In a form of students’ assessment of a project I assigned my grade 11 English class during my second practicum, I, with the assistance of my associate teacher, implemented a peer assessment strategy. I presented the students with paper that featured an “I liked…” section and an “I wish…” section, and a graph like set up in which students recorded the effectiveness of learning and the effectiveness of the presentation in general. Students evaluated each other anonymously and were given the opportunity to provide their peers valuable feedback, also anonymously.

This was a very effective and creative way in assessing the students’ work and presentations. It provided everyone the chance and the opportunity to contribute to how their classmates were being evaluated. The students held the power of marks during this form of assessment. Teachers always advise students to be aware of their audience during presentations or essay writing, and this form of assessment reaffirmed the importance of being aware of the presenter’s audience because the audience, who were other students, in this case, were the ones evaluating the final mark. Students were given the opportunity to gear their information and style of presentation towards their classmates and the audience had the chance to react in another way than applause at the conclusion of the presentation. The project and assessment were student geared and student centered.