How can you use peer and self-assessment to develop 21st-century skills in your students?

Peer assessment is great when those peers have slightly different skills and talents. To sketch a situation, when a student gets a peer assessment from another student just as average at the subject as them, they learn hardly anything. To get this assessment right, let the peer be someone who's slightly above their skill level. The student won't feel intimidated, but will grow with the feedback. Self-assessment can be successful if it is reflected on properly together with a learning coach. Ask the right questions such as "Why did you grade yourself this high here?"

There's this notion that reflection is common practice, that literacy is a given. As a former English teacher, who has worked in various secondary classrooms both stateside and in the Middle East, I can say that this notion is wrong. Students must question themselves and others biases FIRST. At the risk of sounding audacious, this prompt sounds like one for a state test for 9th graders. It assumes that the 21st century is more multifaceted, sophisticated, and technological than the centuries before. Please, stop with the trendy words. Our society is lacking opportunities for authentic speech and respectful communication. Let's engage in dialogue before asking students in a manufactured setting to assess themselves and others.

In my course on Creativity Techniques in the Technical & Vocational University, I asked my students to prepare 50 different new business ideas. After 15 minutes, when they selected one of their ideas that was the most wired and unusual, I divided them into teams of 5, working in group on their selected ideas one-by-one, in separate 15 min. time spans. In this teamwork, they can't give negative or critical comments on the peer's idea. Only the positive, constructive comments were granted. After another 15 min to work individually on their modified and improved ideas, in a critical part, they should criticize their peer's improved ideas in different 15 min for every idea of each person. This process takes two 1.5 hour sessions.

Through peer and self assessment students evaluate their own work and that of their peers, providing constructive feedback. This process promotes communication skills, enhances analytical thinking, and encourages reflection, ultimately preparing students for the collaborative and dynamic challenges of the 21st century. Ultimately, they will be prepared for success in the modern world.

Hand in hand with peer and self-assessment are clear criteria for quality and an understanding of the process that needs to be used to produce it. With that in mind, peers and performers can take a non-evaluative approach and look instead for the actions taken that produce the observed quality and the opportunities to lift the quality even higher. A positive tone recognizing one's strengths and opportunities grounded in the criteria are far more likely to make a change in the recipient.

21st century skills are so much about taking control of your own personal development - and being reflective about what and how you learn is central to this. Peer and self-assessment are techniques that make you think analytically and critically about what you're doing, and so should be a major part of developing these skills.

Although little of the knowledge that children acquire during schooling, in terms of direct facts at least, will prove to be particularly useful in the world of work, the ability to learn and interrogate that learning with the metacognitive skills to recognise where learning has taken place and where it has fallen short, to reflect and set targets in themselves and others is absolutely critical to the jobs that many children will go into. Developing these skills through peer and self-assessment and more recently paired feedback with generative AI is more critical now than it ever has been but is also easier too. The critical thing is practice, but this needs no special equipment, just training and time.

21st century requires an extra effort to develop successful communication and collaboration skills while also developing the new skills on the work area. In this, peer and self assessment can approach it as a whole, learning to accept new ideas, feedback and criticism from our peers, as well as the importance of an honest self assessment could help create the opportunities that will also lead to social learning and to diverse team collaborations.

School systems often fall short in providing consistent, tangible feedback as students develop their 21st-century skills. Implementing self and peer assessments to regularly and specifically evaluate progress towards proficiency in communication, collaboration, and other skills can offer students the much-needed concrete experiences and feedback as they cultivate these essential abilities.

In the 21st century, peer and self-assessment are crucial for nurturing critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity – essential skills for success. Peer assessment fosters critical thinking through constructive dialogue and evaluation. Self-assessment empowers students to take ownership of their learning, enabling them to set goals, monitor progress, and improve. Both promote effective communication, enhancing collaboration skills. MCQs, short answer and essay types, presentations, and portfolios with appropriate rubrics can be used for peer and self-assessment. By incorporating these practices, educators foster independent learners equipped with the skills to navigate the dynamic 21st century.

