This update is meant as a start of a discussion how the benefit of peer-review can be increased in MOOC’s.

A MOOC, as mentioned by Dr Cope in his video, makes the use of peer-review in many ways possible. One of the benefits of peer-review Dr Cope mentioned is it’s not only improving the students work that is reviewed, but it’s also lifting up the learning of the student who is reviewing. The use of multiple perspectives also helps the student to review his own assignments, discuss the different options mentioned and choose which new ideas he wants to embraces and how to improve his work.

Scholar and Coursera also use peer-review in their courses in a way to judge our work. In this youtube movie you see in a brief moment the benefits of peer review. It underlines what Dr Cope is saying in his video talk.

A lot of people are really excited about the use of peer reviewing. Although not all the students are happy to try it at the start of a course, when they start to use it, they do see the benefits of it.

As you can see in this graphic, an example of a study of peer assessment in Spain  by Pascual-Gómez, Lorenzo-Llamas and Monge-López (2015), students even appreciate peer-assessment more than self-assessment.

Also, using peer review affects the way students are treating each other! Dr Heidi Andrade from the university at Albany tells about the Experience of peer review. She is an expert about the use of peer assessment in class and promotes this idea of using peer reviewing in the class. She noticed a change in class from students being really critical to each other to a more constructive way of helping each other.

So, in literature, on the internet and in youtube movies, there are a lot of benefits mentioned. The use of this tool in this course is justified I think. But, looking to the way peer review is used in this course, I do see a way to improve this tool.

One of the things Dr Heidi Andrade emphasize is the need of Criteria to use peer review.

She uses rubrics to help the students to assess work. Rubrics give students and teachers an idea how to categorize the assignments, and which criteria are really important to give attention to. In a pdf Assessment of and for learning she gives slides with a lot of information about formative assessment, and how to make and use rubrics. She mentions also some new sources if you want to read more about formative assessments.

Also examples how to give feedback helps to improves students work. Orsmon, Merry and Reiling (2002) concluded that the use of exemplars can help students demonstrate greater understanding of both marking criteria and subject standards. Also it can help students learning so that higher quality outcomes are produced. Thereby the use of exemplars forms a focus for meaningful formative feedback and the students may make more objective judgements as a result of peer assessment compared to self-assessment.

A third way to improve the benefits of peer feedback is the way how you give feedback. In a study presented by Tseng and Tsai (2007) they categorized peer feedback in four types: Reinforcing, Didactic, Corrective and Suggestive. It was found that Reinforcing peer feedback was useful in helping students’ development of better projects.  Therefore, it’s important for students to know how to give reinforcing feedback. Also, Dr Heidi Andrade gives a lot of information how to give feedback in a right way in the pdf I mentioned earlier Assessment of and for learning.

So to benefit more from peer review in MOOC’s, and specific in Scholar and coursera, it may be important to give more specific information about the criteria, or even to discuss with the students the criteria to use. Thereby, provide information how to give feedback and provide some examples can help.

Orsmon, P., Merry, S. & Reiling, K. (2002). The Use of Exemplars and Formative Feedback when Using Student Derived Marking Criteria in Peer and Self-assessment. Assement & Evaluation in Higher Education, 27, 4.

Pascual-Gómez, I., Lorenzo-Llamas, E. & Monge-López, C. (2015). Analysis of validity of peer assessment: a study in Higher Education. Relieve, e-Journal of Educational Research, Assessment and Evaluation 21(1).  DOI: 10.7203/relieve.21.1.5168

Tseng, S. and Tsai. C. (2007). On-line peer assessment and the role of the peer feedback: A study of high school computer course. Computers & Education, 49, 4, 1161 - 1174.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2006.01.007