Digital peer feedback to improve students' learning

Feedback can improve the learning process and enhance student achievement.
Assessing student work and providing feedback can be done by either teachers, students themselves, or peers. Due to an increasing number of engineering students, teachers lack time to provide students with sufficient feedback. On the other hand, students should acquire skills related to providing and receiving feedback. The implementation of peer feedback could therefore be a fruitful solution. Peer feedback is known as the process in which students evaluate their peer’s performance based on pre-determined evaluation criteria. When implementing peer feedback, students can get more, more frequent, and faster feedback as opposed to teacher feedback. Furthermore, peer feedback can
enhance learning for both the assessee as the assessor.

In this study, twelve university teachers gathered in a Professional Learning Network to increase their knowledge and thoughtful decision making with regard to implementing digital peer feedback. Student numbers ranged from 20 to 250. Goals for teachers were both related to their own time (e.g. large group, feedback more often) as well as to students’ learning (acquiring feedback skills, getting inspired by reviewing each other’s work, better understanding of success criteria). Key features of the implementation were clarifying learning intentions and success criteria.

Evaluation with teachers and students reveal that implementing peer feedback is
valuable learning experience for students. Teachers especially valued participating in a multidisciplinary PLN, hands-on activities, and sharing experiences with each other.