peerScholar is an online peer and self-assessment tool that allows students to provide anonymous peer feedback on each other’s assignments. It can be accessed from Blackboard.
A peerScholar activity:
- Encourages critical and creative thought and strong communication skills
- Promotes self-reflection
- Facilitates increased student participation and engagement
Guides
Currently part of a time-limited trial
This tool has been informally piloted for the last few years. The trial license has just been extended for 2024-25 to allow a formal evaluation against FeedbackFruits. The evaluation opens a new window will be led by DCAD.
Transcript
Welcome back to our microlearning series. We are peerScholar, an online tool that helps you develop skills of success. In our previous video, we learned that transversal skills such as thinking skills, interaction skills, self knowledge skills and hands on skills are real skills of success. We also learn that skills require regular training so they can develop naturally.
In this video, we’re going to learn how peerScholar can help you develop these important skills. The key is repeated structured practice. peerScholar guides you through three phases create, assess and reflect.
Let’s look at each of these phases.
Phase one is called create phase. This is very familiar to you as students. Your professor will assign you a task. Ask you to create a composition. You will do that and submit it on peerScholar. Once you submit your work, you will then return to the peerScholar application and engage in the next two phases: assess and Reflect.
And these are the phases where you will get your repeated structured practice.
In the assess phase, you will be able to see the work created by your peers, anonymously presented and randomly selected.
Here you will have an opportunity to provide constructive feedback to your Deers and how their work can be improved.
As you assess the work peer by peer and provide constructive feedback, you will engage in critical thought, creative thought, and communication.
And you will do this in a repeated structured manner, thereby further developing these important skills naturally. While you are assessing work created by your peers, they will be doing the same for you. And this takes us to the reflect phase.
In the reflect phase, it’s all about learning from the feedback that you receive from your peers. Peer by peer, you will analyze their feedback while engaging in critical thought, creative thought, and receptive communication. This creates a rich learning experience. You may now have an opportunity to incorporate all this great feedback to make your original solution better before it gets graded. Now that’s an exciting motivation to engage in these skills. But the real motivation lies in developing these skills of success through repeated structured practice. So if you take this activity seriously and take the time to provide useful feedback, and learn from the feedback you receive from your peers, you will be developing valuable personal skill set that will help you succeed in life.
Thank you for watching.
See you next time. Bye.