Abstract:

Evaluation between peers has been shown as a drive for the active role of the student in the learning process. From the moment that students reflect about their classmate’s work, they face their own evaluation, identifying strengths and weaknesses of their learning process and being able to reorient their own strategy. Co-evaluation promotes critical thinking as well as ethics in evaluation which are key competences in the professional sphere.

Furthermore, students’ collaboration in the elaboration of the rubric for the assessment of any activity is expected to improve a better understanding of what are the pursued skills and learning objectives of the activity which are both relevant aspects in the formative evaluation.

This paper presents a teaching innovation project of the University of Zaragoza aimed to analyze the opportunities for the implementation of the co-evaluation or evaluation between peers based on a previously agreed rubric.

An easily replicable methodology has been developed and applied to learning activities proposed in order to evaluate subjects related to very different knowledge areas (technical and social sciences) and scope (grades and postgraduate courses).

The importance of involving students in the project is certainly worth bearing in mind. The process starts with a capsule training for students related to the development of rubrics and peer evaluation techniques as well as to the project objectives and the methodology. Two surveys are conducted before and after the experience in order to analyze students’ perspectives and conclusions and detect any room for improvement.

Co-constructing rubric with students consists of three phases. After selecting the learning activity, professors draw up a list of criteria for the evaluation of the subject in their different learning outcomes and generic competences according to the teaching guides. They also establish which criteria apply to the activity as it has been conceived, its range and its weight in the qualification of the activity although this information is undisclosed and will serve to identify whether there are differences in criteria between teacher and students. Next, students score the criteria through a survey and the scale for the 5 top rated criteria is finally defined in a collaborative activity.

The resulting rubric is made public as well as detailed instructions and the professor matches the students. After performing the evaluation per peers, the professor analyzes the data checking the consistency of the results and validating the obtained assessment.

The obtained results enable the assessment of its effective impact on the whole teaching and learning process. For this reason, information about previous evaluation processes are collected in order to obtain a reference sample. Statistical characterization of obtained data as a result of the project is completed with the comparative analysis of the obtained results on the same activity with traditional evaluation.

The practical part of the project is performed in the MOODLE platform taking advantage of several tools (survey, wiki, workshop, etc.) so its potential for the implementation of such as evaluation methodology is also tested.

As the case studies raised are very different regarding the student typology, the degree, the subject or the type of activity, it has been possible to develop a transversal methodology paving the way for the successful application in other scenarios.

Keywords:

Co-evaluation, rubric.