Abstract:

Active learning strategies must be applied throughout engineering curricula to strengthen student learning, and to allow the shift from learning by simple knowledge acquisition to a more consequential, high-order thinking, learning process that involves a complex use of skills.

Assessment and feedback from self, peers, and/or teachers is a tested strategy of active learning that motivates and engages students to their learning process. By giving the students clear performance criteria to assess theirs' and other students' work, the effort of provide and critically receive feedback leads the students to judge their own level of mastery, and envision the next steps to achieve enhanced outcomes. There are different kinds of feedback the students can receive (from themselves, from their peers and from teachers/experts). However, due to the markedly social aspect of learning, feedback from peers has a strong impact on students. This is why peer-review has proved to be a valuable strategy of active learning.

In this work, two experiences of peer-review are presented. These experiences were carried out at the School of Civil Engineering of the Technical University of Madrid. In both of them the task to be evaluated was an exam exercise (problem) of classical mechanics but, in one activity no assistance of the teacher was provided (replicating the conditions of an actual assessment) whereas in the other activity, help was provided to those students who asked for it. Results are summarized showing a better performance in those students who did not receive any help to finish the exercise. In the authors' opinion, asking for help to early in the learning process can hinder the goal of actual learning, leading to a false pretense of understanding, even when constructive feedback was provided in both scenarios.

Peer-review activities were carried out by using the AutoMultipleChoice software along with Google App Scripts. This project was funded by the Educational Innovation Projects initiative (code IE1718.0405) of the Technical University of Madrid.

Keywords:

Peer-review, learning assessment.