‘So, you want us to do the marking?!’ – peer review and feedback to promote assessment as learning

The aim of this small scale research study was to investigate whether a primary school formative assessment strategy could be transferred to Higher Education. Visualisers are an increasingly used teaching and learning resource in primary classrooms. Using examples, work is analysed and improved allowing for explicit scaffolding of feedback strategies as well as the unpicking of success criteria. This study sought to use a similar approach with part-time PGCE students, many of which were returning to education after a break. Using two curriculum modules (science and English) example assignments were analysed and improved using the visualiser to prompt discussion as a group and with partners. This then fed into peer and self- marking/ evaluation with the opportunity to apply some of the strategies explored earlier. Data (questionnaires, interviews and assignment feedback) was collected before, during and after these scaffolded sessions and indicated that the students found it to be a valuable strategy in terms of exploring some of the tacit aspects of academic writing. The immediacy of the feedback, dialogic nature of the sessions and common shared understanding that the visualiser allowed all seemed to have impacted positively.