A challenge with peer and even self-assessment is the judgment trap. We have all self-criticized and also pointed out what others haven't done well. The problem is, that type of feedback raises the shields and prvents change. A simple training exercise where the process is explained, applied, and then the assessment is assessed by the person receiving it (or in the case of self-assessment, assessed by others). They can explain what's helpful, what's not, and how to improve from a personal perspective. It only takes one or two such experiences to elevate the assessment skill to one that works!

One of the main characteristics of online courses is that learners do not have direct contact with teachers and can only interact with them in a limited way. They cannot therefore question them immediately when they have doubts or questions. It is therefore fundamental, when designing an online course, to plan multiple self-assessment activities so that each learner can check his/her understanding of the concepts presented to him/her. These activities should be proposed after each new video or course page. It is not necessary that the grades obtained be recorded. It is even preferable that only the learner knows about them so that he/she does not fear that they will be used for his/her evaluation.

Peer and self assessment is something that is critical for learners as they move toward their futures. Allowing space and time in classrooms beyond assessment of content skill can help build Social and Emotional skills. For example, students who work together in a group should have a portion of their grade be dedicated to how well they worked within their team. This allows team members to evaluate one another on "soft" skills such as communication, problem solving, and leadership. This creates a deeper connection to what it takes to be successful in work environments

The FPSI model posited by Dr. Delisle, outlines a four step approach to assessment for learning which reiterates importance of peer and self assessment for effective learning. When implemented, students are engaged in the process of learning and have more autonomy over how they learn. Having the opportunity to assess themselves and their peers helps them to really dive in to the objectives they set out to achieve and to determine if they did so successfully.

Feedback from many different perspectives and voices is helpful in my classroom. Sometimes students will see and highlight things that I hadn't considered or say it in a way that can be more meaningful for other students to hear. I want students to understand that they can give valuable feedback to themselves, to other students and to me to help improve our classroom learning.

One approach I’ve used in both face-to-face and online environments to specifically create opportunities for peer and self-assessments of 21st-century skill development is to announce at the start of the week which 21st-century skill we will concentrate on, say for example collaboration. We collaboratively define what a scale of effective to ineffective collaborative behaviors looks like. Throughout the week, I deliberately assign tasks to small groups, and allocate time during and after each task for self and peer feedback based on the class rubric we established. The goal is to intentionally modify your existing tasks and allocate new time for students to reflect on their progress, leveraging whatever subject you teach.

Rubrics are great but keep them clear and simple to use by focusing on 2-3 skills at a time. I also find it useful to just use sticky notes with guiding questions posted like, "What did you learn from this project/presentation?" or, "What questions do you still have?".

In my experience, building peer/self-assessment skills and confidence requires a lot more scaffolding and support than most tutors realize. I find it useful to start with fairly simply judgements - like whether they found an activity useful or engaging. This can be expanded to giving explanations for those judgements. The step of making judgements about their own or peer's performance is difficult - even tutors can find that difficult - and so plenty of examples, guidance, templates, etc, are essential to begin with.

As much as it seems to me that we need to multiply self-assessment activities when we put a course online, as it is only by being active that a student learns, I am more reserved about the systematic usage of peer assessment, because I fear that it will result in a very high cognitive load for learners, to the detriment of their learning of the discipline taught. In addition, being evaluated by one's peers can lead to difficult psychological situations that can be delicate to manage.

Implement structured peer-review sessions, allocating time for students to assess and discuss each other's work. Emphasize the importance of constructive feedback that highlights strengths and suggests areas for improvement. Integrate regular reflections for self-assessment, prompting students to evaluate their own progress against the established criteria. Additionally, model the assessment process initially to ensure students understand the expectations. Gradually increase the complexity of tasks as students become more comfortable with the peer and self-assessment process. This approach helps create a student-centered learning environment that promotes 21st-century skills development.

Peer and self-assessment are valuable tools for developing 21st-century skills in students. Encouraging students to evaluate their own work and that of their peers promotes critical thinking, collaboration, and self-awareness. These practices are alligns with formative assessment which contributes significantly to the holistic development of 21st-century skills in your students