Peer Feedback at scale

We have a group assignment divided into 2 stages:

We want to be fair to all of the students so we wanted to give them the opportunity to evaluate peers within their group.

In 2021, for group peer evaluation we initially used Google forms. We had one Google form per applied class, each class has 60 students and around 20 groups of 3 students each. We would ask students to select their particular group first and then the review for that particular student. We found this process logistically impossible, especially with the large number of students.

So we considered several tools, and chose FeedbackFruit as the best option because it integrated and synchronises groups with Moodle. So in 2022, semester 2, we switched to using FeedbackFruits.

These were the steps to create our own template:

	Set up the instructions.
	Set up the groups (syncing it from Moodle groups).
	Define criteria: We have 5 different criteria with a scale of 0 to 4 and we include an explanation of the criteria. We share this rubric upfront when we release the assignment so students are aware of what they have to do if they want to get an excellent mark from their peers.
	Enable Self Review: We set up the activity so students have to give themselves a review before giving a review for every other group member.
	Make Peer Review anonymous: We chose not to share the feedback reviews with the students. It’s often the very first semester for our students so they may not have the maturity or skills developed yet for how to respond to peer review. Also many students, especially international students, will not be upfront about their opinion in an open forum, so we feel the anonymous feedback gives students more confidence to say what they want to without feeling pressure from friends to act a certain way.
	Enable written comment: We set it up so students also need to give a written comment for themselves and for other members as well.
	Set up the due dates.
	Assign weightings: Assign weighting for the marks within the activity, eg. marks for each criteria mentioned in the rubric.

As the group assignment is divided into 2 stages, right after the first part of assignment one, we go through the FeedbackFruits activity and scan for discrepancies and group issues. We download the scores as an excel file because of the sheer number of groups (800 or 900 students in groups of 3 per unit - around 2000 students in total), and can then scan through the reviews easily.

When there was a clear cut case where all of the other group members indicated that one student had not been involved in the group activity, then we can take action and use the FeedbackFruits group evaluation component to scale the task mark. We also use this as an opportunity for early intervention. Then if we find any possible group problems, we don't draw attention to the group evaluation but present it more of opportunity to talk, for example:

“Hi, we see that there is a bit of a problem in your group. Do you mind if we have a meeting?”

The tutor can then set up a mediation meeting with the group and make a plan with students about how to work together later on, as the second part of the assignment (Assignment 1 B) actually has a higher weighting percentage.

From the teaching staff point of view, using FeedbackFruits actually took over the admin of setting up things for the peer feedback activity. We set it up in 2022 and we have updated here and there, but that's basically it! We don’t spend much time on admin anymore.

Since the template is on my account I can move to another Moodle site, simply create a new FeedbackFruits activity and then select the template from the recent templates. It takes just one click to set up the activity, and then I just pick the groups from Moodle to synchronise with the activity again. So setting up the activity from one Moodle site to another is basically quite seamless, allowing peer feedback activities to be run at a large scale across multiple Moodle units and different campuses, including Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Monash online.

Decide how you want to use the FeedbackFruits activity.

The first time we used the FeedbackFruits, we had the task mark (worth 80% of the task mark for the assignment) which is the same for everyone in the group, and then a separate group evaluation mark based on FeedbackFruits activity (20%).

After some consideration, in order to make it fairer for students we decided to use the FeedbackFruits score to adjust the task mark when appropriate.

This grade adjustment can be automated by FeedbackFruits, which uses the FeedbackFruit score to adjust the mark, however we chose to only deduct the task mark if the feedback showed a clear problem, for example when there was a clear cut case where one student had not been involved in the group activity, then we can take action and use the FeedbackFruits group evaluation component to scale the task mark.

There are alternative ways to use FeedbackFruits, so first decide which approach will work best for your unit use case.