How Peer Assessment and Peer Learning Might Operate In Formal and Informal Learning Contexts of

A Secondary School

(Dissertation)

By

Year3 Education Studies



CONTENT PAGE:

Chapter 1 :Introdution ………………………………………………….…........pages3-6

Chapter 2:Effects of peer assessment on learning………………………….pages7-13

Chapter3:Secondary school learning and informal/formal settings............pages14-18

Chapter 4:Benefits/drawbacks of learning in a formal/informal settings.....pages19-23

Chapter 5: Peer assessment/learning related to motivation……………..….pages24-27

Chapter 6:Conclution…………………………………………………….............pages28-30

Refrencses…………………………………………………………......................CHAPTER 1:

INTRODUCTION

The increase in use of peer learning in secondary school courses in recent years has raised many educational and practical questions. While assessment may not be the first concern to be considered, acceptance of peer learning by students, and its ultimate success, often depends upon resolving the question of how peer learning can be assessed in ways which are credible and which also enhance its use. Assessment is the single most powerful influence on learning in formal courses and, if not designed well, can easily undermine the positive features of an important strategy in the repertoire of teaching and learning approaches.

In the context of this proposal, peer learning refers to the use of teaching and learning strategies in which students learn with and from each other without the immediate intervention of a teacher. Such approaches may be established and monitored by staff, and may even occur in their presence, but staff are not involved directly in teaching or controlling the class. Examples of peer learning include student-led workshops, study groups, team projects, student-to-student learning partnerships and peer feedback sessions in class. The proposal emphasises the use of reciprocal peer learning. In reciprocal peer learning students within a given cohort act as both teachers and learners. This is in contrast to peer teaching in which there is a clear and consistent differentiation between the teaching and learning role, although all parties may be students. Peer teaching commonly involves advanced students in the same class, or those in later years, taking on limited aspects of a teacher's instructional or pedagogic role. The term collaborative learning is also used to refer to peer teaching and learning, particularly in North America. However, the range of practices included within collaborative learning is very wide and the adoption of that terminology does not aid clarity.

Although some common issues arise in both peer teaching and peer learning activities, reciprocal peer learning is a greater challenge to assessment practice. Commonly in peer learning situations the acquisition of particular facts and information is not the main focus. In this context, far fewer assumptions about the nature of the learning to be assessed can be made. Any discussion of assessment must therefore begin with first principles.

The present discussion arose from issues raised in a project supported by a National Teaching Development Grant to the authors on the effective use of peer learning (Anderson & Boud, 1996). The project drew on experience gained in the use of peer learning strategies in the School of Adult Education at the University of Technology, Sydney with mature-age undergraduate and postgraduate students. Currently, we are involved in applying these ideas to a range of disciplines and contexts involving younger students. While we ...