Peer Assessment for Students: Types and Teacher Tips – The TPT Blog

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Peer assessment allows your students to collaborate on shared goals, strengthen each other’s assignments, reinforce skills and understanding, and reflect on their own learning. 

Whether you use a quick checklist or an extensive feedback procedure, peer assessment is always worth your while in any grade level or subject. Discover classic, creative, and formal ways for peers to assess each other’s work in your class, including ready-to-print feedback resources and easy-to-implement teaching tips for new and veteran teachers alike.

Classic Peer Assessments for Students

Classics always become classics for a reason! These assessment strategies are classroom-tested in every grade, making them easy for new teachers to add to their instruction repertoire. Use these peer assessment activities in situations where feedback is straightforward and necessary for the next part of the learning process.

• Rubrics: Find or create rubrics that enable students to note different parts of their assessment for their peers.
• Think-Pair-Share: After students review a peer’s work (Think), they talk to a feedback partner (Pair) before providing their assessment (Share).
• Traffic Lights: Students rank their peer feedback by traffic light colors: Green means “Keep doing this,” yellow means “watch out for this,” and red means “Stop doing this.”

Teach students how to give peer feedback

Students don’t come ready to give each other feedback. In fact, some may struggle to tell the difference between “polite feedback” and “harsh criticism.” Help them understand the nuances of peer assessment with resources that limit their feedback options to build the skills of giving actionable and constructive feedback to friends.

Student Feedback Peer to Peer Feedback Made Easy
By TeachaDoodle
Grades: Not Grade Specific

Ideal for all ages, grades, and skill levels, this resource includes everything you need to teach students how to give proper feedback. With TAG feedback steps (Tell Something You Liked, Ask Meaningful Questions, and Give Positive Suggestions), a step-by-step anchor chart, student reflection sheets, and more, students will learn how to give helpful, constructive feedback that can really help their peers.

Editable Peer Feedback Sentence Starters – Peer Feedback Support Tool
By The Organised Teacher Collective
Grades: 3rd-6th
Subject: Writing

Do your students need a little help getting started with peer feedback? Use 26 sentence starters and editable sentence starter templates to give them some ideas when responding to their peers. Each one addresses a different type of feedback that peers can use to further develop their work.

Creative Peer-to-Peer Assessments

If you’re looking for innovative ways for students to give each other feedback, it’s time to get a little more creative! These peer assessment strategies challenge students to think outside the box while building community in the classroom where learners feel comfortable offering their opinions (and accepting others).

• Leave a Review: Have students write reviews for their peers’ work in the style of product reviews, movie reviews, or game reviews.
• Student Interviews: Allow pairs to interview each other in front of the class to provide feedback on each other’s work.
• Drawing Feedback: Let students show their feedback artistically by drawing, painting, or sketching their impressions.

Foster inquiry-based learning into peer assessment

Successful peer assessment activities encourage students to be curious about the choices others made in an assignment. Use inquiring student feedback resources to encourage a sense of wonder in the process, and to demonstrate that constructive criticism doesn’t have to be cruel.

Peer Feedback Activity • Cupcake Critique • Writing Activity
By Expressive Monkey-The Art Teacher’s Little Helper
Grades: 2nd-6th
Subject: Writing
Standards: CCSS W.2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 6.5

Everyone loves a cupcake! Aligned to CCSS for writing and designed for elementary writers of all skill levels, this peer assessment resource prompts students to provide both positive and critical feedback. A cute cupcake design makes peer feedback extra sweet!

Quick Peer Assessments for Students

Want to bring more peer assessment into the classroom but feeling strapped for time? Find ways for students to give quick feedback throughout the day that’s both helpful and time-efficient.

• Elbow Partners: Have students review work from their “elbow partner” (the person sitting by their elbow) in a quick five-minute peer assessment session.
• Feedback Carousel: Hand out sticky notes, have students draw happy faces on them, and let them put the happy faces on the parts of their peers’ work that they like best as they rotate through the classroom.
• Golden Lines: Let students choose their favorite line from their peer’s work and share it with the class.

Use checklists to streamline student feedback

Peer assessments don’t need to be novel-length to be helpful! Implement student feedback checklists to communicate important information without taking too much classroom time. Checklists are perfect for students building feedback skills and new teachers who need a few more tools in their assessment toolbox.

Fiction Narrative Writing Peer Editing and Feedback Checklist
By Teatime Teacher
Grades: 3rd-5th
Subjects: Creative Writing

This thorough feedback checklist allows student editors to note what their peers did well in their fiction narrative. The resource includes spots to note narrative elements, spelling and punctuation errors, and suggestions or ideas for the writer to improve their work.

Incorporate peer assessment into your classroom décor

Every new or returning teacher knows that classroom decorations are a type of perpetual teaching aide. Silently, your bulletin board reinforces important concepts as you teach your own lessons — and peer assessment can be one of those concepts. These resources are excellent reminders for students as you’re bringing more peer-to-peer assessment activities into your instruction.

Peer Assessment Classroom Display
By Michelle’s Innovative Ideas
Grades: 3rd-7th
Subject: English Language Arts

Add peer assessment reminders to your bulletin board when you use a helpful reminder resource. Several speech bubbles serve as sentence starters for students to reference when giving constructive feedback to their friends.

Formal Peer Assessments for Students

In long-term, formal assignments, peer assessments can be exemplary cooperative learning strategies. They encourage both writer and editor to work together toward the common goal of better understanding and a stronger end product. Formal peer assessments are also excellent opportunities for older students to find the needed balance between compliments and constructive criticism.

• Portfolio Reflections: Have students reflect on their peers’ portfolios of work with skill-specific feedback and suggestions.
• Feedback Discussions: Form groups for students to give each other feedback on large projects before they are due.
• Group Evaluations: After a group project, allow students to review their peers’ performance and participation in the creative process.

Equip students for long-form peer assessments

After students have finished more intensive projects, it’s time for the peer assessment step. Add structure to student feedback with forms that put more focus on the student’s work, taking the pressure off student editors to write longer responses.

Peer Review Form: Projects, Gallery Walk, or Presentations
By EngineerDoesEducation
Grades: 5th-12th
Subject: Science

Bring students into the assessment process during your next class presentation or gallery walk assignment. A half-page peer assessment form prompts middle and high schoolers to address TAG elements in their fellow students’ work, allowing them to provide valuable feedback that peers can use going forward.

Tips for Using Peer Assessments in Class

Peer assessment activities have huge benefits for students of all ages. Not only do students have the opportunity to reflect on their work and help peers strengthen their skills, but they’re also empowered to take responsibility for their own understanding — and to impart that understanding to their classmates.

Use these implementation tips and strategies when bringing more peer assessments for students to develop as fully-fledged learners.

• Model the difference between helpful feedback and unhelpful criticism for students, possibly with your own work or work from previous years.
• Make peer assessment a regular part of your classroom culture and procedures.
• Teach students to reflect on the feedback and choose the parts they actually want to follow.
• Scaffold the responses you want students to give until they’re ready to generate their own feedback.
• Use a variety of peer assessment strategies to ensure students know how to communicate in different ways.
• Incorporate student social skills into your procedures, such as using eye contact, speaking with polite language, and asking follow-up questions.

Curate collaboration in the classroom with TPT

When you use high-quality peer assessment activities in the classroom, you’re fostering independent learners, collaborative workers, and a shared value of teamwork and higher understanding. Students put more thought and reflection into their work when they know their peers will see it and when they get a chance to see their peers’ work, too! Find more resources for peer assessments for easy use in the classroom, and enjoy an increase in student productivity and camaraderie all year long.