Exploring Peer-Assessment In The Mathematics Classroom  - Louise Benard 

As part of my ITT training, we have been looking at strategies to implement peer assessment within our teaching practice. Although not many colleagues in my department use such strategies, I was able to observe a Year 13 Economics lesson where the teacher very skilfully planned each activity to be either self or peer-assessed. Once given very clear marking criteria (or ‘the recipe’ as they referred to it in that class), students were able to mark the work of their neighbour and then delivered some feedback which ranged from ‘Your handwriting is hard to read’ to ‘You’ve managed to fit all the key words in a concise and well written paragraph, well done!’. 

I absolutely had to try it in one of my lessons. As we had reached the end of the topic, I decided to give my Year 9 class a short 15-minute test on circle theorems that would be peer assessed. Before asking them to switch scripts with their neighbour, I explained that they would have to give feedback after marking the test, specifically two things they thought had been done really well, and one thing that could be improved (I got the idea for this ‘two stars and a wish’ approach during a Dylan Wiliam webinar). 

The execution of this activity did not quite go as planned. After the test, students were quite agitated and not too keen on listening to me talk through each question and how marks were allocated. A first challenge came from circle theorem questions having multiple possible approaches, which makes their marking quite challenging. The second challenge came from me not having made it crystal clear that this was a low-stakes test where the grade didn’t matter and that they should see this as a learning opportunity rather than a competition.

The best and potentially most useful part of the activity was at the end, when I asked if anyone wanted to share something they had been impressed by or what their takeaway was from the feedback they had received. Despite their relative inattention during the marking, they were very willing to share how their neighbour was excellent at annotating diagrams or how they themselves needed to learn the wording of the circle theorems by heart.

I tried a similar approach with my other Year 9 class a few days later, but this time with a shorter starter activity involving four transformation descriptions. I offered to try peer assessment with the class and they seemed really keen. Instead of modelling each step, I showed the mark scheme on the board, which we discussed as a class. Then they marked their neighbour’s work and gave them their two stars and a wish. This went much more smoothly, with students very engaged in the activity and showing real maturity in the feedback they were giving each other.

I’m looking forward to trying more approaches to peer assessment and I am really convinced that it offers students an opportunity to be accountable for their learning as well as to improve their written and verbal communication skills which will serve them well beyond the mathematics classroom. 

By Louise Benard  

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