Developing Self and Peer Assessment Skills in Younger Primary Students

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Summary

Very few of us working in the field of education would oppose the idea that involving students more actively in the learning process is beneficial because it increases engagement, promotes autonomy, and ensures deeper understanding of what is being learned.

There is a noticeable shift from prioritising Assessment Of Learning (AoL), frequently used to measure students’ progress against a set of pre-determined curriculum outcomes, to integrating more Assessment For Learning (AfL) techniques, which seek to informally collect evidence of learning and re-adjust the process of teaching if this evidence shows that a different route to achieving learning objectives is needed, or that these learning objectives should be changed altogether.

Self and peer assessment are cornerstones of AfL because they allow students to take ownership of evaluating their progress. Both types of assessments are inherent in human nature (who would deny that most people can’t help comparing themselves to others while being highly critical of their own actions) and both take time and effort to develop if we want to move beyond simply being critical and instead actively set goals for improvement. With this in mind, how do we go about cultivating these complex skills in younger primary students without making the process overly cumbersome and boring?

In my presentation, I would like to briefly dwell on the benefits and challenges of self and peer assessment and then share my experience, tips and classroom examples of how these skills can be developed with Year 1–3 (5-7-year-old) EAL/ESL students.

About the presenter

The presenter, Anna Bejshovcova, Anna Bejshovcova is an English language teacher, teacher trainer and curriculum designer with more than 15 years of international teaching experience. She has a Bachelor of Education in EFL, Cambridge DELTA as well as a Master's degree in Applied Linguistics and ELT from the University of Nottingham. Anna is currently employed as an EAL (English as an additional language) specialist by Lanna International school in Thailand and is particularly interested in developing early literacy skills, assessment for learning and helping language learners with SEN.