Composition Revision

Peer Assessment in a Collaborative

Learning Environment
By David Woo
Peer Assessment Rationale
 Students should become
independent, capable learners
 Students should become familiar with
the requisite features of a particular
text type
 Students should become adept at
using language to express cogently
their thinking skills
Peer Assessment Methodology
 Grading Rubric
 Focused Marking
 Language features that were to be
included in the composition
 Other items that arose during the
teacher’s initial editing of papers
Peer Assessment Sample
In an argumentative text, we would look for:
 General Items
 Comma splices
 Singular/Countable Nouns
 Parts of Speech
 Text-specific Features
 Thinking Skill - Refutation of opposing viewpoints
 Language Feature - Contrasting adverbs and
conjunctions (however; but; yet)
 Thinking Skill -Organization of different arguments
 Language Feature – Signposting (firstly; my second
point; finally)
Peer Assessment Rubric
 A sample assessment form for
students to fill out.
Cooperative Learning Rationale
 Students should be able to work with
team members of different
performance level, gender, or
ethnicity
 Students should develop
responsibility for their teams’ learning
 Students should exceed their own
past performance with cooperative
effort
Cooperative Learning Methodology
 Student Teams-Achievement Divisions
(STAD)
 Students are assigned to four-member learning
teams.
 They assess team members’ compositions and
complete rubrics.
 Students rewrite their compositions.
 The teacher marks the students’ compositions.
 For each student, the teacher’s rubric and the
student’s rubric are compared. Marks are
awarded based on the improvement in writing.
 Extra marks can be awarded to teams which
demonstrate the greatest improvement.
Cooperative Learning Methodology
 Cooperative Integrated Reading and
Composition (CIRC)
 Students form four-member learning teams
 They assess team members’ compositions and
complete rubrics.
 Students rewrite their compositions.
 The teacher marks the students’ compositions.
 Each student who meets or exceeds the criteria
set on the teacher’s rubric will receive full
marks.