Abstract:

The contribution investigates the evaluative competence of in-service teachers involved in a peer-assessment activity and their perceptions about the impacts of the practice itself. The context of the study is represented by a Level I University Master based on the Trialogical Approach to Learning (Paavola & Hakkarainen, 2005) in which participants experiment with innovative teaching methodologies, from design to implementation to evaluation.

The objective of this study is twofold:
1. on the one hand, to observe the actual evaluative competence when teachers are called to integrate quantitative judgments and qualitative feedback;
2. on the other hand, to explore perceptions about the value of peer-assessment for the purposes of teachers' training and professional development.

For the first objective, we proceeded to analyze teachers' (N = 43) rubrics-based evaluation (N=407) to their peers' group-products (i.e. multimedial resources). For the second objective, at the end of the peer-assessment activity, teachers were asked to fill out an online and anonymous form to support their reflection (N = 28) about the just experienced activity.

Overall, the analyzes show how the peer-assessment activity as proposed has stimulated, on the one hand, an enhancement of professional skills, such as critical thinking (Lynch, McNamara and Seery, 2012) and metacognition (Vickerman, 2009; Wen and Tsai, 2006), and on the other hand, the motivation to learn (Topping, 2005), ultimately reinforcing the feeling of belonging to a community of practices.

The study therefore confirms previous research on the role of peer-assessment as a strategy that enhances the development of meta-reflective and professionalizing skills, also in the field of in-service teacher training and not only in the field of the proposed methodological approach (Lynch, McNamara and Seery, 2012; Sluijsmans et al., 2002; Poon et al., 2009). Conversely, it is the specific configuration of the practice that has made it a useful learning tool: successive stages of training and modeling, transparency of the evaluation criteria, repeated exposure to the use of the rubrics, shared reflections and, in general, a positive approach to feedback on the whole, made the peer evaluation experience effective and sustainable.

Once again, the importance of solid didactic design is emphasized as a starting point for diverse and rich pathways in which learners participate in authentic activities, produce knowledge and artefacts which subsequently iteratively improve and reciprocally, supported by moments of guided reflection that alone brings the sense of the specific practice back to one's broader professionalism (Sansone et al, 2019; Sansone and Ritella, 2020). In fact, experimenting with peer-assessment in a 'simulated' social context promotes an in-depth knowledge of the practice and stimulates a rethinking of one's own evaluation strategies, leading teachers to reflect on the advantages and possible problems of their adoption within their own classes (Cheng et al., 2010; Yilmaz, 2017). The metacognitive rethinking of one's own evaluation practices, moreover, is a useful viaticum for the development of a new evaluation culture, both in teachers and in students, with the aim of building professional skills and citizenship characterized by freedom, responsibility and ethics (Ibarra-Sáiz et al., 2020; Rivoltella, 2020).

Keywords:

Teachers' training, peer-feedback, rubrics, assessment, authentic learning, learning by doing, learning design.