Sharing & Feedback

HI Sue,

I love how you have broken down the criteria for successful group participation! 

For the rating scale, I'm wondering if the expectations have been made clear to the students. For example, what is the expectation that students will follow timelines. How would you exceed the expectations? 

I always find it difficult to use criteria that is double barrelled. In the Quality criteria it says made a valuable contribution and produced quality work. I'm never sure how to respond if they did really well in one (made a valuable contribution but did not always produced quality work).

Hi Sue.

 I tried opening the Google Form, but it says only the owner's group can view it. To make it available to others, you have to adjust the permission settings. 

-Sue too

HI Sue,

Great point regarding making space for specific feedback.

If I look at your rubric example with a student’s eyes, I may not be quite sure what would warrant a 1,2, 3 or 4 (did not meet, partially met etc.) for each expectation.

Putting on my educator classes I see a couple of ways you could make this a bit clearer:

1) Consider adding descriptors for each expectation and level as in an analytical rubric. This could also help clarify what expectations such as useful recommendations, fair share, showing respect etc look like.

Or

2) Stay with the Single Point rubric (It is simpler and easier for students), but try to move the expectations the centre column (“met expectations”) with space for comments on either side. Examples in this in this discussion. This would force peers to really consider and being specific about if a peer either did not meet or exceeded expectations. I like this, because it includes a level of accountability for the giver of the feedback, and it incorporates your point of space for feedback.

On a different note… Your question of how to share this feedback simply and anonymous made me think quite a bit and had me go back and forth a few times when thinking about my comments to you.

While anonymous may spur some honesty that wouldn’t otherwise come out, it also removes a sense of accountability from the person giving the feedback. And then I started thinking about how peer evaluation rubrics could be used non-anonymously and along the way, rather than at the end…

I am working on this myself at the moment with my class on Leadership in Teams. Peer evaluation is a part of it, but ideally, the teams are able to create a sense of trust and honest feedback throughout the term so there is no big surprises at the end. However, of course the reality is that this doesn’t always happen.

So in case this resonates with you - my question to myself has been, how can I coach and guide them to create such as space? What may be some formative assessments or check points that gets them use to giving and receiving feedback along the way – and allow students to correct behavior as needed?

Bettina

Congratulations for diving into something new! I too am struggling/playing with the single point rubric. I have made one that, once I revise in this course, I am going to use and see how it goes!

I wonder if moving the criteria to the middle as the "standard" would make it more clear to students what is the bear minimum for like a "C".

I would also not shy away from having a ZERO column. The works I have read and the VALUE rubrics team and AAC&U suggest it is important to have the option to say, this was totally unacceptable.

Thanks for sharing your Peer Evaluation Form - both the Word doc and the Gform. I thought your approach was very straightforward and, putting on my participant/learner hat, I'd be more inclined to complete the online form and maybe it doesn't have to be anonymous to make me inclined to be honest?

As Bettina mentioned, creating a supportive learning environment/community could help, as well as incorporating an ongoing, formative use of the tool?

A couple of minor suggestions/questions:

1.  Move the meaning of the "1234" to the top of the table in the Word doc - sometimes students don't take the time to scan an entire document and might just guess.

2. Make clear when you want students to share their own perspective (expectation) or when there is a clear course standard and they should be assessing whether their peer had achieved that standard

Note:  I noticed a couple of comments you've received have addressed the vague nature of expectations and assigning a point based on expectations. However, I'd suggest you NOT try to be more specific - the feature of single point rubrics that appeal to instructors and students (IMHO) is the simplicity and ease of completion.

If you clarify that this is the student's assessment, based on their understanding of course standards AND their own perception of what was "useful", "valuable", "tactful" etc.  I'm not sure that such subjective terms can ever be totally clear without way too much detail?  Perhaps the suggestion to add an Examples column could help? So the students could quickly provide an example of what they appreciated or found lacking?

And a final reflection in terms of how such a tool could be used. You say, in the Gform, that their responses are anonymous but, perhaps, just as important, would be to make a brief statement of the value of sharing peer perspectives and how the data will be used. If not in the form, then whenever you introduce its use?

You could introduce an appreciative perspective both explicitly and by modeling how you yourself provide feedback/assessment information to the group?

In terms of your exploring the use of an anonymous tool - it would be helpful to think about the size of your cohort, and how valuable their feedback or how fair their assessment might be if the teacher is going to use it to create marks?  My concern with peer feedback, particularly in larger groups would be that it would have to be considered in light of the participation level and attitude of the person providing the feedback. I've seen students provide fairly quick responses to peer feedback and, when I checked my notes (and the online course records) they sometimes had spent very little time participating themselves.

If the purpose of the peer feedback was to identify potential areas that could be improved rather than helping an instructor render an evaluation, I believe your rubric would be very useful.

Cheers