chapters provide descriptions of good practice blended with research findings on effectiveness. They describe procedures that can be applied to all areas of the school curriculum, and can be used with learners of all levels of ability, including gifted students, students with disabilities, and second-language learners. Among the distinguished contributors, many are from North America, while others are from Europe and Australia. The applicability of the methods they present is worldwide. Peer-Assisted Learning is designed to be accessible and useful to teachers and to those who employ, train, support, consult with, and evaluate them. Many chapters will be helpful to teachers aiming to replicate in their own school environments the cost-effective procedures described. A practical resources guide is included. This volume will also be of interest to faculty and researchers in the fields of education and psychology, to community educators who want to learn about the implications of Peer Assisted Learning beyond school contexts, and to employers and others involved in post-school training.

In Learning Targets, Connie M. Moss and Susan M. Brookhart contend that improving student learning and achievement happens in the immediacy of an individual lesson--what they call "today's lesson"—or it doesn't happen at all. The key to making today's lesson meaningful? Learning targets. Written from students' point of view, a learning target describes a lesson-sized chunk of information and skills that students will come to know deeply. Each lesson's learning target connects to the next lesson's target, enabling students to master a coherent series of challenges that ultimately lead to important curricular standards. Drawing from the authors' extensive research and professional learning partnerships with classrooms, schools, and school districts, this practical book - Situates learning targets in a theory of action that students, teachers, principals, and central-office administrators can use to unify their efforts to raise student achievement and create a culture of evidence-based, results-oriented practice. - Provides strategies for designing learning targets that promote higher-order thinking and foster student goal setting, self-assessment, and self-regulation. - Explains how to design a strong performance of understanding, an activity that produces evidence of students' progress toward the learning target. - Shows how to use learning targets to guide summative assessment and grading. Learning Targets also includes reproducible planning forms, a classroom walk-through guide, a lesson-planning process guide, and guides to teacher and student self-assessment. What students are actually doing during today's lesson is both the source of and the yardstick for school improvement efforts. By applying the insights in this book to your own work, you can improve your teaching expertise and dramatically empower all students as stakeholders in their own learning.

The number of students in higher education has expanded dramatically in recent years, but funding has not kept pace with this growth. The result is less contact time for lecturers and their students, and corresponding worries about how the quality of teaching and learning can be improved. Peer tutoring is one method which is growing in popularity, and has already proved successful in a number of countries. This book provides an introduction to the methods and practice of peer tutoring focusing on how to set up schemes and how to cope with common problems. It discusses the theory behind this form of learning and the beneficial effects associated with it. Summaries are included at the end of each chapter.

“Hall and Burke acknowledge that formative assessment is hard work. But they make clear that the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages… They neatly divide it into bite-sized chapters, with each building neatly on the one before - [this book] is easily accessible to the reader.” BJET This book explains and exemplifies formative assessment in practice. Drawing on incidents and case studies from primary classrooms, it describes and analyses how teachers use formative assessment to promote learning. It argues the case for formative assessment with reference to sociocultural perspectives on learning and it examines this in the context of current assessment policy. Themes addressed in the various chapters include feedback, the power and roles of learners and teachers in formative assessment; self and peer assessment; and sharing success criteria with learners. Individual chapters explore formative assessment in: literacy, numeracy, art, science,and history. In addition there are two chapters on formative assessment in the early years. Making Formative Assessment Work provides teachers, student teachers, teacher educators and researchers with a sophisticated grasp of issues in formative assessment and how they relate to the improvement of pupil learning.