Oslo Metropolitan University streamlined feedback and reflection process with Peer Review

• Students gain knowledge of current practices relevant to the teaching and learning field.
• Students are able to use ICT and other relevant technology during their studies.
• Student are able to facilitate their pupils’ developments in their reading, writing and oral skills.
• Students cultivate their feedback skills while being critical of their own work.

• Evaluation of learning outcomes was possible through assessing the quality of comments and feedback given by students to their peers.
• By monitoring the learners' interactions and what they have written as feedback and reflection, the instructor was able to assess learners’ ability to facilitate the development of their peers’ skills.
• The self-reflection part was not actively checked by the professor.

• Students were interacting more than expected, it was obvious they were having conversations outside of the platform in order to provide such input.
• The professor was surprised by the high student participation and by the questions students asked.
  These questions had the effect of enhancing the quality of the discussions.
• The instructor was surprised at the intuitivity of the students and interactivity between them while using this tool. This wasn't the case before digitizing the feedback process with Peer Review.

The role of the instructor

• The instructor first explains the setup of the activity as well as giving instructions within the tool.
  The interpretation of the scale rating criteria is explained to optimise feedback and evaluation.
• After students have progressed with the exercise, the instructor reviews the comments being made inside the platform. In class, the instructor mediates discussions covering points raised during the feedback exercise, whereby learners are guided towards the crucial aspects of the podcast.
• The instructor can overview the progress of each group and student within the platform, also seeing the number of comments each group has given and received.

Added value of technology

“[Peer Review] enabled me to try new methods in teaching, prompt self-reflection on feedback, and guarantee anonymity in an online platform”. - Dr. Runar Oudmayer, Assistant Professor, Oslo Metropolitan University

• The FeedbackFruits group sync from the LMS used the pre-existing groups made by the instructor; manually selecting and constructing new groups was hereby avoided.

As well as using scale rating criteria, configurable rubrics can provide an alternative method in the feedback process. This allows a more detailed description of each performance level. The option exists to use either of these approaches for (summative) assessment.